Lakshmi is passionate about connecting health and the humanities and applying this framework to clinical and public health issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Her innovation in the medical humanities has resulted in numerous research publications, grants, and international recognition including a U.S. Rhodes Scholarship, Isis Poetry Prize (given by Oxford’s oldest literary magazine), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is the recipient of grants and awards from the Mellon Foundation, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the Academy of Communication in Healthcare.

A dual-trained clinician-scholar, she earned her MD from Johns Hopkins and her doctorate in English literature from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She completed an Internal Medicine residency at Duke before returning to Johns Hopkins for fellowship in General Internal Medicine and History of Medicine. Since 2020, she has been on faculty at Georgetown where she founded and directs the university’s Medical Humanities Initiative.

Lakshmi was born in Bombay, India, and is a proud “Mumbaikar” and immigrant. Her childhood was spent in England and most of her young adulthood in the Southern United States. She adores all things theatre, swimming, curating playlists, and weekly trips to the DC public library.