This past summer, Professors Mercedes Becerra and Salmaan Keshavjee became the new Faculty Deans at Adams House. Becerra is a professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Keshavjee too is a professor of global health and social medicine at HMS, as well as an affiliate professor in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Gold Coaster wanted to peer past the curtains of their professional lives and get to know the individuals a little better, so we arranged two separate interviews using the same set of questions to see just what makes these two fascinating people tick.
Mercedes, also known as Mercy and Meche around the House, went first:
GC: Tell me how the two of you met?
It was September of 1991, and we were graduate students at the Harvard School of Public Health taking “Introduction to International Health.”
GC: What made you pick this man out of a classroom full of people?
We had a mutual friend, and we were friends first for a long time. He was just super jovial and chatty, and really just cared so much about equity and justice.
GC: So equity and justice was the sexual attraction?
(Laughing) Yes, for sure!
GC: What is Salmaan’s best quality?
That he cares about people, he connects with people. I used to joke with him as graduate students that often we’d be at a party and there would be a bit of a lull and then I’d realize it was because he was in four conversations at once. Everyone is drawn to him.
GC: What’s his worst quality?
That he doesn’t take care of himself. He’s intense and emotional and feels everything, and that’s hard on him. Oh—and that the word “no” doesn’t exist in his vocabulary. He takes on way too many projects and then he doesn’t have enough time to exercise and meditate and do all the things that are good for him.
GC: Favorite trip together?
I would say Bali, 2008. We were in Lesotho where Salmaan had helped build a national program to treat TB and HIV. It was a really intense period, the team was working there 5 or 6 days without any sleep and that final night Salmaan was so tired that he couldn’t even get on the elevator to go get dinner. I said “This is crazy, go sleep.” And he did—literally passed out on the bed. I got some dinner by myself and the next day we headed off on this vacation to Bali. It was pre-planned, but it couldn’t have come at a better time. And we really unplugged. I mean really. Three weeks, the beach, doing nothing and being together. Every day we’d say, “oh, we should go do this excursion or that,” and then we’d look at each other and say: “Next trip.” (Laughs)
GC: Worst vacation?
(Laughs) We haven’t had enough vacations to have a worst vacation but I do remember a time when as poor students we stayed on some motel on the New Jersey turnpike that charged by hour and had the entrance surrounded by bullet-proof glass. That was pretty awful.
GC: So what’s your best quality, in your estimation?
Hmm…. That’s a hard one. One thing that I think is important is that I try to remember people’s names and something about each one. It sounds simple, but it’s crucial to building a sense of community, especially here at Adams.
GC: What’s your worst quality?
I takes me too long to do things sometimes, because I overly fixate on the details, and then don’t get started. So, I procrastinate and fixate which really delays getting started on things.
GC: It’s five years from now, what would you consider to be your greatest personal accomplishment?
Our son. In five years he will be finishing high school, and I hope that it will have been a fulfilling and rewarding experience. For me personally, finding the right balance between being Faculty Dean and my work with Partners in Health. This new role has been so amazing and intense and consuming. If we can have success in the House and do a good job, and I can return to my Partners work, I will feel I’ve really accomplished something.
Then Salmaan:
GC: So tell me how the two of you met.
Well, we were in class together at the School of Public Health, and I saw her —she was very pretty. She was friends with a mutual friend, and I asked about her: “Yeah,” the friend said, “she is super nice but she is not into dating anyone.” And I was like, oh, really? Damn! But we hung out and got to know each other. I used to borrow her notes from class just as an excuse to hang out with her—she took really great notes. But there was no indication that she liked me. Then we got invited to our friend’s house at the Cape, and over the course of that weekend, we realized we really liked each other, and started dating thereafter. But it took months and months.
GC: What made you pick this woman out of a classroom full of people?
Well, as I said she was very pretty. (Laughs) I know this sounds strange, but she has this air about her that was simple and down to business, without any hint of arrogance.
GC: What is Mercedes’ best quality?
She is very, very kind and thoughtful. I will tell you this: she has taught me a lot. Somehow, she sees almost every injustice in the world, and it doesn’t eat her up. When she sees a power dynamic that isn’t right, she’ll pick it up, from something as totally mundane as someone addressing a waitress rudely to huge issues like inequities in national health coverage. She is very mindful of maintaining the dignity of every individual. For me, if I had that personality, I feel that it would eat me up and I would just be in angst all the time because the world is full of injustice. But she doesn’t do that. She absorbs all the issues and then thinks about how to make it better. And as I said, she is very thoughtful. If someone calls and mentions they are sick, me, I say: “Oh, OK, call us when you feel better.” Click. (Laughs) But Mercy always wants more details: “Why didn’t you ask how sick they were? Do you think we should take something over to them?” I’m like, “No! If they had wanted something they would have asked!” (Laughing) Not Mercy.
GC: So what is her worst quality?
(Laughs) Well her worst quality may be that there is very little margin when living with someone who insists on treating people with the utmost kindness at all times. No wiggle room at all. This isn’t a bad trait, in fact it’s a good thing, and I have learned a lot from her. It’s hard to be caring to a fault, I think it’s important to do that, but hard to carry off every day, and somehow she tries to do that, and it’s pretty amazing.
GC: Favorite trip together?
Bali!
GC: Worst vacation?
I don’t think we have vacationed enough to have a worst vacation.
GC: Mercedes mentioned something about a place on the Jersey Turnpike.
Oh my god yes, that was bad.
GC: What is your best quality?
I think it may be that I like to solve problems. If someone comes to me and says, “there is this issue,” as an anthropologist I immediately start to think about what is driving the situation and what can we do to fix it.
GC: Worst quality?
Impatience. Most certainly impatience. I often think that things should happen quicker. It’s the other side of the same trait that wants to solve a problem. As you get older and more mature you realize that things that should have been fixed quicker haven’t been because there are so many entrenched interests and it takes so long to get people moving in the right direction. That’s very frustrating for me, and sometimes I let it show.
GC: It’s five years from now, what would you consider to be your greatest personal accomplishment?
Well, we started this thing called the Zero TB Cities Project, working in places with high TB rates, to deliver the standard of care, and we have spent the last five or six years working with communities all over the globe. So, if in five or six years some of these projects took off to be at scale, that would be really amazing. (After a pause) I’m just curious, what did Mercy say?
GC: (Reads Mercedes’ answer to Salmaan)
(Laughing) Oh wow, I feel like a bit of a rogue, not mentioning either my child or the House! Let me say two things about what Mercy mentioned. It’s amazing for our son to be in this environment with all the kids around. One of the things we have tried to do is to ensure that he is being a critical thinker—teaching him to think about how to create more justice in the world. So, if in five years he graduates from high school and is still committed to those kinds of values, that would be a real achievement. With the House it’s a very similar thing. When we think back as to why we wanted to be faculty deans, we thought: “Is it possible to take this community and work together as a group to create a world as we want it to be, not as it is? Can we work with the community at Harvard to move moral education in the direction of how to better the world?” If we can achieve that within the House, you can imagine that people will go outside of the House community and carry on the work. If in five years as Faculty Deans we see that students have gone on to do transformative things, and that it’s based on what they learned in the House, for me that would be a real victory.