Unite For Sight's 5th Annual International Health Conference - Unite For Sight's 5th Annual International Health Conference

April 12-13, 2008
Yale University, New Haven Connecticut

Keynote Addresses

"Global Health: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century", Susan Blumenthal, MD, MPA, Former US Assistant Surgeon General; Senior Advisor For Health and Medicine; Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women's Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown School of Medicine and Tufts University Medical Center
"Bridging the Implementation Gap in Global Health", Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD, Co-Founder, Partners in Health; Director, François Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights; François Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health; Chair, Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Former HIV/AIDS Director at World Health Organization
Jeffrey Sachs, PhD, Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University; Special Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon
"Millennium Village Project", Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH, Health Coordinator, Millennium Villages

Plenary Panels (Confirmed Thus Far)

Brain Drain: The Health, Development, and Economic Effects on African Countries

Introduction:

Jeffrey Sachs, PhD, Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University; Special Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon
Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH, Health Coordinator, Millennium Villages

Panelists:

Thomas Baah, MD, MSc, Ophthalmologist, Our Lady of Grace Hospital, Ghana
James Clarke, MD, Ophthalmologist and Medical Director, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana
Michael Gyasi, MD, Ophthalmologist and Director of the Bawku Eye Care Program, Ghana
Seth Wanye, MD, Ophthalmologist, Eye Clinic of Tamale Teaching Hospital, Ghana

Building Capacity With Community Health Outreach Workers

Introduction:

Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD, Co-Founder, Partners in Health; Director, François Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights; François Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health; Chair, Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Former HIV/AIDS Director at World Health Organization

Panelists:

James Clarke, MD, Ophthalmologist and Medical Director, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana
Margaret Duah-Mensah, RN, ON, Ophthalmic Nurse, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana
Eva Harris, PhD, Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley; President, Sustainable Sciences Institute
Harshad Sanghvi, MD, Medical Director, JHPIEGO, Johns Hopkins University

Featured Speakers (Confirmed Thus Far)

Biographies of Speakers

Sam Abbenyi, MD, MSc, Director, Programs and Logistics, International Trachoma Initiative

Dr Sam-Abbenyi is a Cameroonian physician with a lot of experience in community primary health care experience. Upon graduating from Medical School in Cameroon (October 1980), Sam worked as District Medical Officer, under the Ministry of Health. He did an outstanding job in reducing the prevalence of trypanosomiasis through mass screening of the population and treatment of patients (1981-1984). He also charted the endemic focus of Paragonimiasis in the district of Fontem. Following his work in Fontem, Sam worked in both the clinical and community services at Tiko District Hospital and at the Provincial Hospital for the South West Province in Limbe (1984-1988). His work earned him a fellowship award from the International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Canada to read for the MSc in Community Health at the University of Montreal (1998-2000).

Sam returned to Cameroon after his Masters program and was appointed Deputy Director of Epidemiology in the Ministry of Health, Yaounde, Cameroon. He was the coordinator of a program to control potentially epidemic diseases such as meningitis, cholera and yellow fever. He also managed diligently the dracunculiasis eradication program. Sam received a Ministerial award as a leader of the team that eliminated dracunculiasis from Cameroon (1990 - 1996).

Sam left the Ministry of Health and joined the National Epidemiology Board of Cameroon where he was a team leader of a research unit. He conducted six province-wide studies on the prevalence and risk factors of cancer of the breast, cervix and the prostate as well as on arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus. These were conducted in order to establish baseline data for chronic diseases in Cameroon.

Later Sam worked as consultant with the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa on the surveillance of epidemic prone diseases in Congo (Brazzaville), Namibia and Uganda and on HIV/AIDS. His skills in consultant services made him work for the International Unit of the Department of Montreal on standardizing training curricula on syndromic approach for the management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in five West African countries where the University of Montreal was implementing STI/HIV/AIDS control projects.

Sam has also worked in the Great Lakes Region of Africa in 1998-2003 as Health Program Coordinator of the American Refugee Committee (ARC), Reproductive Health Coordinator at CARE International/Rwanda and Health Coordinator of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo.

In July 2003, Sam moved from Africa to John Snow Inc, DELIVER Project in Arlington, Virginia as the HIV - AIDS Advisor, a year later Sam was appointed Director of Program Plannings and Analysis at the International Trachoma Initiative in New York. During the past 18 months Sam assisted seven trachoma control programs, namely: Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Tanzania and Viet Nam in designing national trachoma strategic plans 2005-2009.

Rob Abel, MD, Delaware Ophthalmology Consultants

Dr. Abel earned his medical degree at Jefferson Medical College in 1969, completed his ophthalmology residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital and was a Cornea Fellow at the University of Florida. board certified ophthalmologist. He is a former Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University. He founded and has been Medical Director of the Medical Eye Bank of Delaware since 1981. He teaches locally and internationally on numerous subjects, including cornea, cataract and nutrition. He instructs the Cornea Microsurgery Workshops at the Academy of Ophthalmology meetings annually and has been on the Academy's Committee of International Ophthalmology. Dr. Abel has done active research on corneal transplants, corneal pathology, contact lenses and drugs as they relate to the eye. He holds two patents on artificial corneas and has received the AAO Senior Honor Award. Dr. Abel is the author of the popular new books, "The Eye Care Revolution" and "The DHA Story," which teach patients how to treat and reverse common vision problems. Other inquiries concerning eye care can also be found on his website, the www.eyeadvisory.com. He practices at Delaware ophthalmology Consultants in Wilmington, Delaware.

Ronald Adelman, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Director of Retina Service, Yale University School of Medicine

Dr. Ron Adelman is Director of the Yale Retina Section. His formal education includes a Master of Public Health from Stanford University and an Ophthalmology residency and two-year Retina fellowship at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary of Harvard Medical School. During his years at Harvard, he received many awards, including the Club Vit Fellow Research Award, the Ron G. Michels Fellowship Award, and Fellow of the Year 2000. He has published extensively, primarily in the area of retinal disease and surgery, with over 35 papers in print or in press. He is Section Editor of the Digital Journal of Ophthalmology, a peer-reviewed ophthalmology journal on the worldwide web, serving as a resource for ophthalmologists, vision scientists, and patients worldwide.

Greg Allgood, PhD, Director, Children's Safe Drinking Water, Procter & Gamble

Dr. Greg Allgood is the Director, Childrenâ€™s Safe Drinking Water at Procter & Gamble and Senior Fellow in Sustainability. Dr. Allgood has been with P&G for 21 years and leads P&Gâ€™s efforts to provide safe drinking water in the developing world. He has a PhD in Toxicology from North Carolina State University and a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of North Carolina â€“ Chapel Hill, where he did research in the water area.

The focus of the Children's Safe Drinking Water program is provision of safe drinking water through a novel household water treatment product called PUR Purifier of Water. The program received the Grainger Challenge Bronze Award for Sustainability in 2007, the inventors of the PUR product were recognized as Inventorâ€™s of the Year in 2006, and the program won the Stockholm Industry Water Award in 2005 and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) World Business Award in 2004.

R. Rand Allingham, MD, Professor of Ophthalmology; Director, Glaucoma Service, Duke University Eye Center

R. Rand Allingham, MD, is a Professor of Ophthalmology at the Duke University Eye Center, Durham, North Carolina. He is a clinician-scientist whose subspecialty and research focus is glaucoma. He is Director of the Duke University Glaucoma Service, one of the largest clinical and research glaucoma programs in the United States. Dr. Allinghamâ€™s research is primarily devoted to furthering our understanding of the genetic causes of glaucoma and other inherited disorders. He has studied glaucoma in many regions of the United States and worldwide including Iceland, Canada, India, Nepal, and Africa. He and his research collaborators have successfully identified the location of several major genes for POAG. Gene identification is critical to the formation of new insights into the cause of glaucoma and will open the door to novel treatment for this and other forms of blinding diseases. In addition to genetic research, Dr. Allingham is a collaborator on projects designed to identify protein expression in the trabecular meshwork, aqueous humor proteins in the normal and glaucomatous eye, and new surgical approaches to treat glaucoma.

Jared Ament, MD, MPh, Clinical Research Fellow, Ophthalmlology & Corneal Surgery, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School; Harvard School of Public Health

Dr. Jared Ament graduated with an International Baccalaureate from Upper Canada College and an Hon.BSc in Neurophysiology from the University of Toronto. He went to the collaborative medical school program between Ben-Gurion University in Israel and Columbia University, New York. His MPH at the Harvard School of Public Health is to be completed summer of 2008. He is crrently a post-doctoral fellow at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, and a Clinical Research Fellow at Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary. His current research includes the Boston Keratoprosthesis (KPro) in the developing world under Dr. Claes Dohlman at MEEI and Dr. Ilene Gipson at Schepens. He recently returned from a KPro medical mission to Ethiopia, where he completed 5 KPro procedures.

Jane Aronson, MD, Director, International Pediatric Health Services; Founder and Executive Executive Officer, Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO); Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Dr. Jane Aronson is a board-certified pediatrician and infectious diseases specialist who has worked in adoption medicine for the last 15 years. She is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO)which provides direct services to orphans all over the world to improve their development,health, growth, and education. WWO has programs in Ethiopia and Vietnam (HIV/AIDS services), Bulgaria, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Ecuador, China and soon there will be programs in Russia. She has received the Angel in Adoption Award 2000 and has been featured in many newspapers and magazines for her humanitarian work. She is a parent through international adoption.

Elizabeth Ashbourne, Results Secretariat, OPCS, World Bank

Elizabeth Ashbourne is responsible for the World Bank’s partnerships on managing for development results with OECD, donor agencies, and the private sector. She spent the last seven years working closely on issues specific to engaging the private sector in the fight against HIV/AIDS. As the focal point for private sector partnerships with the World Bank’s Africa Region, HIV/AIDS programs, her role was to develop and implement the mechanisms through which the private sector can access financial and technical resources from the Multicountry HIV/AIDS Program, the Bank’s $1.5billion investment in HIV/AIDS. She has worked in some 24 countries in Africa, and provides technical assistance in another 8. In addition, she facilitates global corporate relationships with the Bank and HIV/AIDS programs throughout Africa and the rest of the world.

Before coming to the Bank, Elizabeth Ashbourne spent three and a half years in Eastern Europe managing USAID training programs as Country Director in Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, and Deputy Director and Program Manager of a Management Training Institute in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Her other experience includes designing programs to encourage and facilitate joint ventures between developing country entrepreneurs and SMEs in the US; serving as the senior coordinator for international internship programs at the American University; adjunct professor, career planning and tracking, and human resources change management at Arthur D. Little’s Executive Management Program; and worked for the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri. She also spent two years in NYC working with the textile designer, Jack Lenor Larson.

She holds an MA in International Education, with an emphasis on Organizational Management from American University, in Washington DC, and a BSc in Communications and History from Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY.

Vidush Philip Athyal, MD, MPH, Fellow/Clinical Instructor, University of Rochester Medical Center

Dr. Vidush Athyal is a fellow and clinical instructor at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY. He recently graduated from the University of Rochester/Highland Hospital family practice residency program. He received his medical degree from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev/Columbia University, NY after completing an MPH with an emphasis in International Health from Loma Linda University, CA.

Dr. Athyalâ€™s special interests include international health, preventive medicine/public health, practice management and behavior change. He has traveled extensively with medical experience in Israel, Kenya, India, Honduras and Mexico. He has completed research projects in HIV/AIDS for the Centers for Disease Control, and in health care service delivery for the Mayo Clinic. His most recent global health experience includes helping the University of Rochester establish an international health clinic site in San Jose, Honduras serving approximately 700 families.

Hibah Ayaz, BS Candidate, Union College; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Chennai, India

Hibah Ayaz is a senior at Union College majoring in Neuroscience. She is passionate about volunteering and giving back to those that are less fortunate. Hibah has dedicated her time to volunteering in hospitals, clinics, schools and on a suicide hotline. In December of 2006 she traveled to Chennai, India to volunteer with the Unite For Sight team in an effort to give the gift of sight to hundreds of locals. She hopes to attend Optometry school in the near future and to continue to volunteer around the world.

Hibah thought that perhaps she could make a small difference by giving the gift of sight to the people of India. As part of a rural outreach program, she was able to help screen over 1000 villagers with Uma Eye Clinic and provide sight-restoring cataract surgeries to dozens, none of whom had access to eye care before UFS's arrival. Furthermore, she was able distribute over 500 prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses that were prescribed by optometrists. It was truly an eye-opening opportunity to experience first-hand, life in rural India.

