Strengthening health systems to be more equitable and resilient in the face of crises is a major societal challenge. Dr. Hanna-Tina Fischer’s research contributes to this effort through international collaborations and applied policy research. Since moving to Berlin in 2018, she has worked closely with colleagues across the city to advance Berlin’s growing global health research community. Building on an earlier BUA Global Health Exploration Project, Fischer will contribute to the newly awarded Einstein Research Unit (ERU), Technologies in Global Health: From Innovation to Users (2025-2028).

A Senior Scientist at Charité-Universitätsmedizin’s Center for Global Health, where she co-leads the Global Health Policy and Systems Research theme, Fischer has a background in the humanitarian sector and a Doctorate in Public Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Her research examines how health policies and health systems are developed and implemented, and the extent to which they respond effectively to people’s needs in under-resourced or crisis-affected settings. Drawing on more than a decade of work in the humanitarian sector with UNICEF, Save the Children, and UNHCR, Fischer brings experience from frontline public health responses into her academic work. She collaborates closely with partners in Ghana, Madagascar, and other countries to generate insights that help strengthen decision-making, governance structures, and the delivery of equitable care in practice. “I focus in particular on how different forms of evidence, expertise, and lived experience shape policy priorities and implementation,” explains Fischer, “influencing who benefits, and whose needs remain overlooked”.

Prior to researching at the Charité Center for Global Health, Fischer held positions at the Robert Koch Institute, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Berlin office, and served as faculty at Columbia University. During this time, she led, amongst other things, a multi-site mixed-methods study regarding how COVID-19 impacted health system resilience in Sierra Leone and Guinea - work that continues to inform her current research on global health governance, vaccine equity, and pandemic preparedness.

Fischer is set to bring this expertise to the new ERU by examining how locally manufactured vaccine technologies are governed, introduced, and taken up in Ghana. In close collaboration with local partners, she examines how the origin of vaccines — whether locally produced or imported — shapes public trust, and what regulatory and delivery conditions are needed to support equitable access. The research aims to generate insights that can strengthen policy design, regulatory preparedness, and equitable delivery as Ghana expands domestic vaccine manufacturing.

Parallel to the new role in the Global Health ERU, Fischer contributes to several other initiatives that advance the field in Berlin and beyond. She has recently been nominated to serve on the Scientific Committee for the BUA Grand Challenges Conference scheduled for March 2026. With global health as a key theme, the event highlights how collaborate, interdisciplinary research can tackle major societal challenges. Fischer is also a member of the World Health Summit Academic Alliance Working Group with UNICEF and Blockchain for Impact, where she works with other field experts to promote solutions for maternal and child health that are both scalable and locally grounded.

Alongside this, Fischer helps to train the next generation of global health researchers and practitioners as a faculty member in Charité’s new Global Health PhD Program, launched in 2024, and as a lecturer in Technische Universität Berlin’s Master’s in Global Health program.

Born in Botswana and raised in India and Pakistan, global engagement is a key aspect of Fischer’s work; something Berlin facilitates with its strong academic base. “At a time of global change,” reflects Fischer, “[Berlin] remains a place where it is possible to pursue ambitious and critical health research that connects directly to policy and practice”. Of particular importance is the city’s dynamic and robust global health ecosystem that embraces interdisciplinarity and critical reflection – a condition that itself enables progress on the BUA’s Grand Challenge Initiative on Global Health and is a key aspect of the new ERU. BUA projects seek to strengthen this landscape and support researchers like Fischer. “The BUA has enabled us to establish strong partnerships with colleagues in Ghana and identify key governance challenges now central to the work in the ERU,” she explains, “It has played an important role in supporting interdisciplinary collaboration and creating a research community where investigators like me can grow”.

Berlin as a city is what makes BUA’s work possible, something that Fischer understands very well and values herself. When asked about her favorite place in the German capital, Tempelhofer Feld was first on her list – once an airfield with a layered history, now an open space full of possibility. “It’s a space where Berlin’s diversity comes together, and it reminds me of what I value about this city,” Fischer considers, “[There is] room for creativity, community, and new ideas to take shape. It’s also a space where very different lives intersect, from families strolling to people seeking refuge, a reminder of how coexistence can shape a city.”