Michael Mina

While a student at Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private institution of higher education in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded by Eleazar Wheelock, it received a royal charter on December 13, 1769. The 1819 Supreme Court ruling in Dartmouth College v. Woodward preserved its private status. Alongside undergraduate liberal arts education, Dartmouth includes the Geisel, Thayer, Tuck and Guarini schools. It enrolled 7,273 students in fall 2025 and held a $9 billion endowment at June 30, 2025. Sian Leah Beilock, in office since June 2023, remained president as of October 2026.Open the full entry, after spending an off-term teaching English in Chilaw, Sri Lanka, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk there on January 8, 2005, practising meditation at a mountain hermitage; he also launched an appeal for Indian Ocean tsunami victims.⁠[1]

He studied engineering and public health as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, then earned both an M.D. and a Ph.D. at Emory University, the Ph.D. in vaccine immunology and infectious-disease modelling.⁠[2]

In May 2015, as first author, he published a study in Science using population data from the United States, England and Wales, and Denmark showing that measles suppresses the immune system for an average of about 28 months, leaving children more likely to die of other infectious diseases for years after infection; the work was done while he was at PrincetonPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry, with collaborators including Bryan Grenfell and C. Jessica Metcalf.⁠[3]

From July 2019 he was an assistant professor of epidemiology and of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an associate medical director in clinical microbiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.⁠[4]

In October 2019, as first author, he published a study in Science finding that the measles virus wipes out between 11 percent and 73 percent of the antibodies a person had previously acquired; he was then a postdoctoral researcher in Stephen Elledge’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and was by then an assistant professor at the Harvard Chan School.⁠[5]

In an October 2020 New York Times op-ed he co-wrote, he argued that cheap, widespread rapid antigen testing was the way to live with COVID-19, using frequent testing to identify people while they were contagious.⁠[6]

In November 2020, as senior co-author, he published a study in Science Advances with Daniel Larremore of the University of Colorado Boulder and others, arguing that testing half the population weekly and isolating positives could drive COVID-19 toward elimination within weeks even with less sensitive tests; he called rapid tests “contagiousness tests.”⁠[7]

He said that 10 to 20 million such rapid tests a day across the United States would be enough to stop the country’s outbreaks, and criticised the United States for never developing a strategic approach to testing.⁠[8]

He appeared on episode 146 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, whose description calls him an immunologist, epidemiologist and physician at Harvard; topics included rapid testing, PCR versus rapid antigen tests, the FDA and cheap tests, and the idea of a weather system for viruses.⁠[9]

He appeared on episode 235 of the Lex Fridman Podcast; topics included at-home COVID-19 tests, FDA classification of medical devices, who is in charge of public health, testing privacy and the Biden COVID-19 action plan.⁠[10]

On November 12, 2021, he resigned from Harvard Medical School, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics to become chief science officer of the digital health company eMed.⁠[4]

eMed announced that he would lead its Advisory Services group, expanding the company’s testing partners, geographies and Test-to-Treat capability.⁠[11]

In December 2021, on the Biden administration’s plan to require private insurers to reimburse at-home tests and to give free tests to uninsured people, he said the approach still created too many barriers to rapid testing, arguing that regulators were taking a “medicalized approach” to a public health emergency.⁠[12]

By the time millions of free home tests were being mailed to American households, he had advocated rapid testing for two years; he disclosed that he is an eMed shareholder but declined to specify his holdings or pay.⁠[6]

On May 24, 2024, the optical sensing company C2Sense appointed him an independent director; it said he was then chief science officer at eMed.⁠[2]

On March 5, 2026, the monoclonal antibody company Invivyd announced his appointment as chief medical officer; the announcement said he had previously served as chief science or chief medical officer at several diagnostics and digital health companies and had advised U.S. federal and international governments on testing policy during the COVID-19 pandemic.⁠[13]

X: Public account: https://x.com/michaelmina_lab (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health: Official website: https://hsph.harvard.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]

eMed: Official website: https://www.emed.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

Invivyd: Official website: https://invivyd.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[13]