Dr. Lauren Brinkley Rubinstein

Biography

Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Duke University, where she is recognized for her research on the health effects of the criminal legal system. She has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor for early-career scientists in the U.S. Her work during the COVID-19 pandemic includes co-founding the COVID Prison Project, which created national surveillance systems for monitoring COVID-19 within U.S. prisons. Brinkley-Rubinstein has launched initiatives, such as the City Project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to aggregate and analyze health policy data concerning carceral systems nationwide. She serves as Principal Investigator on numerous NIH-funded studies related to substance use, HIV prevention, and mortality. In 2022, she was invited to participate in the National Academy of Medicine’s Annual Emerging Leaders Forum and has contributed to major media outlets, including The New York Times, ProPublica, and CNN. Her research is characterized by a commitment to producing rigorous, policy-relevant evidence to improve health outcomes within the criminal legal system.

Research Interests

Experience