Adeline Azrack, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Hopital Albert Schweitzer

Adeline Azrack is the Director of Monitoring and Evaluation for the Hopital Albert Schweitzer, an integrated rural health system that provides medical care and community health and development programs for more than 300,000 impoverished people in the Artibonite Valley of central Haiti. Adelineâ€™s evaluation work currently focuses on assessing the impact of the hospitalâ€™s child survival programs, which include maternal health, nutrition, and infectious disease interventions delivered at the community level by community health workers and traditional medical providers.

Adelineâ€™s prior experience includes working with high-risk children in New York City as the founder and director of the â€œI Have a Dreamâ€ Foundationâ€™s Youth Health Literacy Program, and with foundation-sponsored programs targeting child nutrition and farm worker health as the Vice President of Abundantia Consulting in San Francisco, CA.

Adeline received her MS in Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health and her BA in Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University.

Thomas Baah, MD, MSc, Ophthalmologist, Our Lady of Grace Hospital, Ghana

Dr. Thomas Tontie Baah is an ophthalmologist from Ghana. He describes himself as a dedicated foot soldier in the frontline of the battle against preventable blindness. Devestated by the sudden and needles death of his mother’s seventh born from measles, a preventable and treatable infection, Dr. Baah was challenged to become a doctor at the tender age of 12. He was in class six in a village school. He told everyone that he wanted to become a doctor, but he says that the odds were against him. Painful childhood experiences of living with a blind uncle who had gone blind long before he was born motivated him to pursue a career in ophthalmology. In 1998, Dr. Baah started an eye clinic in a mission hospital, the Our Lady of Grace Hospital in Breman Asikuma. The clinic has grown steadily over the years. It is now one of the leading eye clinics in Ghana in the forefront of the battle against preventable blindness. In addition to his training in ophthalmology in Ghana and India, Dr. Baah obtained his MSc in Community Eye Health in England. He was trained in India in phacoemulsification and other advanced ophthalmic techniques. His relationship with Unite For Sight started two years ago, and he is a close partner of Unite For Sight.

Abrahim Bagheri, BS Candidate, Loyola Marymount University; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Chennai, India

Abrahim Bagheri is a senior majoring in biology at Loyola Marymount University. There, he serves as the president of the Unite for Sight chapter.

In December 2006, he traveled to Chennai, India to volunteer with Uma Eye Clinic. During his two-week stay in Chennai, Abrahim visited five villages where he participated in screening more than 500 patients, scheduling more than 80 cataract surgeries, and distributing more than 250 eyeglasses to patients.

In addition to his humanitarian work abroad, Abrahim has worked as an intern at Mayo Graduate School where he performed research on Atopic Dermatitis.

Robert Bailis, PhD, Assistant Professor, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Rob Bailis is an Assistant Professor in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale. He conducts research and teaches courses on the human dimensions of energy and environmental issues in the developing world. He served as a Peace Corps Voulnteer in Kenya in the mid-1990s and continues working there on a variety of research projects.

Michele Barry, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine and Global Health Director, Office of International Health; Chief, General Medicine Firm, Yale University School of Medicine

Michele Barry, MD, FACP is a Professor of Medicine and Global Public Health at Yale University where she is the Director of Yale's Office of International Health. She also serves as the health consultant for the Ford Foundation overseas programs. As co-director for over 20 years of Yale/Johnson and Johnson Physician Scholar Award program, she has sent over 800 physicians overseas to underserved areas. As a past President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, she led an educational initiative in tropical medicine and travelers health which culminated in diploma courses in tropical medicine both in the U.S. and overseas, as well as a U.S. certification exam. Dr. Barry is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and National Academy of Science where she served on a task force to develop options to mobilize a volunteer U.S. Global Health Service Corps for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. She is Chair of the Interest Group on Global Health, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences, Executive Board Chairperson of the Professional Education and Training Committee at the International Society of Travel Medicine, and Chair of the Public Health Technical Advisory Board for the State of Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

Areas of interest include clinical tropical medicine, emerging infectious diseases, problems of underserved populations and globalizationâ€™s impact upon health in the developing world. She has written extensively in the areas of clinical tropical diseases, traveler and refugee health, ethical dilemmas of western researchers working in developing countries as well as how multinational industries and sanctions can impact health.

Ravin Bastiampillai, BSc Student, University of Alberta

Ravin Bastiampillai is a pre-medical student, currently in his fourth year in a BSc General program at the University of Alberta. Although he holds a strong interest in Biological Science, Ravin's main focus is to attain an entrance into Medical School, where he hopes to achieve his lifelong dream of practicing Medicine internationally in areas where the need is the greatest.

Additionally, Ravin is the President of the University of Alberta's UFS Chapter, and is also an executive of the Pre-Medical Students'

Association on his campus.

Ravin traveled to Chennai, India, in May 2006 through the Unite for Sight internship program, where he says that he experienced the uplifting nature of volunteering internationally. His three weeks in India involved learning about the eye and eye diseases at the local eye clinic, visiting village camps to screen for potential patients, and observing phaco-emulsification cataract removal surgeries.

Georges Benjamin, MD, Executive Director, American Public Health Association

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E) is well known in the world of public health as a leader, practitioner and administrator. Benjamin has been the executive director of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the nation's oldest and largest organization of public health professionals, since December 2002. He came to that post from his position as secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where he played a key role developing Maryland's bioterrorism plan. Benjamin became secretary of the Maryland health department in April 1999, following four years as its deputy secretary for public health services.

Benjamin, of Gaithersburg, Md., is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine and a fellow of the American College of Physicians; he is also a Fellow Emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Habib Benzian, , MSc, Director Public Health & Development, FDI World Dental Federation, France

Dr Habib Benzian is Director for Public Health And Development at the FDI World Dental Federation, the global representative organisation of dentistry, based in Ferney Voltaire near Geneva, Switzerland. The FDI has members in more than 140 countries and represents over one million dentists worldwide (see http://www.fdiworldental.org)

Dr Benzian has a degree in Dental Public Health and extensive experience in designing, managing and evaluating projects around the globe. He is responsible for all public health and health promotion activities of the FDI World Dental Federation, which includes projects in more than 50 countries. He has organised numerous international conferences and meetings on global oral health and is a strong advocate for prevention and access to affordable oral care. He has published papers about tobacco control and the role of the dental team, dental NGOs and volunteerism and affordability of oral care in developing countries.

Dr Benzian is member of the Oral Health Advisory Group to the Millennium Village Project and has helped in the development of an Essential Package for Oral Care that aims as providing basic oral care for less than 1USD/per person and year.

Elvira Beracochea, MD, MPH, Founder, President and CEO, MIDEGO

Dr. Elvira Beracochea is a development doctor. Development doctors have unique public health mission: to reach the Millennium Development Goals – for her that means thinking big about ensuring quality health services for every woman, man and child and create ways of reaching 1% of that goal every day. Dr. Beracochea is a professional speaker, writer and consultant and founder, president and CEO of MIDEGO, Inc., a consulting firm that provides innovative global public health and international development solutions for the reaching the Millennium development Goals. It is her "Think Big and Reach 1% Every Day" philosophy that inspires health workers worldwide to join MIDEGO's coaching programs, and that attracts a very talented team of professionals that keep MIDEGO’s projects productive and successful. This unique philosophy is the result of more than 20 years experience as physician, public health and international development expert, health policy advisor, epidemiologist, researcher, health systems and hospital manager, university teacher and health management consultant and coach in Latin America Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and South Pacific. Dr. Beracochea's book "Health for All Now" presents this strategy and shows how to make it work with the right tools, attitude and determination.

P. Berman, OD, FAAO, Senior Global Clinical Advisor and Founder, Special Olympics Lions Clubs, International Opening Eyes

Dr. Paul Berman is an Optometrist and owner of Focus Eye Health and Vision Care, in New Jersey. He is Chairman of the Coalition to Prevent Sports Eye Injuries, Director of Professional Relations and Education of Liberty Sport, and the past Chair of the AOA Sports Vision Section and consultant to professional sports teams. He is proudest of being Founder and Senior Global Clinical Advisor of Special Olympics Lions Clubs International Opening Eyes.

He has lectured globally on sports vision, vision care for persons with intellectual disabilities, and global refractive error. He has received many awards, including the AOA Sports Vision Optometrist of the Year, the New Jersey Optometrist of the Year, and the World Council of Optometryâ€™s International Optometrist of the year. But for him the joy is in the doing.

Paul Berman, Paul Berman, OD, FAAO, Chairman, The Coalition to Prevent Sports Eye Injuries

Julie Bernas-Pierce, MEd, Executive Director, Blind Babies Foundation

Julie Bernas-Pierce holds a Bachelor Degree in Elementary Education from the College of St. Mary’s of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana and a Masters of Education in Special Education, Visual Impairments from Boston College.

Ms. Bernas-Pierce has been associated with Blind Babies Foundation as a Board member, Program Director and Executive Director since 1991, following an eighteen year career as a teacher of children with visual impairments. She has served on the advisory boards and/or as a lecturer at San Francisco State University and California State University, Los Angeles.

In 2004, Ms. Bernas-Pierce represented Blind Babies Foundation through the PartNER Project in the Volga Region of Russia, sponsored by USAID, the United States Agency for International Development and administered by IREX, the International Research and Education Exchange. This collaboration provided technical assistance to establish early intervention services for families of young children whose multiple disabilities included vision loss.

Gail Calvello received a B.A. with Honors in Liberal Arts from the University of Maine and a M.A. in Education at San Francisco State University. She has pursued post-graduate work at Santa Rosa Junior College, College of Marin, Wichita State University, and Sonoma State University.

Gail’s work experience includes teaching secondary English in Connecticut, Maine, and California and serving as an Itinerant Teacher of the Visually Impaired, grades 7-12 in the San Francisco area. Gail served for seven years as the Coordinator of the Local Interagency Coordination Area in a three-county area in Northern California to implement the Public Law I.D.E.A. (Individuals with Disability Education Act). Gail worked for fifteen years as a Vision Impairment Specialist and Outreach Coordinator for the Blind Babies Foundation. She is currently a Program Director for the agency. Gail served as the Project Coordinator for the Russian PartNER Project in Nizhniy Novgorod. Sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Research and Education Exchange (IREX), this project supported the establishment of a parent education model for families of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in the Volga Region of Russia.

Terry Blaschke, MD, Professor of Medicine and of Molecular Pharmacology (Active Emeritus), Stanford University School of Medicine

Terrence F. Blaschke, MD, is Professor of Medicine and of Molecular Pharmacology (Active Emeritus) at Stanford University School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Biopharmaceutical Sciences at UCSF and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Indiana University. Dr. Blaschke received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and after residency training in Internal Medicine at UCLA Center for Health Sciences, he was a Clinical Associate in the NCI/Metabolism Branch at the National Institutes of Health. Following fellowship training in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Blaschke joined the faculty at Stanford in 1974.

Dr. Blaschkeâ€™s research has been primarily related to the clinical pharmacology of drugs used in patients with HIV infection, with an emphasis on modeling exposure-response relationships and medication adherence. He was a member of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) at its inception, and served as chair of the Pharmacology Committee and a member of the Executive Committee of the ACTG. His current efforts in HIV are directed at questions related to the use of antiretroviral agents in less developed countries. He is a member of the Tibotec Global Access Program Advisory Board and a Scientific Advisor to the Institute for OneWorld Health

Dr. Blaschke is a past president of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT). He is the recipient of the Rawls-Palmer award, the Henry W. Elliott award and the Oscar B. Hunter award from ASCPT. He has been a consultant, past Chair of the Generic Drugs Advisory Committee and a past member of the Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee for the US FDA. He chaired the Drug Utilization Review Panel of the United States Pharmacopoeia from 1995-2000. He is an Associate Editor of the Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Susan Blumenthal, MD, MPA, Former US Assistant Surgeon General, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown School of Medicine and Tufts University Medical Center; Senior Medical Advisor, amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research

Rear Admiral Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.A, an internationally recognized health expert, served as U.S. Assistant Surgeon General and Senior Science and E-Health Advisor in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University School of Government. She is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown and Tufts Schools of Medicine and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Women's Studies at Brandeis University. Dr. Blumenthal served as the government's top women's health expert as the first ever Deputy Assistant Secretary of Women's Health and a White House advisor on these issues. She has been a pioneer in bringing women's health to increased scientific and public attention and has also been a major force in advancing other public health issues including global health, mental illness, disease, suicide and violence prevention. Dr. Blumenthal has been at the forefront of the national response to terrorism and other emerging disease threats including pandemic flu. She has been a leader in applying information technology to improve health establishing several award winning health websites. Dr. Blumenthal has written numerous articles and books and served as the health columnist for US News and World Report and Elle magazines, as host and medical director for an award-winning television series on health and for a Discovery Channel/American Film Institute film series on global health. A leading national health advocate and spokesperson, Dr. Blumenthal has briefed Presidents, Heads of State and Health Ministers, testified before Congress, and often appeared as a medical expert on national television and news programs. She has received many honors for her landmark, innovative contributions and leadership in improving health and has been named as one of the most important and influential women in medicine.

