Sometimes called “Dr. Hope” by her patients, Hope grew up on a small farm and resolved to become a doctor at the age of nine soon after she learned about human rights violations around the world. Like many children who grow up around animals, she also became concerned about animal cruelty. Later in college, she studied bioethics and international relations, including subjects such as interpersonal violence, war, and genocide. By the time she entered medical school, she began to study the historical and modern links between the treatment of people and animals in society.
Today, Hope is president of Phoenix Zones Initiative, a global nonprofit organization that advances the interdependent rights, health, and well-being of people, animals, and the planet. Over two decades, as a double-board certified internal medicine, preventive medicine, and global public health physician, Hope has cared for individuals who have experienced homelessness, displacement, torture, and sexual violence, while she has also worked on policy to end human, animal, and environmental exploitation. Her public health expertise covers climate change, hunger, chronic diseases, emerging infectious diseases, poverty, forced migration, and conflict. Working across six continents, Hope has developed medical, public health, and educational guidance and resources for nongovernmental organizations, national governments, and intergovernmental institutions.
Hope has appeared on local, national, and international radio and television programs, and in 2017 she was named a Humanitarian of the Year in the American College of Physicians. Many of her publications focus on the prevention of and response to violence and disease, including important links between the rights, health, and well-being of people, animals, and the planet. Her book Phoenix Zones: Where Strength Is Born and Resilience Lives, which depicts foundations for individual and societal resilience, was published in 2018 by the University of Chicago Press. In 2019, she cofounded Phoenix Zones Initiative to advance the essential links between human, animal, and planetary health and well-being, and to fuel the creation of more Phoenix Zones—places where individuals and communities can rise and thrive.
PROFESSIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
Hope received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and bioethics from the University of Southern California, a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, and a Master’s Degree in public health, with an emphasis in community medicine, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She completed an internship in internal medicine at Yale University/Griffin Hospital, a residency in general preventive medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and an internal medicine residency at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Hope served as faculty at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences and the Georgetown University School of Medicine, and she is now a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.