Marcella Regina Cardoso

Marcella Regina Cardoso, MSc, PhD, is a Scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital | Harvard Medical School, affiliated with the Mass General Center for Global Health. Currently, Marcella conducts her research with the Strength & Serenity Mass General Global Initiative to End Gender-Based Violence team, focusing on Intimate Partner Violence in the context of Humanitarian Disasters with the intersectionality of race and class.

Additionally, Dr. Cardoso is a trainee in the Fostering Diversity in HIV Research Program, a collaboration between Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Mass General Hospital. Marcella is a specialist and passionate about Women’s Health. She earned her master’s in Obstetrics and Gynecology, specializing in Maternal and Perinatal Health at the University of Campinas – Brazil. Subsequently, she pursued the first phase of her PhD at the same University, specializing in Gynecologic Oncology and Breast Cancer. Marcella completed the second phase of her PhD and defended her Thesis at Harvard Medical School | Massachusetts General Hospital. She made her first Postdoctoral fellowship in Immuno-Oncology and Infectious Diseases at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, where she was a member of the leadership team of WISE (Women In STEM Empowerment).
Furthermore, Marcella is an active member of the MGH Immigrant Health Coalition, where she is committed to excellence in clinical care, education, advocacy, and research to improve the health and well-being of immigrants across all departments and clinical sites at MGH and within the broader community. She is also involved in the Health Equity Theme and the Medical Language Program at Harvard Medical School.

At Heal Trafficking, Marcella is directly involved in anti-trafficking research, advocacy, and the implementation of guidelines established in the Guide to Developing a Response to Victims of Human Trafficking in Healthcare Settings, launched in September 2023 in Brazil. She focuses on improving the training of SUS healthcare professionals to identify and assist victims of human trafficking effectively.