The Twisting Tale of Two Child Health Advocates
DoubleTree by Hilton Inn, 287 Iyannough Rd, Hyannis, MA 02601
October 15, 2026, 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM EDT
Join us and the MIT Club of Cape Cod to meet Drs. Judy and Sean Palfrey, two Harvard professors who will share some of the many amazing experiences they had during their careers dedicated to science, community, and child-health advocacy. Judy and Sean met as undergraduates at Harvard in the turbulent 1960s and are still going pretty strongly in the turbulent 2020s. Both became pediatricians. Judy spent most of her career at Boston Childrens Hospital while Sean practiced and taught at several academic hospitals, the last, for 32 years, being the Boston City Hospital which later became Boston Medical Center. Interested in public health and health policy, they both worked with the American Academy of Pediatrics, Sean as president of the Massachusetts Chapter and Judy as president of the national AAP, during which tenure Judy helped craft and pass the Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”). In addition to these academic roles, the Drs Palfrey traveled to several regions after natural disasters to help restore pediatric services to those communities – Indonesia, Chile, Haiti and New Orleans as examples. Together, Judy and Sean also served as “Housemasters” or “Faculty Deans” of Adams House at Harvard for 22 years. Sean will bring five books of photography he has published from these experiences.
Dr. Judith Palfrey Judith (Judy) Swann Palfrey (née Sullivan) MD attended the Bryn-Maur School before graduating from Radcliffe College in 1967. She received her MD in 1971 from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed an internship and residency in pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a fellowship in community child health at Childrens Hospital Boston. Dr. Palfrey is the T. Berry Brazelton Professor of Pediatrics Emerita at Harvard Medical School. She was chief of the Division of General Pediatrics at Children's Hospital Boston for 22 years. Dr. Palfrey served as president of the American Academy of Pediatricsfor 2009-2010. From September to December 2011, she was executive director of Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move!' initiative. She was also one of the founders of the Boston Children's Hospital Global Health Program.
Major publications by Dr. Palfrey include:
• (1995, author) Community Child Health: An Action Plan For Today.
• (1995, co-author) The Disney Encyclopedea of Baby and Child Care.
• (2006, author) Child Health in America: Making a Difference Through Advocacy.
• (2014, editor) Global Child Health Advocacy.
Dr. Sean Palfrey John (Sean) G. Palfrey, MD, is a 1967 graduate of Harvard College and attended medical school at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed his residency at Tufts New England Medical Center. For more than 40 years before he retired, Dr. Palfrey practiced and taught at academic hospitals. He worked as a board-certified pediatrician at Boston Medical Center (BMC) for the last 32 years of his career, and he also is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in Ambulatory Care Services Emeritus and served as Faculty Dean at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. For his entire career Dr. Palfrey was a dedicated advocate for better child health programs and policies and the prevention of illness and sadness. He served as president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics for 2002 - 2004, and he has been a legislative advocate for child health programs and policies since the late.
Details to register will follow once they have been finalized.