Dr. Hanna Saltzman is a writer, environmental advocate, and board-certified pediatrician in Salt Lake City. Her creative nonfiction writing can be found or forthcoming in River Teeth, Terrain.org, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, The Examined Life Journal, and various others. She also has written several op-eds for local and national news outlets. Her essay “Halophilia,” about choosing to become a mother in the climate crisis, was selected for the Notable Essay list in Best American Essays 2024.

She grew up in Iowa City, Iowa and Salt Lake City, Utah. She graduated summa cum laude from Williams College with a degree in anthropology, during which she studied for one year at Oxford University. Her senior thesis, “Farming to Flourish: How Health Propels the Local Food Movement in the Berkshires” received High Honors and the Orton Award for Best Work in Anthropology.

Prior to medical training, Dr. Saltzman worked in environmental advocacy with several nonprofit organizations, including managing campaigns to improve access to healthy food and safe water, as well as work to stop child-targeted fast food marketing. She also dabbled in health journalism, publishing a weekly column with a startup online magazine and authoring the book No White Coat Necessary: The Science of Everyday Health.

She then attended medical school at the University of Michigan, graduating with the Academic Recognition Award and the Dean’s Commendation for Excellence in Clinical Skills and the Art of Medicine, followed by pediatrics residency at the University of Utah, where she received the “Service to Children” advocacy graduation award. She was selected for the Alpha Omega Alpha and the Gold Humanism Societies. She has co-authored numerous research papers in peer-reviewed journals in addition to her narrative and advocacy writing. She currently is pursuing additional training in pediatric rheumatology, where her research focuses on environmental health and nature-based health interventions for children with autoimmune diseases.

She lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and child.