Neil Boothby, EdD, Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health; Director, Program on Forced Migration and Health, Mailman School of Public Health

Neil Boothby is an internationally recognized expert and advocate for children affected by war and displacement. Prior to coming to Columbia University, he was senior representative of UNICEF, UNHCR and Save the Children and worked for two decades with children in crises in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Now, as Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health and Director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University, he oversees a comprehensive graduate training program that prepares health professionals to work effectively in the field of humanitarian response. Dr. Boothbyâ€™s research focuses on the impact of violence and displacement on children, and the efficacy of international efforts to protect them. Dr. Boothby is author of articles and books on children and war, and also the recipient of awards for his fieldwork, including the Red Cross Humanitarian of the Year Award, for his work with child soldiers, the Mickey Leyland Award, for his work on behalf of uprooted people, and the United Nationâ€™s Golden Achievement Award, for excellence in the social sector.

Philippe van den Bossche, Executive Director, Raising Malawi

Philippe van den Bossche has served as Executive Director of Raising Malawi since its inception in January, 2006. Raising Malawi, co-founded by Madonna and Michael Berg (co-Director of The Kabbalah Centre), is a humanitarian aid program designed to revitalize the lives of hundreds of thousands of orphaned and vulnerable children in Malawi, Africa. Philippe has served as an officer, executive administrator, consultant and advisor to several not-for-profit organizations. His previous work focused on strategic planning, organizational development, advancement and fiscal integrity.

Before assuming his role as Executive Director, Philippe traveled extensively in Europe, Central America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to meet with leaders in development, healthcare, economics, and education, as well as government officials, non-government agency leaders, local community-based organizations, religious leaders and countless men, women and children living in areas permeated by disease, poverty, war and starvation.

An impassioned and committed volunteer, Philippe also serves as Director of Development for Spirituality for Kids (SFK), an international educational non-profit organization serving tens of thousands of underprivileged children in the United States, Europe, South America, Africa and the Middle East. At SFK, Philippe advances the organization's critical work of empowering children, particularly those who are affected by war, poverty, and neglect.

Philippeâ€™s professional interests include development, health, and education in developing countries, new approaches to peacemaking in the Middle East, and global childrenâ€™s issues.

Peter Bourne, MA, MD, Visiting Scholar, Oxford University; Vice Chancellor Emeritus, St. George's University; Formerly Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Health Issues; Chair, Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC)

Peter G. Bourne, MD, MA is a Visiting Scholar at Green College, University of Oxford, Vice Chancellor Emeritus of St. George’s University, Grenada and chairman of Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC). Dr Bourne served as Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Health Issues in the Carter White House and later as an Assistant Secretary General at the United Nations where he directed the "International Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade." In that capacity he launched the global campaign to eradicate the disease caused by guinea worm later convincing President Carter to join the effort. He has also served as a consultant to and on the board or chairman of numerous non-profit organizations including Save the Children, Health and Development International, the American Association for World Health, Global Water and The Hunger Project. He is the author of more than a hundred articles and book chapters and has authored or edited nine books. He is the producer of the award-winning, documentary film, !Salud! dealing with the global health challenge and Cuba’s role in meeting it around the world.

While in the White House, Dr Bourne convinced President Carter to include blindness worldwide as an international health priority in the first address on the topic by any US president. He was also instrumental in the creation of Project Orbis. Over thirty years working to build bridges with the health system in Cuba he has followed closely Cuba’s commitment to the visually impaired and especially "Operacion Milagros," which has made them by far the most consequential players in the field of sight in this hemisphere.

Major Bradshaw, MD, Founding Dean, University of Botswana School of Medicine

In July of 2006 Major Bradshaw became tne Interim Founding Dean of the University of Botswana School of Medicine. He is an internist specializing in infectious diseases. Prior to coming to Botswana he was Senior Vice President, Dean of Medical Education, and Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He had served the institution in various deanship capacities for 30 years.

Michael Brennan, MD, President-Elect, American Academy of Ophthalmology

Dr. Michael W. Brennan practices comprehensive ophthalmology in Burlington, North Carolina, after a 20 year career in the U.S. Army. A West Point graduate, Dr. Brennan received a Masters in Aeronautics at Stanford University. He served as an Army aviator in Vietnam and instructor at West Point. Dr. Brennan was a finalist in the NASA space shuttle selection process. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Texas. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at Brooke Army Medical Center, Ft. Sam Houston, Texas and served as Chief of Surgery at Fort Bragg, NC.

Dr. Brennan is the past president of the N. C. Society of Eye Physicians and Surgeons and has served on numerous State Medical Society committees. He has formulated state and federal governmental affairs policies for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and currently serves as the AAO President-Elect. He is a member of the Pan American Association of Ophthalmology Executive Committee and a number of international ophthalmology societies

His special interests include the development of physician leaders and the empowerment of physician organizations. He has conducted physician leadership programs for many Latin American, European and Middle Eastern countries. He directs Medical Alliance for Iraq, volunteer US and UK physicians who collaborate with the Iraqi Medical Specialty Society and the Iraq Ministry of Health for the delivery of continuing medical education.

Harry S. Brown, MD, Founder, Surgical Eye Expeditions (SEE) International

Dr. Brown is the founder of Surgical Eye Expeditions International, a humanitarian organization established to restore sight through surgery among the indigent blind of the world. The organization is often referred to by the acronym, SEE.

Under the auspices of SEE, medical teams led by eye surgeons bring their skills to blind patients in countries as distant as Borneo, Zimbabwe, Peru, and Mongolia, among many others. All SEE's eye-care professionals perform their services without compensation, and defray their own expenses.

Dr. Brown, a board-certified ophthalmologist, donated his services as Medical Director of SEE from its founding under his direction in 1974 until his retirement from active medical and surgical practice in 1992. During those years he participated as an operating surgeon in 89 of SEE's clinics. He has served the organization in the capacity of Chairman of the Board, President and CEO. SEE's headquarters are located in Santa Barbara, California.

After completing his naval service, Dr. Brown attended medical school at George

Washington University in Washington, D.C., from which he graduated in 1959. He then practiced general medicine in Riverside, Calif., until 1967 when he was admitted to the Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA Medical Center for residency training in the specialty of

ophthalmology. Dr. Brown established a private ophthalmology practice in Santa

Barbara, California in 1971, and began formulating the concept that was to take shape as the SEE organization.

For services to mankind accomplished by the organization he founded, Dr. Brown has received recognition and awards in the United States and abroad. He has been honored by a tribute from the United States House of Representatives. The American Academy of Ophthalmology recognized him with its Outstanding Humanitarian Award and Special Recognition Award. Lions Club International bestowed on him its International President Award. The George Washington University Alumni Association recognized Dr. Brown with its Community Service Award, and he has received the Hampton Roy Medal from the World Eye Foundation. The St. Louis Society for the Blind and Visually Impaired honored him with the Leslie Dana Gold Medal Award. Rotary International bestowed on him its Paul

Harris Award. The Santa Barbara News-Press recognized him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Dr. Brown was elected a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1980.

John Bryant, PhD, Professor, Johns Hopkins University

Public Health physician with extensive experience in developing countries -- five years in Thailand; 10 years in Pakistan; and many years in visiting work in Africa.

Currently completing chapter for the Encyclopedia of Public Health on the Alma-Ata -- The Evolving Story of Primary Health Care. This is being pursued in coordina-tion with Dr. Margaret Chan's (DG, WHO) insistence on revitalization of Primary Health Care. On the faculties of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health; Great Lakes University of Kisumu, Kenya; University of Virginia; and Emeritus Professor, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.

Richard Bucala, MD, PhD, Yale University School of Medicine

Rick Bucala is Professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University. He focuses his research on the role of host immunity in infectious diseases and the host-pathogen interaction. Dr. Bucala directs genetic epidemiology studies to examine the role of innate immunity in the susceptibility and manifestations of different infections. Ongoing studies are presently underway in severe malaria (Macha Malaria Research Institute and University of Lusaka in Zambia) and in leishmaniasis (CIDEIM, Colombia). Among his research accomplishments are the discovery of the circulating fibrocyte, and the cloning and characterization of variant alleles of the innate cytokine gene, MIF. Dr. Bucala has developed low-cost and robust biosensor chips that are suitable for genetic analyses of pathogen or host DNA in rural field settings. Complementary investigations in the laboratory are employed to validate novel hypotheses and identify genes and molecular pathways for further study.

Dr. Bucala received his BS and MS degrees from Yale University, and his combined MD/PhD degree from Rockefeller University. He pursued post-graduate work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and then trained in Internal Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. After faculty positions at Rockefeller University and the Picower Institute, where he was also Scientific Director, he joined Yale in 2002. Dr. Bucala has served on Yale’s Committee on International Health, a United Nations (IAEA) committee for global health, and was recently visiting Professor of Medicine in Chongqing, China.

Donald Budenz, MD, MPH, Professor of Ophthalmology, Epidemiology, and Public Health, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Donald L. Budenz, MD, MPH, graduated magna cum laud and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania and received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He completed an Ophthalmology residency at the University of Pennsylvania, Scheie Eye Institute. Dr. Budenz then completed a Heed Foundation Fellowship in Glaucoma at the University of Miami School of Medicine, where he subsequently became a faculty member. In 2004, he received a Masters in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is currently professor of Ophthalmology, Epidemiology, and Public Health at the University of Miami, School of Medicine.

He is an editorial reviewer for several medical journals, including Ophthalmology, Archives of Ophthalmology, American Journal of Ophthalmology, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Retina, Eye, and Ophthalmic Surgery and Laser Therapy and is on the editorial board of Journal of Glaucoma. Dr. Budenz has been the principal investigator in a number of clinical trials including the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study. Concurrent with his research, Dr. Budenz has been published widely in the field of glaucoma; he has authored a textbook, Atlas of Visual Fields, contributed chapters to several other books, and written or coauthored more than 90 peer-reviewed journal articles. He is senior instructor of a graduate course entitled Clinical Trials in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami School of Medicine.

Dr. Budenz is the recipient of a Golden Apple Award for Best Resident Teacher (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine) and has received the teaching award for Best Course in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities, hospitals, and medical societies worldwide.

Dale Buscher, Director, Protection Program, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children

Dale Buscher, Protection Program Director, leads the Women's Commission’s work on refugee livelihoods, displaced out-of-school youth, gender and UN advocacy in New York. Mr. Buscher has been working in the refugee assistance field since 1988 in a variety of capacities. He worked with Vietnamese boat people in the Philippines and later with Haitian refugees interned at Guantanamo Bay. He has worked with displaced Kurds in Northern Iraq, with Bosnian refugees in Croatia and with Kosovars in Albania and in Kosovo. He went on to work as the Director of Operations for the International Catholic Migration Commission in Geneva where he oversaw the organization’s $25 million international programs – covering 20 countries and 800 staff. He started numerous new programs for the organization, including during extended field postings in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Additionally, Mr. Buscher has worked as a consultant for UNHCR where he wrote a field handbook entitled Operational Protection in Camps and Settlements. Dale earned his Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Utah and earned a Bachelors of Science degree from Iowa State University.

Ann Campbell, RN, MSN, CPNP, Old Dominion University/Operation Smile International

Ann Campbell, RN, MSN, CPNP is a senior lecturer at Old Dominion University in Norfolk Virginia. She practices part time as an RN at Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughters She has been an active volunteer at Operation Smile International, an organization that provides surgery to children around the world with cleft lip and palates.

Ann is on the Nursing Council at Operation Smile and received the "Volunteer of the Year" award in 2007. She has participated in missions around the world as well as the domestic programs such as World Care and the Physician Training Program. Ann was instrumental in developing the first Operation Smile Nurse Training Program last year which brought 7 international nurses to the Old Dominion campus for advanced surgical and airway training using simulation.

