Claudine Joseph believes in the power of information to change lives. As program manager for Diversity by Doing HealthTech (DxD), she works with students and professionals to provide education, resources, and experiences that open doors within the medtech innovation ecosystem. “I have always been drawn to roles where I could help people,” she said. “I like solving problems and sharing information that empowers people with agency and opportunities.”
Her perspective is rooted in experience. Joseph grew up as one of four children in Massachusetts with parents dedicated to serving others. Her mother, who is trained in microbiology, hematology, and chemistry, has spent more than 40 years working as a medical technologist in the blood bank at a local hospital. Her father is a pastor for a Haitian Baptist church.
For Joseph and her siblings, both parents’ jobs were family affairs. “I pretty much grew up in my mom’s hospital,” she said. “We would go there after school to help out and wait for her to be done.” Church was even more immersive. “We didn’t so much attend church as work there,” she explained. Her dad led services, church functions and multiple choirs, and Joseph was his primary partner figuring out the technology, logistics and business aspects of each endeavor.
“My dad wanted to create a technologically enabled church that could support and connect the community, but we had few resources. It was up to me to figure out how to bring in a projector and computer, find software that would work for services, build a website and social media presence, and develop fundraising strategies,” she described. “I gained a lot of my technical and problem-solving skills from working with him.”
Caretaking and community
Her parents’ work for the church extended beyond its four walls. “We spent a lot of time visiting people in their homes, offering help and support to people that were elderly or infirm,” Joseph recalled. Her mother, fluent in Creole, often served as an advocate for Haitian patients, helping them navigate the healthcare system, while her father led bedside prayer sessions. These experiences provided an early view into the intersection of culture, faith, and medicine.
At Boston University, Joseph planned to study medicine before realizing that she liked people more than science. She changed her major to sociology but retained the focus on healthcare. “I wanted to study how culture shapes medicine — and vice versa,” she said. “How can we reshape the hierarchy around how things are communicated and who gets listened to?”
Before joining DxD, she worked at Harvard Medical School as the program director of the Medical Director Leadership Institute. “Doctors are often placed in leadership positions without ever being trained to lead,” she said. “We worked to fill that gap, teaching them how to have difficult conversations, develop policies, and bring equity into the workplace.”
Team DxD
Her transition to DxD felt like a natural next step. Drawn by a job description emphasizing both “project management” and “health equity,” Joseph connected immediately with DxD executive director Ingrid Ellerbe and communications consultant Christine Byrd. “We matched on almost everything we were hoping to build for DxD and shared a passion for creating opportunities for everyone,” she said.
As the project manager, Joseph has a hand in “pretty much everything.” Together, she and Ellerbe run five different DxD programs, including a seminar series for business leaders; virtual speed mentoring for early and mid-career professionals; a two-day summer workshop for college interns in the industry; Pathways, a high-touch, eight-weekend program for community college STEM students; and a new program for high school students that was piloted this year. For each endeavor, Joseph coordinates planning and manages execution, from organizing the substantial volunteer base needed to run each program, to recruiting and screening participants, planning meals, arranging logistics, balancing finances, and more.
Nurturing alumni
She is also the primary architect of what has become a robust and thriving community of DxD alumni, providing ongoing information and advice to graduates of DxD programs, especially Pathways. “This was not something that was built into my role,” Joseph said. “But once you get to know these students, you want to do anything you can to support them.”
Her 1:1 catch-ups with alumni often involve helping them find internships, practice interviews, assess job opportunities, evaluate next career steps, or simply reconnect. While this takes up quite a bit of time, she makes space for it gladly. “It’s one of the things I enjoy most,” she said.
A transformative experience
The combination of Pathways’ duration and depth —along with Joseph’s ongoing personal investment—creates a transformative experience for many of the students. First-gen college student Mariana Rodriguez, who elevated her goal from nursing to becoming a doctor during the program, explained, “Though we came from different backgrounds, all of us were united in our drive to bring diversity, equity and inclusion to healthcare. Claudine Joseph, Ingrid Ellerbe, and every guest speaker and mentor showed us what was possible and challenged us to think bigger.”
As Pathways graduate, Camaree McCulley, put it, “The most valuable aspect of the program was being in a supportive and collaborative environment where everyone wants to see you succeed.”
At the heart of DxD
At the center of it all is Joseph—a tireless listener, researcher, mentor, and advocate whose vision, compassion, and skillful project management keep DxD humming. “A friend and colleague of DxD, Dr. Fred St Goar, often reminds our students to ‘work like a heart’—a message about making a consistent, sustained effort to do work with meaning and impact, just as the heart tirelessly pumps blood to nourish the body,” she said. “This philosophy, with its focus on purpose, rhythm, and impact, perfectly reflects Claudine.”
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DxD was founded and is supported by a partnership between Fogarty Innovation and the Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign.