Cyrus Ahalt is a public health researcher in the UCSF Department of Medicine and Associate Director of The Criminal Justice & Health Program at UCSF. His work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs Blog, and elsewhere. He has consulted to Departments of Corrections around the country to promote rehabilitation by improving living and working conditions in state prison facilities and enhance health care services for aging, cognitively impaired, and seriously and terminally ill people in prison, including expanding access to existing Medical Parole and Compassionate Release laws. As part of that work, he has facilitated an ongoing international exchange program that has advanced prison reform in the U.S. by connecting leaders in the Norwegian Correctional Service with correctional and government leaders in six U.S. states. The program has been featured in USA Today, Mother Jones, and other media outlets.

He has contributed research and writing for expert testimony commissioned by the National ACLU, the US Federal Sentencing Commission, and others and has authored textbook chapters for the World Health Organization's Health In Prisons guide and the Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Mr. Ahalt has assisted California State Senators and advocacy organizations in drafting and advancing criminal justice reform bills and conducted a portfolio review of NIH funding to highlight the dearth of research funding on behalf of people in prison despite the national focus on health disparities.

Mr. Ahalt's previously worked as a public health program evaluator assessing interventions to improve population health and eliminate domestic violence in post-conflict sub-Saharan Africa.