Michael Cappello, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine; Director, Yale World Fellows Program

Michael Cappello MD is Professor of Pediatrics, Microbial Pathogenesis, and Epidemiology & Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Cappello directs a laboratory and field based research program focused on the pathogenesis, epidemiology and treatment of soil transmitted nematode infections. Much of this work has focused on hookworms, bloodfeeding intestinal parasites that infect nearly one billion people in resource limited countries. Collaborative studies of hookworm immunoepidemiology are currently underway in Latin America (Peru, Guatemala) and West Africa (Ghana). In 2006, he was named a Global Health Ambassador by the Paul G. Rogers Society of Research!America, the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance working to make research to improve health a higher national priority.

In addition to his research, Dr. Cappello provides clinical care as an Infectious Diseases specialist at Yale-New Haven Childrenâ€™s Hospital and serves as Co-Director of the Yale International Adoption Clinic. In 2002, he founded the Yale Program in International Child Health, which coordinates global initiatives in Pediatric research, clinical care and medical education. In 2007 President Richard Levin appointed Dr. Cappello Director of the Yale World Fellows Program, an initiative that brings 18 emerging global leaders from various disciplines to Yale for a semester of intensive academic enrichment and leadership training.

Kristin Ow Chapman, MD Candidate, NYU School of Medicine

Kristin Ow Chapman earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology and minored in music at Pepperdine University and is currently a first year medical student at New York University School of Medicine (NYUSoM). She served as a summer volunteer in Bihar, India in May-June 2006. Her interest in visual health began in high school where she served as president for a Leo Club, affiliated with Lions Club International. She worked with Leos and Lions at Camp Pacifica, a summer camp for the deaf and blind. In college, she helped the Los Angeles Blind Children's Center and Junior Blind of America in the STEP Program helping young sight impaired students gain confidence and independence at school and in their lives. She is presently a member of the Unite for Sight chapter at NYUSoM.

Nancy Chin, MPH, PhD, MA, Assistant Professor, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, University of Rochester

Nancy Perini Chin received her Ph.D. in Anthropology and her MPH from the University of Rochester. She is on the faculty of the Department of Community & Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester, where she is also the Associate Chair for Education. Dr. Chinâ€™s basic research has focused on the intersection of society, culture and health. For the past 3 years she has co-directed a research team working in Tibet, where they have been trying to identify and address general health needs and reduce maternal mortality rates in the region.

James Clarke, MD, Ophthalmologist and Medical Director, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana

Dr James Afful Clarke graduated from the University of Ghana Medical School with an MBChB. After a year of internship at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana, he worked as a General Practitioner and did a General Surgery Residency at the University of Saarland Medical Faculty, Germany and thereafter practiced as a general surgeon in Ghana. In 1996, he obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Ophthalmology from the West African Postgraduate Medical College and has since been practicing as an ophthalmology. He also holds a Diploma in Community Health and Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in Berlin, Germany.

Dr. Clarke has done various clinical attachments at the University of Saarland Eye Clinic in Germany, Wake Forest Eye Center, Winston-Salem in North Carolina, Wheaton Eye Clinic in Chicago, and is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. He now runs an eye clinic in Accra, Ghana, where he provides outreach services in eye care and provides various surgical procedures, including corneal transplantation. He is the only ophthalmologist providing corneal transplantation in Ghana. Dr. Clarke is also a member of Unite For Sight's Medical Advisory Board and works closely with Unite For Sight's volunteers in Ghana.

Anna Cooper, MPH, MD Candidate, University of Rochester School of Medicine; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Bihar, India

Anna Cooper is an M.D. candidate at the School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. In the summer of 2005, she volunteered for Unite for Sight in Patna, India. With a Masters degree in Public Health, she is interested in epidemiologic analyses of disease and systems-level influences on health care utilization and maintenance. Other interests include academic medicine (a representative in the Organization of Student Representatives of the American Association for Medical Colleges) and community-research partnerships (Board member and founder of the Western New York Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention).

Ismael Cordero, Advisor, Healthcare Technology, Orbis

Ismael Cordero is a Technical Advisor for Healthcare Technology with ORBIS International, a nonprofit humanitarian organization that strives to eliminate avoidable blindness and restore sight in the developing world. ORBIS works closely with local communities, governments and hospitals to design programs that increase local skills, improve health care facilities and foster awareness of eye health. In his role at ORBIS, Ismael provides technical assistance in the areas of healthcare technology management and ophthalmic equipment technology. Ismael has worked in and traveled to more than 30 countries all over the world. Prior to ORBIS he worked as a clinical engineer for several hospitals in Philadelphia. Ismael holds a B.S. in biomedical engineering technology from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA.

Scott Corlew, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Interplast

Scott Corlew is Chief Medical Officer of Interplast, a US-based NGO working to increase access and host-country capacity for reconstructive surgery in developing nations. In that role he oversees program development and evaluation, and edits Interplast Grand Rounds, a web-based consulting and educational project serving surgeons in geographically isolated areas. Prior to assuming this role, he practiced general surgery and plastic and reconstructive surgery, serving as Chief of Surgery at Middle Tennessee Medical Center and as president of a large multispecialty clinic. During this time he also worked as a volunteer in various developing countries. He practiced primary care medicine in the National Health Service Corps prior to his surgical residencies. His MD was from Emory University in 1981, his MPH in International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and he is certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

Rachel Davis, OD

After graduating at the top of her high school class, Dr. Rachel Davis joined the United States Navy. She worked as a Nuclear Machinists’ Mate on board the aircraft carrier, USS Theodore Roosevelt. Upon completion of her tour of service, she attended Old Dominion University and Western Illinois University and double majored in Biology and Chemistry.

After her undergraduate work, she elected to study optometry at Indiana University School of Optometry and became a member of the Volunteer Optometric Services for Humanity (VOSH). As a member of VOSH, she volunteered and helped treat over 3,500 people from the surrounding areas of Guanajuato, Mexico. Discovering a passion for this type of work, she then returned to Guanajuato for a three month internship in which she participated in opening the largest eye clinic and surgery center in Central America. After graduation from optometry school, Dr. Davis volunteered with Unite for Sight in Tamale, Ghana where she worked with Dr. Seth Wanye of the Tamale Teaching Hospital.

She currently practices in Chicago, Illinois, and is looking forward to future endeavors with Unite for Sight around the world.

Samantha Diamond, BA Candidate, Yale University; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Asikuma Breman, Ghana

Samantha Diamond is currently a sophomore at Yale University. She was a Unite For Sight volunteer in Asikuma Breman, Ghana, during Summer 2007. Her volunteer work with Unite For Sight was recently featured on CNN International.

Julia Dickinson, RN, Yale University School of Nursing

Julia Dickinson is currently in her final year of studies at Yale School of Nursing's Nurse-Midwifery program. She received her undergraduate degree in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and her RN from the Yale School of Nursing's Graduate Entry Pre-Specialty in Nursing program.

In the summer of 2007, Julia was awarded the The Downs International Health Student Travel Fellowship from Yale School of Medicine to carry out a research project regarding breastfeeding beliefs and practices in Ethiopia.

Kartee Karloweah and Robert Dolo, ON, RN, Ophthalmic Nurses, Unite For Sight-Ghana

Kartee Karloweah completed his Nursing Education at the Winifred J. Harley College of Health Sciences, United Methodist University, Monrovia, Liberia. He started his professional work in 2003 with Medecins Sans Frontier-France(MSF-France), an international NGO that provided emergency services in water, sanitation and mostly health during the Liberia civil war. At MSF-France Emergency Hospital in Monrovia, he served in the position of a Registered Nurse(RN) in the Emergency Room and Surgical Ward.

When he recognized the need for higher education, he enrolled at the Ophthalmic Nurses Training School, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra, Ghana in 2004. After completing the curriculum, he was given an Advanced Diploma in Ophthalmic Nursing. Kartee Karloweah is affiliated with some renowned eye centers in Ghana, including the Eye Department, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital Accra, Ghana and the Bawku Presbyterian Eye Center in the Upper East Region of Ghana. He returned home in 2006 and began work with the Medecins Sans Frontier-Switzerland(MSF-CH). In 2007, he joined the Unite For Sight program in Ghana. Presently, he is in charge of the Unite For Sight Screening Center in Achimota, Accra, and he also conducts outreaches in the rural villages. Kartee Karloweah is a member of the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) International Association, and Nurses and Midwives association of Liberia.

Cody Donahue, Director of Partnerships, Tostan Empowered Commmunities Network

Cody grew up in Oregon and studied at Oregon State University, majoring in Political Science and International Studies, minoring in French, and earning a Certificate in Peace Studies. During his undergraduate studies, Cody studied abroad at the Institute d'Etudes Politiques in Lyon, France from 2003-2004, earning a Certificate of Political Studies.

Cody went on to complete an undergraduate internship with an international nongovernmental organization, Tostan, in Senegal for six months in 2004. That experience has brought him back to Tostan and West Africa many subsequent times--working for Tostan Guinea from 2005-2006, and then in various capacities for the NGO from the United States. In 2006, Cody began attending the SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont, working towards a Master of Arts in sustainable development and nonprofit management. The second year of the SIT program is spent working in the field, which for Cody meant returning full-time to Tostan as Director of Partnerships, a role he continues to play in Washington DC now in 2008. He will present his thesis on monitoring of community-based groups in Senegal in May 2008. Cody speaks French and Spanish in addition to English.

Syril K. Dorairaj, MD, Glaucoma Associates of New York, The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Medical Center

Dr. Dorairaj completed his residency in Ophthalmology at the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology in Bangalore, India. Subsequently, he entered into a fellowship in Ophthalmic Molecular Genetics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India followed by a clinical research fellowship in Glaucoma at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, New York, under the preceptors Drs. Robert Ritch, Jeffrey Liebmann, and Celso Tello.

Dr. Dorairaj has authored numerous medical and scientific book chapters, articles, and abstracts. He is a peer reviewer for several journals in Ophthalmology including the Journal of Glaucoma, Ophthalmology, the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, and Eye. Dr. Dorairaj is a member of the International Members Committee and Host a Researcher Program of the Association of Research and Vision in Ophthalmology. He also serves as the Executive Director of Lindberg Society for Research in Exfoliation Syndrome. Dr. Dorairaj has also served on the Education Distribution Task Force division of the International Assistance Committee of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Dr. Dorairaj has given numerous talks on Glaucoma across United States. His current research focuses on clinical applications of anterior segment imaging and genetics in early diagnosis and management of glaucoma.

Margaret Duah-Mensah, RN, ON, Ophthalmic Nurse, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana

Margaret Duah-Mensah received her nursing education in the Central Region of Ghana and worked as a general nurse at the Cape Coast Central Hospital. In 1989, she started eye care work in Cape Coast, also in the Central Region, in a clinic called Christian Eye Center, which was initiated in 1989 by two American ophthalmologists, including Dr. Peter Egbert. Intraocular lens implant after cataract surgery was started in this clinic.

In the face of few eye clinics to deal with the huge need in Ghana, Margaret was transferred to help establish an eye clinic in Sunyani, a city in the middle belt of Ghana. There were no resident doctors at the clinic. Margaret ran the day-to-day clinic and also screened patients for visiting American doctors, including Professor Peter Egbert.

After years of working in this position, Margaret was transferred to assist Dr. Herbert Billman in the establishment of the Emmanuel Eye Clinic in Accra, which provided eye care to patients from all over Ghana and other parts of West Africa. In the early days, most of the surgeries were performed by American doctors. Margaret also worked with Ghanaian doctors who later joined the team.

In 2003, Margaret joined Crystal Eye Clinic to assist Dr. Clarke in running the clinic and performing surgeries. Crystal Eye Clinic is a partner of Unite For Sight, and Margaret has provided numerous outreach screenings for Unite For Sight programs over the past two years. She provides eye care regularly at Buduburam Refugee Camp and other remote villages throughout Ghana.

William D. Evans, PhD, Vice President, Research Triangle Institute

W. Douglas Evans serves as Vice President of RTI's Public Health and Environment Division. Dr. Evans has published extensively on media influences on health risk behavior, including the effects of social marketing on behavior change. He has led numerous large-scale evaluations and intervention studies in the areas of tobacco control, obesity prevention, and reproductive health.

Dr. Evans currently conducts research on childhood obesity risk factors in the Western Cape region of South Africa. He is a co-investigator with researchers at the Medical Research Council of South Africa developing an intervention to prevent and control obesity risks among school-age children and their families. Dr. Evans is designing a social marketing campaign to reach parents that will be one arm of a combined intervention aimed at children in school. The overall intervention will be evaluated in a future randomized controlled trial.

