Biography
Global health technologist, interdisciplinary product manager, and systems-scale innovator.
Arunan is an engineer, strategist, and global health practitioner who is passionate about erasing the barriers that people face when trying to access healthcare. He believes that digital tools, when designed with the both the user and the system in mind, can help deliver care more quickly and equitably. He has spent his career developing software and hardware products, generating evidence that they can improve care, and advancing the healthcare ecosystem abroad.
Earlier in his tenure as a PIF at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), he co-developed the strategy for the agency’s use of Artificial Intelligence, launched a sandbox for experimentation, released a playbook with best practices, and structured the team to continue implementation. Most recently at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Arunan developed investment strategies for global health R&D and led programs to connect diagnostics to public health systems, manufacture COVID tests in new ways, and use inexpensive sensors to measure the risk of disease. Previously, he developed expertise across the healthcare continuum from providers and insurers to diagnostics and therapeutics companies as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co.
Arunan graduated from Vanderbilt University. He then completed a PhD in Bioengineering at UC Berkeley, where he developed microscopes that paired with mobile phones for diagnosing oral cancer and bloodborne parasites. Outside of work, he has coached small businesses, designed a museum exhibit, and developed teacher resources for STEM education.
