Professor of medicine Stephen Luby’s core philosophy is to “go to where the sick people are.” According to Luby, a winner of the 2024 Walter J. Gores Award for Exceptional Teaching, Service and Academic Achievement, that’s where he thinks he can have the most value as an epidemiologist.
When Luby first joined Stanford Medicine’s infectious diseases department in 2012 to do research around population health overseas, Luby focused on conducting research in low-income countries in South Asia. When a position became available, Luby moved to work in Pakistan for five years and then Bangladesh for eight.
His three main projects have been centered in Bangladesh. One was focused on modifying brick kilns to be combustion- and insulation-efficient while another worked to reduce the levels of lead in a colorant in turmeric. Luby’s third and most recent project involved reducing methane emissions with a methanotrophic reactor.
As a result of Luby’s own philosophy of improving health in low-income countries, he has also encouraged and brought his students overseas to work on projects.
When John Openshaw ’02 M.F. ’15 C.R.T. ’16, now a professor of medicine, was his mentee, Luby brought him with him to work on a parasitic disease project in rural western China with a Tibetan ethnic group. Luby recalled hearing Openshaw ask, “‘How can I ever go back to clinical medicine when I can see what I could do here?’”
As a teacher, Luby’s style “provides the perfect balance between support and independence, which has allowed me to develop the confidence I need to become an effective early-career investigator,” Seth Hoffman M.F. ’22 M.S. ’23, Luby’s former mentee, wrote in an email to The Daily.
Throughout his time at Stanford, Luby has taken into account students’ remarkable perspectives.
“Year in and year out, I am taken aback by the incredible students with the backgrounds and passions they have and their interest in learning more,” he said.
Conversations from Luby’s class, PUBPOL 291: “Theories of Change in Global Health,” has helped shape his book, which is slated to publish in 2026. In his other classes, his students engage him in their readings or his commentary.
In one class, for example, where Luby talks about Ethiopia as a case study, one student who was an Ethiopian citizen debated him. In another instance, he discussed the the World Health Organization (WHO) with students who had experience working there.
“Time and again, [the students] changed the way that I thought about the work,” Luby said.
Luby’s collaborator and colleague Grant Miller, a professor of health policy, said Luby has acquired expertise beyond his own training. “That has led him to tackle many issues that go beyond his traditional work,” Miller said.
Luby’s expertise also comes from an unconventional background with mechanics. A self-made mechanic after a high school class, Luby has done his own automobile repair for most of his life. “It’s affected the way I think as a scientist,” he said. When trouble-shooting hypotheses in his current research, Luby still falls back on the “mentality of mechanics.”
Part of Luby’s commitment to solving real-world problems is rooted in his background in philosophy. After studying philosophy at Creighton University, Luby was deeply intrigued by philosophical thinking but didn’t see many “practical options” career-wise, he said. A career in medicine, comparatively, would give him the skills to “do things that could make a difference in the world,” Luby said.
Within medicine however, Luby felt “troubled” by the differences in health seen in the U.S. compared to low-income countries. He believed improving health in low-income countries would “build solidarity” to combat a “divisiveness” across parts of the world, which was why he specialized in internal medicine and epidemiology.
“Being a bit utilitarian here: Think about what’s going on in a whole population, you can have much more effect,” Luby said in terms of patient impact.