Anthony Farah, MD Candidate, Jefferson Medical College

Anthony Farah is currently a second year medical student at Jefferson Medical College. He volunteered with Unite for Sight in New Delhi from July 1st - July 31st 2007. He has also organized several eye screenings at homeless shelters in the Philadelphia area with the Jefferson chapter of Unite for Sight.

Sheri Fink, MD, PhD, Kaiser Media Fellow; Visiting Scientist, Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health; Senior Fellow, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

Dr. Sheri Fink is a 2007-2008 Kaiser Media Fellow in Health. She has reported on humanitarian crises and on the HIV pandemic in Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas for print and broadcast media including BBC/PRI’s The World, Scientific American and Discover. Fink wrote the award-winning book War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival (Public Affairs, 2003) about Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. She has worked with humanitarian agencies in the U.S., Balkans, the north Caucasus, Central and Southeast Asia, southern Africa and the Middle East, responding to emergencies including Hurricane Katrina and the December 2004 Asian earthquake and tsunami. She is a senior fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, a visiting scientist at the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health and an adjunct associate professor at Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine’s Department of International Health and Development. Fink holds degrees from Stanford University School of Medicine (MD, PhD) and the University of Michigan (BS).

Susan Hall Forster, MD, Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Medical Studies, Department of Ophthalmology, Yale School of Medicine; Chief, Ophthalmology, Yale University Health Services

Doctor Susan Hall Forster, MD is an Associate Clinical Professor at Yale University School of Medicine in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science where she is the Director of Medical Studies. She is also the Chief of Ophthalmology at the Yale University Health Services and Medical Director of the Ophthalmology Department at the Hill Health Center. She is the faculty advisor for the Student Sight Savers Program at Yale.

Clark Freifeld, Healthmap.org

Clark Freifeld is the software architect and developer of HealthMap.org, a joint initiative of Harvard University and MIT. Clark has a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Yale University and has over seven years of experience developing Web applications. He’s interested in computational linguistics, Web-based user-interface design, data visualization, and technologies for developing countries. In his spare time, Clark tutors 8th graders in Boston, and has lived and taught & tutored in South Africa as well.

David Friedman, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and International Health, Johns Hopkins University

David S. Friedman, MD, MPH, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, Associate Professor in the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Senior Technical Advisor for Eye Health for ORBIS International. Dr. Friedman received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, completed his residency at Wills Eye Hospital and served as a glaucoma fellow with Dr. Harry Quigley. A recipient of a master’s degree in public health and a doctorate in chronic disease epidemiology from Johns Hopkins, Dr. Friedman was the recipient of a Clinician Scientist Award from the National Eye Institute in which he studied vision rehabilitation in nursing homes. He is a recipient of the Douglas Jahnigen Award from the American Geriatrics Society and has consistently carried out research on elderly populations, particularly as related to the impact of glaucoma on these individuals. He recently published the results of an NIH-funded study on the prevalence and impact of glaucoma on persons 75 years of age and older.

Dr. Friedman has worked overseas throughout his career researching eye disease prevalence in both India and China. He has focused on angle closure glaucoma and potential preventive strategies for this disease. Dr. Friedman continues to see patients, specializing in the medical and surgical treatment of glaucoma and cataract. Dr. Friedman has been advising ORBIS International for the past year and will present on the importance of partnerships in eyecare development.

Stephen Furlow, MD Candidate, University of Kentucky School of Medicine; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Accra, Ghana

Stephen Furlow is a third year medical student at the University of Kentucky. He has recieved a BS in Engineering and a MA in Education also from Kentucky. He volunteered in Acrra, Ghana during the July 2007. He currently plans to train in ophthalmology and participate in future UFS volunteer work.

Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director, The Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute; Director, The Marie-Josee and Henry R. Kravis Center for Cardiovascuclar Health; Richard Gorlin, MD/Heart Research Foundation Professor, Mount Sinai; Past-President, American Heart Association; Past President, World Heart Federation

Dr. Fuster serves The Mount Sinai Medical Center as Director of Mount Sinai Heart, the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute and the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Cardiovascular Health. He is also the Richard Gorlin, MD/Heart Research Foundation Professor, Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Among the seemingly countless positions of distinction that he holds are Past President of the American Heart Association, Immediate Past President of the World Heart Federation, a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a former member of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Advisory Council, and former Chairman of the Fellowship Training Directors Program of the American College of Cardiology. Seventeen distinguished universities throughout the world have granted him honoris causa. Dr. Fuster is President of the Scientific Advisory and External Evaluation Committee at the Fundacion Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) in Madrid, Spain

Dr. Fuster is the recipient of three major ongoing NIH grants. He has published more than 500 articles on the subjects of coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis and thrombosis, and he has become the lead Editor of two major textbooks on cardiology, 'The Heart' (previously edited by Dr. J. Willis Hurst) and "Atherothrombosis and Coronary Artery Disease" (with Dr. Eric Topol and Dr. Elizabeth Nabel). Dr. Fuster has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Nature journal that focuses on cardiovascular medicine.

Dr. Fuster is the only cardiologist to receive all four major research awards from the four major cardiovascular organizations: The Distinguished Researcher Award (Interamerican Society of Cardiology, 2005), Andreas Gruntzig Scientific Award (European Society of Cardiology, 1992), Distinguished Scientist (American Heart Association, 2003), and the Distinguished Scientist Award (American College of Cardiology, 1993).

In addition, he has received the Lewis A. Conner Memorial Award by the American Heart Association, the James B. Herrick Achievement Award from the Council of Clinical Cardiology of the American Heart Association, the 1996 Principe de Asturias Award of Science and Technology (the highest award given to Spanish-speaking scientists), the Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Cardiology, the Gold Heart Award (American Heart Association's highest award), and the Gold Medal of the European Society of Cardiology (Vienna, September 2007). In 2008, Dr. Fuster will receive the Kurt Polzer Cardiovascular Award from the European Society of Science and Arts.

After receiving his medical degree from Barcelona University and completing an internship at Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, Dr. Fuster spent several years at the Mayo Clinic, first as a resident and later as Professor of Medicine and Consultant in Cardiology. In 1981, he came to Mount Sinai School of Medicine as head of Cardiology. From 1991 to 1994, he was Mallinckrodt Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of Cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He returned to Mount Sinai in 1994 as Director of the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute and most recently, he has been named the Director of the Mount Sinai Heart.

Ulrick Gaillard, JD, Founder and Executive Director, The Batey Relief Alliance

Ulrick Gaillard, J.D., graduated from the Roger Williams University School of Law in the state of Rhode Island with a Juris Doctor Degree in 1996. He then founded in 1997 the Batey Relief Alliance (BRA) as a US-based 501(c)(3), tax-exempt, humanitarian aid organization delivering critical health and HIV/AIDS care and essential medicines to children and families severely affected by poverty, disease and hunger in the Caribbean.

In 2000, Ulrick Gaillard also founded the BRA Dominicana, a Dominican-based non-governmental organization with the mission of addressing health and HIV/AIDS crisis inside the Dominican Republic's impoverished bateyes, urban barrios and rural/border communities.

Ulrick Gaillard is the Chief Executive Officer for the Batey Relief Alliance and BRA Dominicana.

Visit BRA at www.bateyrelief.org.

Gabriel Garcia, MD, Professor of Medicine, Associate Dean of Medical School Admissions, Stanford University School of Medicine

Gabriel Garcia, M.D.

Dr. Gabriel Garcia is Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Medical School Admissions at Stanford University School of Medicine. He was born in Havana, Cuba and grew up in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. He received his A.B from Cornell University in 1973 and his M.D. from New York University in 1977. He is an internist and gastroenterologist who specializes in the care of patients with viral hepatitis and other liver diseases, and has research interests in the natural history and management of patients with liver diseases. In 2004 he was invited to provide testimony to the Institute of Medicine Committee on Institutional and Policy Level Strategies on Increasing the Diversity of the U.S. Health Care Workforce, and in 2005 was a key informant to the Sullivan Alliance..

He also directs a year-long undergraduate patient advocacy service-learning course at Stanford University that has developed a summer Community Health in Oaxaca program to address immigrant health issues. He has supervised an alternative spring break that addresses how we deliver health care to our most needy communities. In September of 2006 he was appointed Peter E. Haas Director of the Haas Center for Public Center at Stanford University.

Lan Gien, BSc, MEd, PhD, Professor of Nursing, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Dr Lan Gien had completed her basic baccalaureate nursing education in Colorado, USA, her Masters degree in Nursing Education at Columbia University, New York, USA and PhD degree from the University of London, in London, England. Most of her career has been with Nursing Education in Canada, teaching in both undergraduate and graduate programs and thesis supervision. Currently, she is Professor of Nursing at Memorial University of NL

Her funded research includes population health, health promotion, women’s health and international health. Dr Gien is also the Director of several large international projects, developing Primary health Care in Vietnam, funded by the Government of Canada, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Roger Goldberg, MD, MBA Candidate, Yale University School of Medicine

Roger Goldberg graduated magna cum laude from Yale College in 2000, and spent the following year as a Rotary International Ambassador of Goodwill studying tumor immunology at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Upon his return, Roger worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co., where he assisted healthcare companies with corporate strategy, business development, cost-reduction, and technology commercialization.

Roger is in the final year of a joint MD/MBA program at Yale University, and is currently applying for a residency training position in ophthalmology.

Silvia Golombek, Senior Vice President, Youth Service America

Silvia Blitzer Golombek, Ph.D.

As Sr. Vice President for Youth Service America, Silvia oversees the development and implementation of all programs and helps to shape the strategic direction of YSA's plans. Before coming to YSA, Silvia served as Learning Manager at the International Youth Foundation facilitating learning activities among youth practitioners around the world.She previously directed the leadership development programs of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute incorporating service-learning as part of the students' educational experience.

After completing her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, Silvia turned her dissertation - "A Sociological Image of the City: Through Children's Eyes" into Kids in Action, a civic engagement program based on the service-learning model that gives elementary school children the opportunity to be decision-makers and problem-solvers in their community.

Currently a faculty member of the Johns Hopkins University Carey School of Business, Silvia teaches courses on the sociology of childhood and youth to help adult students gain a new perspective of young people as vital social agents and assets to their communities. She also teaches inter-cultural communication as a vehicle to improve understanding in an increasingly diverse and inter-connected world.

Sarabeth Gottlieb, CNM, MS, Lecturer, Yale University School of Nursing

Sarabeth Gottlieb has been a Certified Nurse-Midwife for 30 years. Most of her clinical practice has been with the underserved women of New Haven, many of whom are immigrants from third world countries. In her current job as a full-time faculty member at Yale School of Nursing, she has a joint appointment at Yale-New Haven Hospital where she works at the Women’s Center. This is a clinic for the uninsured women of New Haven. She is part of the faculty practice for these women that offers them full scope midwifery care. Prior to being a midwife, she spent extensive time living in countries outside of the US. and consequently speaks several foreign languages. In 2006, she spent a month practicing midwifery in the Kwa-Zulu Natal area of South Africa with nurse-midwifery students and has spent time also giving care in rural Guatemala.

Katherine Graves-Abe, MIA, Director of Operations, International Center For Equal Healthcare Access (ICEHA)

Katie Graves-Abe is the Director of Operations for The International Center for Equal Healthcare Access. She has a degree in International Development from Columbia University and has significant experience living and working in Africa and Asia. Katie overseas the recruitment, screening and preparation of ICEHA clinical mentors while managing ICEHAâ€™s HIV clinical mentoring programs in resource-poor countries around the world.

Joe Graziano, PhD, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Pharmacology; Associate Dean for Research, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Professor of Environmental Health Sciences

and Pharmacology

Associate Dean for Research

The Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University

Director, The Columbia University Superfund Basic Research Program

Dr. Graziano has been a faculty member at the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University since 1979, and was Chairman of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health from 1991-2002, when he became Associate Dean for Research. Prior to that, he served on the faculties of The Rockefeller University and Cornell University Medical College. He was the founding director of Columbia University=s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan. He is widely known as an expert on childhood lead poisoning, and his laboratory developed the drug (Succimer) that is now widely used to treat this condition. In addition, from 1983-1998, he was the principal investigator of a 15-year NIEHS-funded prospective study of childhood lead poisoning, carried out in the mining town of Kosovska Mitrovica, in the former Yugoslavia (now Serbia). In 2000, Dr. Graziano became the founding director of the Columbia University Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP), entitled AHealth Effects and Geochemistry of Arsenic and Lead.@ The Columbia SBRP involves faculty from four schools of Columbia University, and includes geochemistry, hydrology and remediation research at four U.S. Superfund sites, as well as studies of arsenic metabolism and toxicity in families exposed to naturally occurring high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water in Bangladesh. His most recent research has discovered that both arsenic and manganese exposures are associated with cognitive deficits in children. His lab has also contributed to the recent findings from Bangladesh that folic acid facilitates arsenic methylation and elimination, leading to a decine in blood arsenic concentration.

