Mona Hanna-Attisha Biography

Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, FAAP, is a pediatrician and director of the Michigan State University and Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative. Hanna-Attisha was born in Sheffield, England, to Iraqi parents. Her parents, dissidents against the Iraqi Ba’ath socialist regime (1968–2003), relocated to Michigan when Hanna-Attisha was young. She received her bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability and her Master of Public Health degree in health management and policy from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She went on to earn her medical degree from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.

While Hanna-Attisha was working to run her clinic and raise a young family, a high school friend alerted her to a crisis. There was lead in the Flint water, and Hanna-Attisha had a unique ability to bring this information to the public via press conferences from the Hurley Medical Center. Without hesitation, Hanna-Attisha gathered a team, started doing research, and began publishing their findings. Through tenacity and a sense of duty to her patients, Hanna-Attisha was able to solve the problem in a matter of months, not years, despite a negligent and often openly hostile government. Hanna-Attisha has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and USA Today’s Women of the Century.