Rukmini Balu

Rukmini Balu is the Chief of Staff to the Chancellor for Health Affairs and President/CEO of the Duke University Health System, Dr. Eugene Washington. In this role, she advises and supports the Chancellor on a variety of projects and opportunities, including strategic planning, strategic communications, management of high-performance leadership teams, the stronger integration of health-related programs at Duke, as well as associated programs in local, regional and global communities.

Prior to joining the Chancellor’s Office, Rukmini was Director, Strategy and Partnership Development for Duke Medicine Global, where she was responsible for strategic planning, coordinating and monitoring the implementation of global activities. Her responsibilities also included business development, coordination of global initiatives in healthcare consulting, clinical research implementation and the development of training programs related to clinical research and healthcare leadership.

Rukmini’s healthcare experience prior to Duke includes global commercial strategy for pharmaceuticals, R&D planning and clinical trial implementation and life sciences investment for venture capital. As Adjunct Associate Professor at the Duke Global Health Institute, she teaches an undergraduate course on the social determinants of health and has also instructed students at Peking University and Duke Kunshan University on the fundamentals of global health.

Rukmini earned a PhD in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She also holds BS (Zoology) and MS degrees (Life Sciences/Immunology) from India.