Eric Green, PhD, MD Candidate, Stanford University School of Medicine

Eric Green is co-founder and President of Respira Design, a startup company that develops novel devices to improve asthma care in low-resource settings. He received an AB from Harvard College and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, where he is currently a candidate for the M.D. degree.

Nora Groce, PhD, Associate Professor and Director, Yale/WHO Collaborating Centre, Global Health Division, Yale School of Public Health

Dr. Groce is a medical anthropologist, interested in the area of global health and international development with particular emphasis on cross-cultural systems of health care and health as human rights issues. Her research interests include issues of disability in international health and development, violence as a global public health problem and equity in access to health care in ethnic and minority communities.

Dr. Groce serves as faculty advisor to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF)/Students Campaign for Child Survival: Physicians for Human Rights and serves regularly as an advisor to United Nations (UN) agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and a number of non-governmental organizations. She is also Director of the Yale/World Bank Global Survey on HIV/AIDS and Disability.

Michael Gyasi, MD, Ophthalmologist and Director of the Bawku Eye Care Program, Ghana

Dr. Michael Gyasi comes from the southern part of Ghana and practices ophthalmology in the most deprived regions in the northern part of the country. He is the head of the Eye Department of the Bawku Presbyterian Hospital in the Upper East region and Director of the Bawku Eye Care Program. His interests are in developing frameworks for high volume cataract programs.

Michael Gyasi., MD, Ophthalmologist and Director of the Bawku Eye Care Program, Ghana

Heskel M. Haddad, MD, Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology, New York Medical College

Dr. Haddad is a clinical professor of ophthalmology at New York Medical College. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Metabolic and Nutritional Ophthalmology Journal and Program Chairman of International Society on Metabolic Eye Disease. Dr. Haddad was born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq, and he received his medical degree from the Hebrew University Hadassah School of Medicine in Jerusalem, Israel. As President of Optoed Corp, Inc., Dr. Haddad provides ophthalmic services, including routine eye exams and surgeries, from his New York office. He specializes in cataract, strabismus, glaucoma, anterior segment, orbital and lasik.

Tenagne Haile-Mariam, MD, Assistant Professor, The George Washington University Medical School

Dr. Tenagne Haile-Mariam is an Emergency Medicine Physician with the Medical Faculty Associates of The George Washington University Medical Center. She serves as director of the Student Clerkship in Emergency Medicine and on several educational committees at the medical school. In addition, she is the associate director of international programs for the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine and in this capacity has been involved in the development and implementation of Emergency Medicine related programs in several countries. She is the co-chairman of the Ethiopian North American Health Professionals Association’s (ENAHPA) Emergency Medicine Task Force. ENAHPA is an organization that is responding to the health crisis in Ethiopia by facilitating the return of Ethiopian healthcare workers in diaspora. The Emergency Medicine Task Force has conducted lectures, workshops and training sessions for policy makers, healthcare workers, and founders. Due to sustained efforts of all involved, the first residency in Emergency Medicine has been approved by the Addis Ababa University Medical School. The group is also working with the Addis Ababa health bureau to revamp several Emergency Departments in the city.

Eva Harris, PhD, Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley; President, Sustainable Sciences Institute

Dr. Eva Harris is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the School of Public Health and Director of the Center for Global Public Health at UC Berkeley. She received a BA in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University and a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. At UC Berkeley, she developed a multidisciplinary approach to study the molecular virology, pathogenesis, and epidemiology of dengue, the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral disease in humans. Her field work focuses on laboratory-based and epidemiological studies of dengue in endemic Latin American countries, particularly in Nicaragua, where ongoing projects include clinical and biological studies of severe dengue, a pediatric cohort study of dengue transmission in Managua, and a project on evidence-based, community-derived interventions for prevention of dengue via control of its mosquito vector. She has also collaborated with investigators in the Department of Electrical Engineering at UC Berkeley to develop novel, rapid, low-cost diagnostic devices for point-of-care diagnosis of dengue and other infectious diseases. In 1997, Dr. Harris received a MacArthur â€œGeniusâ€ Award for her pioneering work over the previous ten years developing programs and working to build scientific capacity in developing countries to address public health and infectious disease issues. To continue and expand this work, in 1998 she founded a non-profit organization in San Francisco, Sustainable Sciences Institute (SSI; www.ssilink.org) and published a book on the subject with Oxford University Press. She was co-Director of the Fogarty International Center's "International Training and Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases" program at UC Berkeley from 1997-2003. In 2001, Dr. Harris was named a Pew Scholar for her work on dengue pathogenesis. In 2002, she received the Prytanean Faculty Award for outstanding women faculty as well as a national recognition award from the Minister of Health of Nicaragua for her contribution to scientific development, and she was selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. Dr. Harris has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, as well as a book on her international scientific work.

Eva Harris., PhD, Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley; President, Sustainable Sciences Institute

Jeannine Hatt, MD, Past-President, International Child Care USA; Board of Directors and Chair, International Child Care's Medical Resource Development Clinic

Dr. Jeannine Hatt received her medical degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston before completing a pediatric residency program at Bowman Gray School of Medicine's North Carolina Baptist Hospital.

Dr. Hatt is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and member of the Section on International Child Health. She has been involved in international volunteer medical activities since 1990 and is immediate past president of the US board of International Child Care (ICC). ICC is a health development organization with a children's hospital in Port-au-Prince and projects throughout most of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Dr. Hatt lives in Denison, Texas with her husband Dr. Charles Phelps. They have 3 children, all of whom have been involved in international health initiatives.

Anke Hemmerling, MD, PhD, MPH, UCSF Women's Global Health Imperative

Dr. Hemmerling is a Project Director at UC San Francisco Womenâ€™s Global Health Imperative and currently involved in microbicide research and the implementation of clinical trials. Additionally, she serves as a medical advisor for the NGO â€˜Venture Strategies for Health and Developmentâ€™.

Dr. Hemmerling received a MD and a PhD in Medical Sciences from Humboldt University Berlin and earned a MPH from the University of California at Berkeley.

During medical school and residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology she has repeatedly worked in various health projects and hospitals throughout Latin America. From 2004 â€“ 2007, she worked as a postgraduate research fellow for the Bixby Program at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and as a Director of Special Health Projects for â€˜Venture Strategies for Health and Developmentâ€™.

Her special interests center around international health and focus on access to abortion, training of traditional birth attendants, decreasing maternal mortality as well as female-controlled HIV prevention, infertility in developing countries, and the need for primary health care.

Leon Herndon, MD, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Duke University Eye Center

Leon W. Herndon, Jr., MD, is an Associate Professor of Ophthalmology with Tenure at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. He earned his MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and served his internship and residency at the University of North Carolina Hospital in Chapel Hill. Dr. Herndon then completed a clinical fellowship in glaucoma at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Dr. Herndon is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. He is on the editorial board of Glaucoma Today. He is an Associate Examiner for the American Board of Ophthalmology and has been involved in the Leadership Development Program of the AAO. He has authored numerous papers, lectured nationally and internationally, and participated in several research projects related to glaucoma. He currently serves as Medical Director of the Duke University Eye Center. Dr. Herndon has been recognized for his service in the community by receiving the Achievement Award from the AAO and the Dedicated Humanitarian Service Award presented by Dr. Leonel Fernandez Reyna, President of the Dominican Republic, on the occasion of the 2nd Ophthalmology Mission in the Dominican Republic. He serves as Faculty Advisor to the Duke chapters of Unite For Sight and Student Sight Savers Program. Both of these programs encourage eye screenings to detect potentially blinding diseases.

Dr. Herndonâ€™s research interests include genetic-linkage studies in glaucoma, novel treatment approaches in the diagnosis and management of glaucoma, and disparities in health care. Currently, he is studying families with a high prevalence of primary open angle glaucoma in Ghana, West Africa, where he is involved with a project that performs genetic linkage analysis in order to identify causative genes of the disease.

Steve Hudson, MD, JD, MPA, Ophthalmologist, Member of the Order of St. John (M.St..J), Unite For Sight Volunteer

Dr. Steven Hudson is an ophthalmologist in private practice at the Baltimore Washington Eye Center in Glen Burnie, Maryland. He earned his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, and completed his internship at the National Naval Medical

Center. In 2005, he completed his ophthalmology residency at the Medical University of South Carolina, where he served as Chief Resident. Dr. Hudson also holds a J.D. and a Certificate in Law and Health Care from the University of Maryland School of Law.

Dr. Hudson is a strong advocate of international volunteerism. He recently volunteered in Breman Asikuma, Ghana as a Unite for Sight volunteer ophthalmologist and at the St. John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem as a Member of the Order of St. John. He evaluates and treats patients with a wide range of medical and surgical eye diseases and is skilled in cataract surgery, glaucoma filtering techniques, and oculoplastics. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Ophthalmology and a member of the

American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.

Steven Hudson, MD, JD, MPA, Ophthalmologist, Unite For Sight Volunteer in Breman Asikuma, Ghana

American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.

Vanessa Hux, BS Candidate, Yale University; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Tamale, Ghana

Vanessa Hux is a junior at Yale University pursuing a BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. She first experienced Unite for Sight as a summer volunteer working with Dr. Seth Wanye in Tamale, located in the Northern Region of Ghana. Her volunteer work with Unite for Sight has been featured on CNN International. Vanessa plans to pursue a medical degree following her time at Yale, and in addition to service and public health also has a strong interests in the sciences. Vanessa is a Science, Technology, and Research Scholar Fellow. She is also a Community Health Educator, Student Ambassador, and Publicity Manager of the Yale Gospel Choir.

Omer Imtiazuddin, MBA, Health Portfolio Manager, Acumen Fund

Omer Imtiazuddin is the Health Portfolio Manager at Acumen Fund, a global social venture fund. Prior to joining Acumen Fund, he worked as a consultant for the International Finance Corporation leading the design of the Global Youth and Informal Enterprise Initiative. He also has experience in private equity having worked as an associate at Barnard & Co. LLC, a venture capital fund focusing on the communications, information technology and internet industries. Prior to that, he worked in investment banking at Morgan Stanley. Omer also has an extensive background in micro enterprise and small business development, having worked with ACCION, Womenâ€™s World Banking, Trickle Up and the Business Outreach Center Network. He received his BA from Yale University and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sarah Isbey, BA Candidate, Dartmouth College; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Tamale, Ghana

Sarah Isbey is currently a senior at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. She is pursuing a BA in Biology and Psychology. Originally from North Carolina, she has been inspired by the work of her grandfather and father who are both ophthalmologists. This past summer, Sarah worked with Unite for Sight in Tamale, Ghana assisting Dr. Seth Wanye in vision screenings and eye surgery preparation both in Tamale and in surrounding villages. During her time at Dartmouth, she has been involved in Club Tennis, Club Water polo, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and other mentoring organizations. After graduating, Sarah will be teaching biology in Washington, DC through Teach for America.

Ibrahim Jabr, President, International Trachoma Initiative

Ibrahim Jabr is the president of the International Trachoma Initiative, a public-private partnership between Pfizer & Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. He joined ITI in 2005 as its Vice President for Programs. Since that time he has taken a major role in guiding the work of ITI. He was a key player during the 2005 strategic planning process and has led the effort to expand the SAFE strategy into key countries. Working with governments and other NGOs, he has built partnerships committed to eliminating blinding trachoma by 2020. Throughout his work at ITI, he has stressed the need for result-oriented management of programs. He became interim president in May 2007 and was confirmed president in October 2007.

Prior to joining ITI, Mr. Jabr spent 29 years with UNICEF. He was directly responsible for program planning, implementation & monitoring while posted the Middle East. He worked in UNICEF-HQ in the Evaluation Office and later in the Geographic section. He assumed more senior responsibilities, starting in 1995, as UNICEF's Representative in Iran, then in D.R. Congo, Ethiopia and Pakistan. He retired after his Pakistan posting.

He has extensive experience in the area of child health development. He has worked with and overseen programs that use mass action and social mobilization as strategies for dealing with this important field.

Mr. Jabr is fluent in Arabic, English and French, and has basic knowledge of Spanish, Farsi and Amharic.

