Johanna Riesel

Johanna N. Riesel, MD, is a pediatric craniofacial surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, ON, Canada. After completing her residency training at the  Harvard Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Program. She joined The Hospital for Sick Children as a Craniofacial Fellow, and thereafter, as a consultant pediatric reconstructive surgeon. During her residency training, she was a Paul Farmer Global Surgery Research Fellow in the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard Medical School. There, she served as the team lead for the Workforce, Training, and Education section of The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery and was a primary author on this landmark publication.

She has been involved in global health and global surgery research and capacity-building for over a decade. Her efforts have taken her to several countries throughout sub-Saharan Africa, focusing largely on surgical education and workforce capacity strengthening and sustainability. Her research interests include optimizing surgical education and surgeon performance through emotion regulation, capacity building, and pediatric cleft and craniofacial disorders. She is currently obtaining a Masters in Health Professions Education at New York University and Maastricht University and hopes to use this in her work both locally and abroad to facilitate the increased delivery of high-quality surgical care to those in need.