David Walton, MD MPH
Director of global health
Dr. Walton is the Director of Global Health at Thoughtworks, where he leads the practice in leveraging software and technology to improve health care delivery for the poor and marginalized.
From January to April of 2015, Dr. Walton served as a Clinical Advisor and Director at the Kerry Town Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) in Sierra Leone where he provided clinical care to patients and helped implement a tablet-based application to improve clinical care for Ebola patients. Nearing the end of the epidemic, Dr. Walton took on the role of District Director of Port Loko for Partners in Health with the goal of strengthening the health systems to prevent future epidemics in Sierra Leone.
Dr. Walton continues to practice medicine as an associate physician and hospitalist in the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Dr. Walton is also an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.
Prior to Thoughtworks, Dr. Walton served as Chief Operating Officer of the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, a 300-bed state-of-the-art teaching hospital built by Partners In Health in partnership with local NGO Zanmi Lasante and the Ministry of Health of Haiti. Dr. Walton has also served as the associate director of the Hôpital de Lascahobas in Haiti.
As the recipient of The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award in 2014, Dr. Walton was honoured for his outstanding humanitarian efforts and achievements, which have contributed significantly to improving global public health.
Dr. Walton was included in GOOD Magazine’s 2016 GOOD 100 list. In its fifth year, the list captures 100 people who are improving the world through creativity and innovation, includes honorees from 37 countries across health, earth, justice & equality, spaces, information and stories.
Dr. Walton received his Masters of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2007. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 2003 and his B.A. from Augustana College in 1998.