#  Arya Rao 

Harvard Medical School

 

 

 



   ![Arya Rao](/sites/g/files/omnuum996/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2026-06/Rao%20headshot.jpg?itok=9YQj20rE) 

 



 





 

***Operation Outbreak and Sentinel | Boston, Massachusetts***

**Arya Rao** is an MD-PhD candidate at Harvard Medical School/MIT who uses artificial intelligence to build resilient, adaptive health systems. Her doctoral research under Professor Pardis Sabeti (Harvard) and Professor Sangeeta Bhatia (MIT) develops machine learning methods to decode genetic determinants of disease and engineer targeted therapies. Her broader work asks how medicine can rehearse for moments of uncertainty before real patients and communities are at risk. She has been recognized with a 2026 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship, *Forbes* 30 Under 30, the Massachusetts Medical Society Information Technology Award, a Harvard Medical School Dean’s Innovation Award, and a Ladders to Cures Accelerator Award.

Arya grew up in rural Northern Michigan, where scientific and medical resources were scarce. As a teenager, she founded The Science Squad, a nonprofit dedicated to science education for rural youth. During her undergraduate studies at Columbia University, she studied biochemistry and computer science, helped shape university academic policy during the COVID-19 pandemic as Class Vice President, and served as President of the National Undergraduate Consortium of Science Journals.

Through the Presidential Public Service Fellowship, Arya is building a working model of a learning health system for pandemic preparedness. She leads clinical AI efforts for Sentinel, a global pandemic-prevention initiative co-led by the Sabeti Lab and recipient of the MacArthur Foundation's $100 million 100&Change award, and serves as AI Lead for Operation Outbreak, whose participatory simulations use Bluetooth proximity to model how infectious diseases spread through a community. This summer, she will bring these simulations into schools and communities, where they prepare people for outbreaks firsthand and, at the same time, become a proving ground for the systems that detect and contain them.



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Fellowship Recipients
    
     [2026 Fellows](/fellowship-recipients/2026-fellows)
- ## Fellowships
    
     [Fellowships in Health](/fellowship/health)