Daniel Byiringiro | Master of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery

When Daniel Byiringiro, MD, speaks about medicine, his words carry the weight of lived experience. He is a physician who not only has known the confines of tertiary care centers, but has also moved between rural district hospitals and King Faisal Hospital Rwanda, treating patients in settings that represent the full spectrum of the country’s health system. Byiringiro is also an educator, mentoring medical students at the University of Rwanda to see beyond the science of disease into the lived realities of patients, and is a researcher and co-principal investigator on international malaria clinical trials at Rinda Ubuzima. And now, as both a Fulbright Scholar and a Master of Medical Sciences student in Harvard Medical School’s Global Health Delivery program, he is poised to tie all these threads together.

Byiringiro represents the kind of scholar who bridges the clinic, the classroom, and the community. His journey reflects the values that defined the late Dr. Paul Farmer—commitment to equity, service, and transforming systems—and it is through this lens that his Fulbright Fellowship at Harvard Medical School takes on added significance.

Before arriving in Boston, Byiringiro’s professional life was a balancing act, split between caring for patients and training future doctors. He practiced at King Faisal Hospital, Rwanda’s leading quaternary center, after years of practicing in district hospitals—an experience, he notes, that gave him “both rural and urban perspectives, higher-level and lower-level care.”

At the University of Rwanda, he taught Social and Community Medicine, a course designed to push students beyond the confines of the pathology textbook. “We connected students to the community to see how people are living and what’s affecting their health care. I always told them: ‘Don’t just see the science of diseases. See the life behind diseases. Give the science a heart.’”

His clinical and teaching commitments ran parallel to his research. As co-principal investigator on five malaria trials, he confronted one of the continent’s most persistent health challenges: the growing resistance to standard malaria treatments. “We need new drugs, and those trials were about finding what could work in the face of resistance,” he says.

That combination of clinician, teacher, and researcher meant that his next step had to be at an institution that could integrate all three roles. For Byiringiro, that place was Harvard Medical School.

Getting to Harvard was not straightforward, however. He first applied three years ago and earned admission to the Global Health Delivery program, but his initial Fulbright application was unsuccessful. He decided to try again.

“I applied to both Harvard and Fulbright at the same time,” he says. “The first time, Harvard accepted me, but Fulbright rejected me. I reapplied to both, and finally Fulbright came through. It was a long journey, but it shows you the value of persistence.”

The Fulbright program, he emphasizes, is more than just financial support. It is a network and a training ground in itself.

“Fulbright is bigger than I expected. Back in my country, they prepared us with orientations. And here, it opened a whole family of alumni and current scholars from every discipline who are passionate and making an impact. It connects you to people who share your goals, but also those who open your mind in different ways.”

This interconnectedness, he suggests, mirrors what drew him to Global Health Delivery: the understanding that solving health challenges requires more than clinical expertise. It involves networks, perspectives, and systems.

Byiringiro’s attraction to the Global Health Delivery program is deeply personal. He traces it back to discovering Paul Farmer’s work in Rwanda.

“Paul Farmer lived in our country and did great things there,” he says. “When I searched to know more about him, I found this program. And I thought, here is where I can learn the tools, the mindset, to have the same kind of impact. Growing up, I was raised in a family that helped people. Helping is part of me. When I saw Farmer’s example, I said: ‘This is the place I should go.’”

Having only begun his program in September, Byiringiro already speaks with excitement about his coursework and peers. His fall semester includes Global Health and Social Medicine, taught by program director Joia S. Mukherjee, MD, MPH, and courses in implementation science and research methods like quantitative methods, qualitative methods, and ethnography.

“Dr. Mukherjee’s class is incredible,” he says. “She connects today’s problems with history, going back 100 years. It made me realize the roots of issues I thought were only present-day. It widened my view in ways I had never imagined.”

Ethnographic Methods for Global Health Research with Byron Good, PhD, has been equally eye-opening. “I thought it would be about definitions and categories,” he says. “Instead, it’s stories. It’s a way of going deep, of extracting information from the lived experience that doesn’t show up in the literature. It amazed me how a reading can completely change how you see a problem.”

His cohort, too, has been transformative. “We come from Asia, Africa, and the United States. When we talk about a problem, you hear perspectives from everywhere. It challenges you to open your imagination. I thought I was passionate, but then I met people who are even more passionate, who have already done so much in their countries. It shows how much one committed person can transform a system,” he says.

Like many Global Health Delivery students, Byiringiro is already planning his thesis. His vision revolves around implementation science: the bridge between discovery and delivery.

“There are so many evidence-based practices in the world that don’t reach the communities that need them most,” he says. “My project is about filling that gap. Right now, I’m focused on implementing newborn genetic screening in Rwanda. Many children are born with genetic conditions that are invisible at birth but life-threatening later. If discovered early, their trajectory could change completely. That’s the kind of intervention I want to bring home.”

His broader commitment is clear: “I’m an implementation guy. My goal is to take proven interventions and make them real for the communities that need them.”

Daniel encouraged others in the Fulbright program to choose the Global Health Delivery program, too. “It’s obvious: Fulbright equips people with tools and expects them to return and change lives. And Global Health Delivery is exactly about tackling the health issues in our countries. More Fulbrighters should be here. It’s the perfect match.”

He frames it as both a challenge and an opportunity. “If we are sure global health issues are there, then Fulbright scholars need to be trained here, then go back and make the change. It’s needed more than anything.”

For prospective Fulbright and Global Health Delivery applicants, Byiringiro offers encouragement: “If you are someone who wants to bring impact, who sometimes feels stuck because you don’t have the tools, the knowledge, the connections, this program is for you. It will give you more than what you need to solve problems. First, it helps you understand them deeply. Then it gives you the tools to address them.”

Byiringiro’s path is a story of scale. He has always moved between the local and the global, between the bedside and the system. His current work as a Fulbright Scholar and a Global Health Delivery student only extends that pattern.

For Harvard Medical School’s Global Health Delivery program, his presence is a reminder of its founding mission. For the Fulbright Program, he is proof that its investment in future leaders can pay dividends in health equity. And for the patients and students who will encounter Byiringiro in the years to come, he is a doctor who understands not just the science of disease, but also the life behind it.

Written by Bailey Merlin