Rachel Mitrovich, JD

Dr. Rachel Mitrovich serves as Director of Global Vaccines Public Policy at Merck. Within this role, she serves as the Policy lead for the Pediatric & Hepatitis portfolio and Above-Brand strategy with the aim to strengthen immunization programs, expand access to vaccines, and maximize public health impact. Key areas of focus include policies that govern: localization and regionalization initiatives; recovery of vaccine coverage rates, sustainable immunization financing, assessment of the value of vaccination, and health system strengthening.

Rachel launched her career in immunization policy and program implementation at the Pan American Health Organization where she contributed to the ProVac Initiative and worked with multidisciplinary country teams to support evidence-based decision making for new vaccine introductions in Nicaragua and Colombia. From there, Rachel transitioned to domestic public health focusing on H1N1 mass vaccination campaigns and supporting the immunization program for the Commonwealth of Virginia. More recently, she conducted research on private sector engagement for immunization delivery for the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization. Rachel joined Merck in 2017, where she drove the development of the Above-Brand policy research agenda and corresponding strategy before transitioning into her current role in October 2019.  

Rachel holds a doctorate in Public Health from the Boston University School of Public Health where her research focused on the acceptability of maternal immunization in Zambia and implications for new vaccine introduction in low-resource settings. Additionally, she holds a Masters of Public Health in Global Health from the Milken Institute School of Public Health, graduate certificates in Tropical Medicine and Health Emergencies in Large Populations from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Bachelor of Arts from Wheaton College.