Jocalyn Clark

About

Dr Jocalyn Clark is an award-winning public health scientist, writer and professional journal editor. Over a 20+ year career at The BMJ, The Lancet and PLOS Medicine, among others, her editorial leadership has helped globalise and diversify the top medical journals, reshaping the scientific literature to be more inclusive of global health content, women and experts from LMICs. Jocalyn has proven expertise and leadership in the social determinants of health, women's health and rights, gender equity and evidence-based policy and strategy across editorial and research environments, and is devoted to health for all. In 2022, Jocalyn was appointed International Editor, The BMJ, re-joining the journal where she began her career. Previously she was an Executive Editor of The Lancet responsible for diversifying the journal’s commentary section, peer review of research, and Series & Commissions, and leading #LancetWomen to advance women in science, medicine and global health. Jocalyn was Executive Editor at icddr,b in Dhaka, Bangladesh, building research capacity and institutional impact, and a Senior Editor at PLOS Medicine where she globalised journal content and strategy. Jocalyn is an adjunct professor of medicine at University of Toronto and honorary associate professor at the Institute for Global Health, University College London. She has received resident fellowships at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center (medicalization of global health), the Brocher Foundation (perversity of pandemic publishing), and the Salzburg Global Seminars (centring equity in health knowledge systems). A Canadian national, Jocalyn has a BSc in biochemistry & microbiology and a MSc and PhD in public health sciences (with gender studies), the latter for which she was ranked 1st across the country and a fellow of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Her dissertation on the medicalisation of sexual assault combined quantitative and qualitative data and applied social sciences to health – an academic approach that distinctly informs her medical journalism and thought leadership. Jocalyn is an advisor to Global Health 50/50 and WomenLift Health, and was Chair of the Governance Council of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. She is co-founder of Canadian Women in Global Health (CWIGH) and WGH Canada, and is an elected fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. She has completed executive education at University of Oxford and Harvard University. Jocalyn has more than 200 publications and H-index of 36.