Leading with Safety: Alum Builds Career Protecting People at Dana-Farber

Triple MCPHS alum Dr. Lyubov Duarte has found her professional home in environmental safety, ensuring a world-renowned cancer institute is safe for all patients, visitors, and staff.

Sitting down for the interview, Dr. Lyubov Duarte carefully sets her work lanyard aside.

The lanyard has a personal radiation dosimeter attached to it. The small device tracks exposure to radiation from equipment used for medical procedures and research activities.

As Director of Workforce and Environmental Safety at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, safety isn’t just what Dr. Duarte does; it’s a personal and professional commitment. It’s also a part of healthcare she hadn’t heard of when she enrolled at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS).

“It’s not a field that’s very well-known and not one I knew about when I was a student,” she said. “We have thousands of people at Dana-Farber. My job is to ensure they all can work in a safe environment.”

Environmental health and safety professionals play a critical role in healthcare, supporting the people and functions that make patient care and research possible. Much of Dr. Duarte’s work is done in the background, identifying risks and building systems to ensure a safe environment for everyone.

“It took a lot of courage to realize that I didn’t want to be directly in front of patients,” she said. “What I love about this job is that it’s behind the scenes.”

When Dr. Duarte first started working at Dana-Farber, she held two degrees from MCPHS: a bachelor’s in public health and a master’s in regulatory affairs and health policy. She was a program manager in the patient safety department, launching her into the world of governance, regulation, and compliance.

“When people hear ‘regulation,’ they immediately think of rules and paperwork,” she said. “In reality, hospital regulations exist to protect people.”

Dr. Duarte had the right mindset to accept when her mentor at Dana-Farber approached and asked her to become the cancer institute’s safety officer.

“I gained the ability to stop any hazardous work at any time, which is quite a bit of authority,” she said. “Stepping into that role was a pivotal moment in my life and my career.”

Dr. Duarte said that marked the moment when her professional path came into focus. As her role and responsibilities expanded, she was promoted to director, overseeing programs regarding workforce safety, environmental compliance, industrial hygiene, construction safety, data analytics, and overall environmental safety infrastructure at Dana-Farber.

“My job is never boring. Every day is different,” she added. “It also means a lot to me that my department ensures that employees can work, research operations can occur, and patients can receive the care they need in a safe environment.”

Dr. Duarte describes her path as a bit of an accident, a series of events and chances she took only with encouragement from her mentors, starting at MCPHS when she applied for her first job at Dana-Farber.

“My faculty mentors believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself,” she said, adding that most of the people who mentored and pushed her to strive for more from her career are women.

“As women, we’re often told to temper down our ambition, that we’ll slow down once we get married or have kids,” said Dr. Duarte, who’s expecting her second child with her husband, whom she met her first year at MCPHS. “Those things actually fueled me. My mentors taught me my ambition isn’t something to feel bad about. It was encouraged.”

That pattern continued as Dr. Duarte returned to MCPHS for a third degree—something less than 1% of the University’s alums have done—to gain doctoral-level leadership training. Her mentors supported her as she balanced school, work, and her growing family.

“I wasn’t done with my academic journey,” she said. “As a leader, you never stop growing, never stop wanting to learn more.”

Dr. Duarte wasn’t finished with MCPHS, either. This year, she became a mentor herself and created a new internship pipeline between Dana-Farber Environmental Health and Safety and MCPHS. In this program, students gain hands-on experience across environmental health and safety, including research, data analytics, sustainability, and ergonomics.

“I wish that when I was a student, I knew about this field and knew there was a way to help people in a non-traditional sense,” she said. “I’m excited to create an opportunity to expose students to something different.”

As the interview ends, Dr. Duarte replaces her lanyard and prepares to head back to Dana-Farber. She reiterates how excited she is to have MCPHS students as interns this year.

“The field is becoming more diverse, and I don’t want anyone stepping into it to be intimidated,” she said. “Anyone who is curious, willing to learn, and welcomes challenges can excel in this space.”