Editor spotlight: Get to know PLOS Global Public Health Academic Editor Maju Brunette

Welcome back to our Editor Spotlight series, where we highlight the work and contributions of a PLOS Global Public Health Academic Editor. Today we are getting to know someone who brings a decolonial and systems ‘bifocal’ lens to Global Health Equity – meet global health scholar (and activist), Maju Brunette. Dr. Brunette is an Academic Editor from our Evidence Based Public Health Section.

What background and expertise do you bring to PLOS Global Public Health?

As a sociotechnical systems engineer, born and raised in the Global South, I co-design community-centered interventions through a decolonial lens. Having inhabited many worlds —from the urban poor barrios in my native Perú, to the hardworking Latino migrant communities in the United States, and recently to the resilient global solidarity movement against genocide— I am delighted to contribute to the journal’s mission and scope, which brings me to one of my favorite writers of all times.

There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard. —Arundhati Roy.

As this pioneering journal aims to amplify the voices of underrepresented and historically excluded communities in both, the Global North and South, it is my duty to contribute, not as a number – a person of color whose English is not first language- but as a systems thinker and above all, a social justice scholar determined to talk about uncomfortable truths that the global health community either seems to ignore or prefers to remain in silence and complicity.

Why did you decide to become part of PLOS Global Public Health?

Time is our most precious resource! we often say in global academia. Perhaps in a little arrogant manner, an arrogance that, historically, is part of our academic DNA. So, the long story short is that I only commit to scholarly projects that have the potential to move the needle in the right direction, one that can bring ideas and offer opportunities for co-creation of biomedical and biosocial solutions to our complex health realities. Tackling social injustices, systemic racism and structural inequalities in global health starts by looking in your own backyard. And yes, global is local!

I believe PLOS Global Public Health is doing important work not only in co-producing knowledge in global health equity, but above all by bridging across multiple disciplines and communities of practice. Being conveners of the scholarly production in the Global South, one characterized by quality and academic rigor, is unique and I am committed to join the efforts in this epistemic justice endeavor.

Image credit: Professor Maju Brunette

You have done a lot of fieldwork as part of your research; what’s been your most memorable experience? Do you have any upcoming fieldwork or other projects?

I began conducting community-based participatory research (CBPR) while in my undergraduate experience as a somewhat shy —I must confess— female engineer and mestiza, in a male-dominated society in the Global South. Later on, as a product of the Global South-to-North migration process, I moved to North America, just in time to begin reframing my scholarly thinking and knowledge while immersed in the world of our hardworking Latino populations.

I have never stopped doing fieldwork. I feel like I never left Perú. I never left my people as my work has been centered around health inequities that impact the least privileged, powerless, and hardworking communities in the Americas -North, Central, South. I have no one single memorable experience, it would be unfair to choose one. My fieldwork documenting and making sense of the realities of urban poverty, labor conditions, structural racism and power imbalances AND health is full of memories of good times. I feel privilege by the communities I have been invited to work with -or creatively, found ways to immerse myself, learn together, and gain their trust over the years.

An ongoing global community project addressing the biomedical and biosocial realities of Tuberculosis is what keeps me awake these days. As the new TB vaccine is on the horizon, we must not repeat the same mistakes that we had during Covid19. Stay tuned as we will continue to document these realities via the power of storytelling. I invite you to read A People’s History of Tuberculosis, the first English/Spanish story on the disease of the poor co-created by academia, local government, NGOs, and most importantly, ASET Comas, a TB survivor group.

Image credit: Asociación de Enfermos de Tuberculosis (ASET)

Do you have any tips for authors to strengthen their work?

Uruguayan former President Pepe Mujica said once, ‘Dime qué libros lees y te diré que sueños persigues’, an adaptation of what our Spanish acclaimed writer, García Lorca, once said, “Dime qué lees y te diré quién eres“. In English, it means the books you read are a symbol of who you are and the dreams you pursue.

If there are two things we must do, not just to strengthen our work as scholarly authors, but to see the world from a different lens, is to step out our comfort zone and begin reading outside our own discipline. To educate ourselves and learn to speak each other languages, and I don’t mean the beautiful local speaking languages, but the professional one, coming from the vast variety of disciplines that find a seat in our ivory towers.

For me, being a stubborn systems engineer who sees everything as a three-part system—elements, their interconnectedness, and purpose—I have benefited greatly from the social sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology, law, ethics) and obviously from the medical and health sciences, including nursing and public health. And continue to do so. If I have to summarize it in one quick tip, is to learn to speak ‘each other’ languages. It works. And it unites peoples and cultures —from the powerful to the powerless, from the very important persons (VIPs) to the ‘nobodies.’

Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

If you are privileged enough to occupy a seat in global academia, as a student, faculty, or researcher, I invite you to do one thing: begin listening to the murmurs in your own backyard. Begin to listen to the voices and learn from them. Listen to the radio, go to museums, read the local newspapers, join a peaceful protest. Rise up. Immerse yourself in the local communities you are writing about. That is perhaps, the most important ingredient for a scholarly writing endeavor. I wish each and every one of you the best of luck. Si se puede!

“If our honest intention –for those occupying a privileged seat in academia– is to move the needle in the right direction, toward achieving health equity and closing the global North-South divide, then it becomes crucial that we learn how to adopt, adapt and sustain existing best practices to involve community and other stakeholders in research endeavors. Engaging communities in generating evidence for solutions to their health, social and environmental challenges has the potential to move the needle toward a more equitable and sustainable world.” –Brunette 2021

Take a look at the ‘Decolonizing Global Health Blog Series’ which include some of the topics that Maju mentions above, including her most recent blog series via the Nuffield Primary Care Health Sciences Medical Sciences Division at Oxford University,

January 2025 issue: access via this link

February 2025 issue: access via this link

March 2025 issue: access via this link

June 2025 issue: access via this link

September 2025 issue: access via this link

December 2025 issue: access via this link