Raj Pannu

Raj Pannu is the Founder and CEO of Emergence Creative, a social impact creative communications agency that uses the methods of professional advertising and marketing to tackle public interest challenges. A recent guest essayist in The New York Times—where he advocated for sustained bipartisan support for infrastructure modernization —he has advised and partnered with nonprofits, universities, governments, foundations, multilateral agencies, corporations, and media companies on major communications initiatives focused on health, society, and the environment. He also serves on the board of private and non-profit organizations, and is a Lecturer in the Columbia University School of Professional Studies.

He previously was SVP, Chief Scientific Officer and Director of Global Health at McCann Health, and was a member of the Essential Medicines Working Group of the United Nations and has been an invited speaker at numerous institutions and universities, including the United Nations Foundation, Harvard, Northwestern, Yale, Columbia, Cornell Tech, and the Qatar Foundation.

Beyond his work in communications and policy, Raj is also a screenwriter, actor, and producer. His performances in off-Broadway theater have been well reviewed, and one of his independent short films won recognition at the Tribeca Film Festival.

He earned his MS in Immunology in 1996 and his PhD in Biochemistry in 2002 from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. For a major article that appeared in Science in 1999, he worked with a research team to describe a mechanism essential for poxvirus entry into human immune cells. For this work, Raj received the Council of Indian Societies of Canada’s Award for Services to Humanity for AIDS research in 1999.