Rebecca Hardin and Menan Jangu, PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment and Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan

Menan Jangu is a PhD candidate in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. He received his B.S in Chemical and Process Engineering from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1994 and worked in industries before joining the National Environment Management Council of Tanzania. He joined St. Cloud State University in Minnesota in 2002 for Masters Degree studies in Social Responsibility, and Environmental and Technological Studies. At the University of Michigan, he has been a Research Assistant examining policy and technical issues related to climate change, ecological changes and health impacts. He has also taught Global Change courses which enable students to examine the dynamics of natural systems and the impacts of human activities on the environment. He will be teaching Environmental Justice in Contemporary Africa for students in the Center for African-American and African Studies.

Menan has an appreciation of the complex biophysical and social world and the need of working collaboratively across disciplinary lines. In his proposed project he is adapting integrative anthropological approaches, public health concerns and an environmental justice framework. His own research project aims to explore the understandings and uses of both traditional and biomedical or western health care systems in and around the town of Mwanza (Tanzania). Menan is interested in examining the socially embedded healing practices in the rural hinterlands from which many current Mwanza residents originate, in relation to the commercialized healing practices on this urbanizing economic frontier where storefront “quick fixes” are popular for those with limited income facing rising HIV-AIDS rates. In preliminary work he has studied traditional healing itself as a growth industry in response to the rapid social and ecological exchange.

Lynne Jones, MA, MBChB, MRCPysch PhD

Lynne Jones is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and the senior technical advisor in mental health for International Medical Corps. She is also a senior research associate at the section for Developmental psychiatry, Cambridge University, and a tutor at the International Institute for Humanitarian Affairs, Fordham University. She has a PhD in social psychology and political science. She has been engaged in assessing mental health needs and establishing mental health services in disaster, conflict, and post-conflict settings, including Bosnia, Central America, Chad, Iraq, Kosovo, West Africa, SE Asia, Pakistan, Uganda, as well as New Orleans and Mississippi. In 2001, she was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for her mental health work in conflict-affected areas of central Europe. Her main research interest is in children's understandings of war and disaster. She has published extensively, articles and books, among others exploring Bosnian children's understandings of war, Then They Started Shooting: Growing Up in Wartime Bosnia (Harvard 2005).

Edward ONeil Jr, MD, Founder, Omni Med; Author, Awakening Hippocrates: Primer on Health, Poverty, and Global Service, and A Practical Guide to Global Health Service

Dr. Edward O’Neil Jr. earned his Medical degree from George Washington University, and completed a residency and chief residency in internal medicine at Boston Medical Center. Dr. O’Neil completed the three-year Kellogg National Leadership Program, studying leadership, international development, and politics. In 1998, he founded the non-profit organization Omni-Med, which focuses on health volunteerism and ethical leadership. To date, over 120 physicians have gone abroad through Omni Med’s innovative, cooperatively designed programs in Belize, Guyana, and Kenya. Omni Med also compiles data on global health service opportunities, making it easier for anyone so interested to serve. Dr O’Neil is the author of two books published by the American Medical Association in 2006, Awakening Hippocrates: A Primer on Health, Poverty, and Global Service, and A Practical Guide to Global Health Service. Dr Paul Farmer wrote the foreword to Awakening Hippocrates, and described it as “magisterial.” In 2007, Dr O’Neil was appointed chair of a Brookings Institution taskforce on health service in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is a practicing emergency physician at Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston and an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Robert M. Lang Jr, CEO, Mary Elizabeth and Gordon B. Mannweiler Foundation, Inc.

Robert (Bob) Lang is CEO of the Mary Elizabeth & Gordon B. Mannweiler Foundation Inc. and CEO of Fabrique Cosmetique Inc. a cosmetic manufacturing company. He graduated with a major in economics and a minor in English from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Bob has been responsible for innovative projects including the L3C, a new structure designed to incorporate socially beneficial activities under a for profit umbrella. Bills to create L3Cs are now before 5 state legislatures. He is working with several of the world’s largest financial institutions to create new, unique financial product for Social Responsible Investing. He is an inventor and cosmetic chemist with packaging, retailing, commercial finance and manufacturing experience. He is also a board member of Naumburg Orchestral Concerts which presents free classical music concerts at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park in NYC, is on the ALI-ABA faculty, on boards and/or an active volunteer of many other nonprofits, and is a frequent speaker at conventions and conferences. He has been published in numerous trade publications, popular magazines and newspapers.

Dean Karlan, PhD, President and Founder of Innovations for Poverty Action; Assistant Professor of Economics, Yale University

Dean Karlan is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale University. Karlan is also President of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and a research fellow of the M.I.T. Jameel Poverty Action Lab. He is co-director of the Financial Access Initiative, a consortium of New York University, Harvard University, Yale University and IPA created with funding from the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. His research focuses on microeconomic issues of poverty, specifically employing experimental methodologies to examine what works, what does not, and why. He focuses on microfinance program design internationally, and voting and charitable giving decisions domestically. In microfinance, he has studied interest rate policy, credit evaluation and scoring policies, entrepreneurship training, group versus individual liability, savings product design, credit with education, and impact from increased access to credit. His work on savings typically uses insights from psychology and behavioral economics to design and test specialized products. He has consulted for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, FINCA International and the Guatemalan government. Karlan received a Ph.D. in Economics from M.I.T., an M.B.A. and an M.P.P. from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Kartee Karloweah, ON, RN, Ophthalmic Nurse, Unite For Sight-Ghana

Zachary Kaufman, Zachary Kaufman, MPhil in International Relations, University of Oxford; DPhil (PhD) candidate in International Relations, University of Oxford; JD candidate, Yale University Law School

Zachary D. Kaufman is currently a Juris Doctor (JD) candidate at Yale Law School while he is completing his D.Phil (PhD) degree in International Relations at the University of Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar from 2002-05. He is the founder, president, and chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Kigali Public Library; co-founder and Executive Director of Marshall Scholars for the Kigali Public Library; and an Honorary Member of the Rotary Club of Kigali-Virunga, Rwanda. Together, these three non-profit organizations are fundraising and collecting books for, raising public awareness about, and building Rwanda's first public library, the Kigali Public Library. Mr. Kaufman is also a Board Member and Senior Fellow of Humanity in Action, which, in order to engage student leaders in the study and work of human rights, sponsors an integrated set of education programs and internships for university students in Europe and the United States. Mr. Kaufman also serves as a consultant on other non-profit and social entrepreneurial ventures.

Mr. Kaufmanâ€™s professional experience has focused on the investigation, apprehension, and prosecution of suspected perpetrators of atrocities, including genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and terrorism. He has served at the United States Department of State, the United States Department of Justice, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Mr. Kaufman also was the first American to serve at the International Criminal Court, where he was policy clerk to the first Chief Prosecutor.

During the 2005-06 academic year, Mr. Kaufman was a Fellow at Stanford University, in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). In 2004, Mr. Kaufman received his M.Phil (Master's) degree in International Relations from the University of Oxford. In 2000, Mr. Kaufman received his B.A. (Bachelor's) degree in Political Science from Yale University, where he was the student body president, a freshman residential counselor, co-captain of the Yale wrestling team, and an All-American and Runner-up National Champion in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association.

Kaveh Khoshnood, PhD, Assistant Professor in Public Health Practice, Division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health

Dr. Khoshnood is an infectious disease epidemiologist and his primary research interests are the epidemiology, prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis among drug users, prisoners and other at risk populations in United States and in resource-poor countries. Dr. Khoshnood's other interests are the examination of the links between health and human rights, the role of health in international relations and the ethical dilemmas in research involving vulnerable populations. Dr. Khoshnood conducts research and mentors researchers from China, India, Russia, South Africa and Iran and teaches courses on HIV/AIDS, infectious disease and research ethics.

Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD, Co-Founder, Partners In Health; Director, Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights; Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health; Chair, Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Chief, Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Former HIV/AIDS Director, World Health Organization

Jim Yong Kim has 20 years experience in improving health in developing countries. He is a co-founder of Partners In Health, a non-profit organization that supports a range of health programs in poor communities worldwide.

In 2004 and 2005, Dr. Kim served as director of the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS department, including leading the 3x5 initiative designed to put three million people in developing countries on AIDS treatment.

Dr. Kim is currently leading a new Harvard University-based initiative in Global Health Delivery, which is designed to discover and widely share knowledge about the effective implementation of health programs in poor communities.

Dr. Kim has received a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship; was named one of America's 25 best leaders by US News & World Report; and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He holds degrees from Brown University and Harvard University.

Karen King, MA, Elementary School Teacher, Reed Intermediate School; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Accra, Ghana

Karen King is a sixth grade teacher in Newtown, Connecticut. For over a year now, students from her school have been corresponding with students at the Carolyn A. Miller School (CAMES), located in the Liberian refugee camp of Buduburam, in Ghana, West Africa. The camp was formed ten years ago as a refuge for Liberian civilians fleeing the brutal civil war in that country. It is now estimated that 40,000 refugees, mostly women and children, are living in Buduburam, which was intended only as a temporary settlement for 5000 refugees. Sanitation facilities and clean water are nearly non-existent.

During July 2007, Karen traveled to Ghana as a volunteer for Unite for Sight. During the trip, she was able to visit Buduburam and the Carolyn A. Miller School to meet the pen pals of her students. In early 2008, Karen teamed up with two colleagues to add a photography component to this inter-continental pen pal friendship. The program is called “Eye to Eye.” This February all three Connecticut teachers flew to Ghana armed with 200 disposable cameras. They spent a week with the teachers and students of CAMES exploring how photography can be used as a means of personal expression, and how images can, in fact, speak 1,000 words. Photos taken by pen pals in both countries are currently in the process of being developed, and soon will be shared and used as inspiration for writing poetry, prose and music. As a culminating event, the Reed School will host a springtime “gathering” (concert/poetry reading/photo gallery) in Connecticut, which will celebrate this friendship and deepened understanding between students from both continents. This event will also serve as a fundraiser, with the ultimate goal of providing the refugee pen pals with clean water and much-needed school supplies.

Andrew Klaber, Founder, Orphans Against AIDS

Andrew Klaber founded Orphans Against AIDS after confronting the plight of children orphaned or made vulnerable by the epidemic during the summer of 2002 in northern Thailand. Receiving funding from the Goldman Sachs Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, Google, McKinsey, and thousands of individuals, today Orphans Against AIDS annually provides 350 academic scholarships and basic health care to youngsters affected by HIV/AIDS in seven countries around the world (China, Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Thailand, and Uganda).

Klaber is especially interested in the psychosocial and educational crisis facing these youths and how the private, public, and non-profit sectors can build symbiotic relationships to better address these issues. Andrew has served with the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Orphaned and Vulnerable Children and presented his work with Orphans Against AIDS at the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. An Ethics, Politics, & Economics and International Studies graduate of Yale College, Klaber earned Masters of Science degrees in Financial Economics and Economic History as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University and is currently pursuing a JD/MBA at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. For his commitment to public service and leadership, he has been selected as a Truman Scholar, a Goldman Sachs Global Leader, and a First-Team USA-Today Academic All-American.

John Ryan, MD, AAO Rotary Task Force and Thomas Kwako, JD, LLM, PhD, CPA, Vice Chairman of Rotary International's Action Group for Preventable Blindness

Dr. Ryan is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. He is an Ophthalmologist with Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Medical Group. Dr. Ryan completed his Ophthalmology residency at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill after attending medical school at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Ryan is a member of the Rotary Club Task Force of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Through a partnership between the Academy and individual Rotary Clubs/Districts, carefully selected and highly talented ophthalmologists from developing nations are brought to the U.S. for a two-week educational, cultural and social immersion program, beginning in the sponsoring Rotary Club's local community and concluding at the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Annual Meeting.

Awewura Kwara, MD, Brown University

Dr Kwara is an Infectious Diseases Specialist with training in Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He graduated from the University of Ghana Medical School in 1992. Dr Kwara completed Internal Medicine Residency at Cook County Hospital and Infectious Disease Fellowship at Tulane University Health Sciences Center. His clinical interest is the management of HIV and tuberculosis, particularly the treatment of coinfection in resource-poor settings. Dr Kwara major research focus is the development of molecular and clinical models to identify and predict drug interactions between antiretroviral and antituberculous agents, for which he has received a Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Developmental Award (K23) grant through NIAID.

