Mary T. Bassett is the Director of the African Health Initiative at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, an effort that focuses on strengthening health systems in projects underway in Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia.
Previously she was a deputy commissioner at the New York City Health Department, where she oversaw programs that addressed non-communicable disease and maternal and child health as well as the district public health offices based in Harlem, Central Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Between 1985 and 2002 she lived in Harare, Zimbabwe where she was a member of the medical faculty at the University of Zimbabwe.