Despite keeping primarily out of the spotlight and steering fairly clear of official White House activities when she was younger, Barbara Pierce Bush has still made quite the name for herself as an activist. Former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush’s daughter is the Co-founder and Board Chair of the public-health-focused nonprofit organization Global Health Corps (GHC).
GHC selects young professionals for 13-month paid fellowships with organizations promoting health equity in East Africa, Southern Africa, and the United States. GHC has won a Draper Richards Foundation Fellowship, and Bush was made a 2009 Echoing Green Fellow for her work with Global Health Corps.
Bush received her education from Yale University, where she was a legacy member of Kappa Alpha Theta and graduated with a bachelor’s in humanities. In 2020, she earned her master's in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School.
Bush became invested in humanitarian work after a trip to Africa to help launch the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003. She spent nine months volunteering at South Africa's Red Cross Children's Hospital and remained in Africa to work on behalf of UNICEF and the UN World Food Program.
After returning to the U.S., Bush worked in educational programming at the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. While she supported design-thinking and problem-solving programs for high school students and faculty across the U.S., her passion remained for helping the less fortunate.
In 2008, Bush, her twin sister Jenna, and four others launched GHC. As CEO, Bush mentored the annual GHC fellowship classes, landed the financial backing of corporate giants, including ExxonMobil and Bank of America, and spent endless hours visiting workers and facilities overseas.
Outside of GHC, Bush has served on the board of directors for Partners in Health and Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. She and her sister authored the joint memoir “Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life,” which became a New York Times bestseller.
Currently, Bush is Executive-in-Residence with Schmidt Futures, where she supports racial justice, global health, and COVID-19 investments and programs.