Human rights grad Mariam Noorulhuda co-authors correspondence on health responsibilities in Afghanistan

Stanford human rights graduate Mariam Noorulhuda '20 recently co-authored a correspondence on “Global health responsibilities in a Taliban-led Afghanistan” in Nature Medicine. The missive describes how the Taliban seizure of power in Afghanistan has brought about a public health catastrophe that threatens to reverse significant achievements in health equity and public health infrastructure that have been made over the past two decades. The authors assert the international community has an obligation “to provide humanitarian support to prevent cataclysmic devastation in Afghanistan,” including comprehensive refugee resettlement and sustainable healthcare aid deployment to protect the vulnerable and reduce dependency over the long term.

Mariam is currently a pre-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health Department of Bioethics, where she conducts mentored theoretical and empirical research on a range of bioethical fields of interest, including ethics and health policy, fair rationing and priority setting, and addressing health disparities. 

She graduated from Stanford University in 2020 with a major in history and minors in biology and human rights. While at Stanford, Mariam’s research focused on health policy issues, particularly armed conflict and the politicization of health and humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan. As a student worker at the Human Rights Center, Mariam collaborated with partners across Stanford and beyond on programs and events that foster critical inquiry and a deep commitment to human rights and dignity for all.

The child of political asylum refugees from Afghanistan, Mariam’s interests have always centered on international human rights, especially in areas of armed conflict, refugee rights, and global health, and she hopes to be a physician and address global health disparities in the future.