Laalitha Surapaneni, MBBS, MPH

Dr. Laalitha Surapaneni is an assistant professor of internal medicine with a public health degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a practicing hospitalist at the MHealth Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis. She is faculty advisor for Health Students for a Healthy Climate and mentors medical students in the Twin Cities Medical Society public health advocacy fellowship.

She currently serves on the Minnesota state Department of Transportation’s Sustainable Transportation Advisory Council. She is a member of Minnesota Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate. She is also involved in global health work with Konbit Sante, a Maine-based NGO, to support the climate resiliency needs of rural Haitian hospitals. Dr. Surapaneni’s areas of interest are impacts of climate change on health, and how physicians can play an active role in advocating for clean climate policies that promote planetary health. She has provided testimony to the Minnesota legislature on numerous occasions and has co-authored white papers on health harms of fossil fuel infrastructure.

As a science communicator, she regularly speaks with media outlets about public health impacts of climate change and has been interviewed by City Pages, MPR, Associated Press, and the Gaurdian. Her work has been cited in print and online outlets including the Star Tribune, MN Daily and Common Dreams. She also regularly contributes opinion pieces and her work has been published in Ensia, MinnPost and Duluth News Tribune.