Vanessa Kerry

Kerry graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover and summa cum laude from Yale University with a major in biology. While a student at Yale, she played for the varsity lacrosse team. After graduating with her bachelor's degree, she went to Harvard Medical School where she graduated with honors. She took a year from Harvard to attend the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, earning her master’s of science in health policy, planning and financing. While in London, she was a Fulbright Scholar.

Active in global health for many years, in 2011 Kerry started the non-profit Seed Global Health (formerly called Global Health Service Corps) which envisions a world where every country has the robust healthcare workforce it needs to address its health burdens. Seed's flagship program was the Global Health Service Partnership. a partnership with the Peace Corps. The Partnership sent health professionals abroad to work as medical and nursing educators and to help build capacity. Seed has helped send over 191 physician and nurse educators to train more than 16,000 health professionals in sub-Saharan Africa. The program is currently active in Malawi, Uganda, Eswatini, and Zambia.

In 2010 Kerry wrote an op-ed on the idea of sending American health professionals to teach for The New York Times. She has also published in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet on the topic. The program also partners with academic medical centers such as the Massachusetts General Hospital and MGH Global Health. In 2013, Kerry, as CEO was named a Draper Richards Kaplan Social Entrepreneur. In 2014, she was featured in Boston Magazine' s Power of Ideas for her work with the organization.

On October 10, 2009 in Boston, Kerry married neurosurgeon Brian Vala Nahed, who specializes in brain tumors and spinal disorders. As a surgeon and scientist, Dr. Brian Nahed leads a research lab which aims to develop the first blood test for brain tumors. In 2012, she gave birth to their son and in 2015 to their daughter. She is a former member of the Board of Directors of Young Democrats of America and is a term member to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kerry took a leave from her medical studies in order to campaign for her father's, then Senator John Kerry, presidential bid in 2004, even introducing him at that year's Democratic National Convention. She campaigned by herself and with her sister, mostly focusing on campaign stops at university campuses. She made speeches in support of her father and focused on health care issues and tuition costs for students, two Democratic campaign issues she felt personally attached to. She also appeared on the MTV Music Video Awards show in Miami where she joined George W. Bush's daughters Barbara and Jenna to encourage voting. Through her work with her father and her public health policy education, she has not ruled out running for political office in the future.

Vanessa Bradford Kerry (born December 31, 1976) is an American physician and health care administrator. She is a founder of the non-profit Seed Global Health. Her father is John Kerry, who served as the 68th United States Secretary of State.