Dr Kwara has developed strong collaborations with clinicians and researchers at the University of Ghana Medical School and the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in his native country, Ghana. The focus of the collaboration is to develop clinical research programs focused at evaluating optimal treatment strategies for persons with active tuberculosis and HIV coinfection. Dr Kwara and his key collaborator are currently funded by Lifespan/Tufts/Brown Center for AIDS Research to investigate the drug to drug interactions between rifampin and efavirenz in the clinical management of patients with HIV and TB coinfection, as well as study the pharmacogenetics of efavirenz metabolism in Ghanaians co-infected patients. Dr Kwara and his collaborators are also funded by the Doris Duke Foundation AIDS Care Research in Africa (ACRiA) Program to examine whether responses to antiretroviral therapy in HIV-infected adults with and without Tuberculosis coinfection are different and to optimize the concurrent therapy of both infections. The second major aim of the collaboration with Ghana is to provide clinical and research training opportunities for medical students and clinicians from both institutions.

Jamie Lachman, Clowns Without Borders

Jamie McLaren Lachman, aka Jabulani Nene Mshengu, is the founder and director of Clowns Without Borders-South Africa, an arts humanitarian organization that provides psychosocial support through laughter and play to communities affected by trauma in Southern Africa. He is also the director of Circus Life South Africa, a cultural exchange partnership between South Africa and Sweden that applies circus arts in social interventions in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In 2004, Lachman created Project Njabulo an intervention program that combines clown performance, theatre arts education, and mindfulness based training to provide emotional relief through laughter and humor to children and their caregivers affected by HIV/AIDS, violence, and poverty. Since then, Clowns Without Borders Project Njabulo has worked with over 100,000 participants in South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland and is currently developing local capacities for intervention throughout the region. Jamie is a graduate of Yale University and the Dellâ€™Arte International School for Physical Theatre. Always looking for laughter in the lifeâ€™s simplicity, Jamie strives to live each day fully with compassion and amazement.

Doug Lawrence, Vice President/General Manager, BD Medical - Ophthalmic Systems

Doug Lawrence is currently the Vice President / General Manager for BD Medicalâ€™s Ophthalmic Systems business unit based in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Prior to this position, Doug worked as a Business Leader and R&D Director for BDâ€™s Infusion Therapy business in Sandy, Utah. Before BD, Doug worked for Ohmeda, a supplier of anesthesia devices, equipment and pharmaceuticals, in Singapore and New Jersey. At Ohmeda, Doug participated in development of appropriate technology anesthesia equipment for the developing world.

Doug currently serves as a board member and Vice Chair of MassMEDIC (the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council) and is a member of the board of directors of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons Foundation. He is past board member of the Anesthesia Patent Safety Foundation.

Doug has a degree in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a degree in Economics from the Wharton School. He received his MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.

Ken Legins, Chief, HIV/AIDS Programme, UNICEF Office for China, Beijing

Kenneth Legins, MPH is the Chief, HIV/AIDS Programme, UNICEF China. Mr. Legins has dedicated his life and career to health education, children's advocacy, and public health. He earned his master's degree in public health at Yale in 1995. After graduation he accepted a position with the New York City Department of Health's Bureau of Tuberculosis Control, and began consulting for the World Health Organization (WHO). His work with WHO brought him to Ukraine and Albania during the war in the Balkans, where he worked with women and children exposed to the devastation and violence of war. These experiences led him to focus on family health, HIV/AIDS education, and communication campaigns. In 2001 Legins accepted a position as a member of UNICEF's global HIV/AIDS team. Today, he is the manager of the UNICEF AIDS programme in China. Legins has published in China and internationally on children affected by AIDS, behavior development and private sector AIDS responses; and received the 2006 "Common Good Award" from his undergraduate institution, Bowdoin College in Maine. He currently resides in Beijing, China and enjoys skiing, fishing and clean skies.

Shawn Lin, BS, Unite For Sight Volunteer in Chennai, India

Shawn graduated last year with a degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He participated in Unite for Sight's program in Chennai, and is currently teaching biology at a high school in the Bronx, NY.

Scott Loeliger, MD, MS, Faculty Physician, Contra Costa Regional Medical Center

Scott Loeliger

Scott Loeliger, MD, MS is a faculty member at the Contra Costa Family Medicine Residency in Martinez, CA. He is a family physician attached to the

obstetrics and gynecology department. Along with his principle role in training residents in women's health, obstetrics and gynecology he has taken a lead role in focusing the extensive interest in global and under-served health care issues. With the support of

the county government, hospital administration and physician/residents on the training campus he has developed a two-year, post residency fellowship that will incorporate an MPH degree from the University of California, Berkeley with clinical and faculty training in the county's extensive health care system.

After an undergraduate degree in health science from the University of California, he served as a health

educator/planner for the city of San Francisco, the Government of Fiji and the Refugee Health Unit within the Ministry of Health in Somalia. During his medical school training he also completed a Master's Degree focused on primary health care research, primarily in Fiji during the 1980's. Most of his family medicine practice has been in rural areas of California with under-served populations. He has been a program director with GHETS since 2006.

Juliet MacDowell, MA, Senior Program Manager, JHPIEGO, ACCESS

Ms. Juliet MacDowell is an international development professional with more than thirteen years experience in reproductive health & rights, HIV/AIDS, and maternal newborn health. Since April 2006, Juliet is responsible for managing a substantial proportion of JHPIEGO's ACCESS program. ACCESS is a 5-year $75M, USAID centrally funded flagship program on maternal and newborn health. She completed her Masters degree in Economic & Political Development and Health Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Asad Mahmood, Managing Director, Global Social Investment Funds, Deutsche Bank

Mr. Mahmood, Managing Director of the Global Social Investment Funds at Deutsche Bank, is responsible for an over $425 million loan and investment portfolio which seeks both a financial and social return. He is also responsible for Deutsche Bank Microfinance efforts globally which comprise more than 50 relationships in 40 countries. He was the central force in creating a pioneering $80 million commercial microfinance fund that has raised most of its money from 13 large institutional investors in the world. He has partnered with Ashoka and International Association for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) to create Eye Fund 1, a revolutionary fund that will lend to hospitals providing ophthalmology services to the poor. Mr. Mahmood is positioning Deutsche Bank to be an investment bank for social capital and is looking to be a catalytic leader and innovator in the growth of financeable social ventures by bringing together differently motivated capital from development agencies, foundations and socially motivated commercial investors.

Mr. Mahmood sits on the Board of the Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX), the Editorial Board of The Microbanking Bulletin, as well as being on the Advisory Board of The Rockdale Foundation / Gray Ghost Fund. Mr. Mahmood is also going to be the co-chair of the soon to be launched ASA Foundation, USA which would raise money to replicate ASA’s practices of being the most efficiently run microfinance institution in the world.

Fernando Maldonado, Business Development Associate, Making Cents International

Fernando Maldonado is the Business Development Associate at Making Cents International. Prior to joining Making Cents in 2006, Mr. Maldonado worked as a Business Development Advisor in support of business development services and microenterprise development initiatives in Eastern Europe. As a Business Development Advisor, Maldonado managed activities for the MEDI North (MNO) office of the USAID Micro Enterprise Development Initiative Armenia (MEDI) project, which generated over half a million USD in new sales and access to finance for small businesses in the Northern region of Armenia within 6 months. Mr. Maldonado holds a Master’s degree in International Commerce and Policy and a Bachelors of Arts in Government and International Politics with a minor in Economics from George Mason University.

Shyamala Mani, Program Director and National Coordinator, Waste and Resource Management (WaRM), Centre for Environment Education, India

Shyamala Mani is the Programme Director and National Coordinator of the Waste and Resources Management (WaRM) group at Centre for Environment Education (CEE) and is based at New Delhi, India. Projects coordinated by her have won the Global 100 award, UNCHS (1998); Paryavaran Puraskar, MoEF, Govt. of India (1999); Environment India Award (2000); Plasticon Award (2005) and project recognition as an RCE by UNU (2007).

Shyamala is member, Regional Advisory Committee of IWMI for South Asia and National Steering Committee on Control of POPs and Mercury. She received her PhD in Environmental Sciences from JNU in 2003 & was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley in Spring 2001.

Nick Mann, BA Candidate, Truman State University

I am a junior undergraduate at Truman State University in Kirksville Missouri currently pursuing a BS in biology. I anticipate graduating this spring in May 2008 and am currently applying to medical schools across the country.

I became involved with the Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Foundation (HMHBF) in Kansas City during the 2006-2007 school year and volunteered to assist with their preliminary research on malaria in Haiti. HMHBF is a group that has established a birthing clinic in the southwest region of Haiti, with the initial goal to provide appropriate healthcare and support for mothers during the course of pregnancy and to provide follow up immunizations and necessary vitamin supplements. Their program has since continued to expand into various community health programs with the support of volunteers.

M.G. Venkatesh Mannar, President, The Micronutrient Initiative

As President, M.G. Venkatesh Mannar oversees the Micronutrient Initiativeâ€™s mission to ensure the most vulnerable â€“ especially women and children â€“ in developing countries get the vitamins and minerals they need to survive and thrive. Under his leadership, this international not-for-profit organization based in Ottawa has grown to provide services throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Last year alone, Micronutrient Initiative (MI) programs reached approximately 500 million people. Funded primarily by the Canadian International Development Agency, MI works in partnership with United Nations agencies, national governments and the private sector throughout the developing world.

Mr. Mannarâ€™s technical expertise includes a Masterâ€™s degree in chemical engineering. His extensive experience began in the salt industry in India and included pioneering an iodized salt testing kit widely used around the world today. He has helped develop iodization programs in over 40 countries, including the highly effective Iodine Deficiency Disorder program in China with UNICEF and the World Bank, and was a driving force in the development of salt fortified with both iron and iodine to help prevent anaemia. As a founding member of the International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders he remains on its Executive Board. He also serves on the Board of the Network for the Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency and in the Executive Management Group of the Flour Fortification Initiative.

David Marsh, MD, MPH, Senior Child Survival Advisor, Save the Children

David Marsh is an international public health physician who has worked with Save the Children for 14 years, currently as Senior Child Survival Advisor. Prior experience includes: a 5 year attachment with the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Aga Khan University Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan, 6 years as a general pediatrician in Amherst, Massachusetts where he still resides, 5 years as a Major in the US Public Health Service on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, and 4 years as a pediatric house officer and instructor at the University of Utah. He is a graduate of Williams College (â€™71), the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry (â€™75), and the Harvard University School of Public Health (â€™90). Current interests include the community case management of potentially life-threatening pediatric infections in developing countries, measuring â€œcommunity capacity,â€ advocating for "finishing the unfinished child survival agenda," and partnering with universities to contribute to the evidence base of promising interventions, delivery strategies, and approaches to achieve Millennium Development Goal 5.

Anne Martin-Staple, PhD, Research Scholar, Duke University

Dr. Martin-Staple is the Founder and President of Health Strategies International LLC (HSI), a global health consulting group located in Durham, North Carolina and is a Research Scholar at the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. She is a health economist trained at the University of Chicago and London School of Economics, and has worked in global health for 25 years in over twenty countries with a focus on health finance and health systems strengthening. She has developed innovative approaches and tools for assessing and addressing human resource crises in several countries. In collaboration with the Malawi Ministry of Health over three years, Dr. Martin-Staple supported the development of the â€œMalawi 6-Year Emergency Human Resource Planâ€ that mobilized over US$300 million, and was the technical lead on the winning Malawi Global Fund Round 5 proposal that mobilized US$80 million for human resources. She is currently working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded malaria control program in Zambia on the health sector human resource crisis with a focus on malaria scale-up. Dr. Staple provides technical consulting to the Global Fund and recipient countries on health systems strengthening and human resource strategies, and has presented her work in several international conferences and publications. She teaches courses in global health economics and policy at Duke University and was a Visiting Lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy at Princeton University for five years.

Umang Mathur, MS, Consultant Ophthalmologist, Associate Director and Head of Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, India

Dr. Umang Mathur is the Associate Medical Director at the Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital (SCEH), New Delhi, India. Following his residency in Ophthalmology, he did his fellowship in Cornea and Anterior Segment from the LV Prasad Eye Institute, India. He has been associated with SCEH for nine years and has been involved in developing and implementing quality and sustainable eye care systems at this 93 years old institution. Besides his cornea practice, he has interest in training, community ophthalmology and is involved in developing efficient and quality systems for equitable eye care delivery. SCEH is proud to be a close partner of Unite for Sight.

Tshepo Joshua Mbalambi, BSc, Med Sci, MBcHB Candidate, University of Ghana Medical School

Tshepo Joshua Mbalamb was doing National Service at the Ministry of health in Botswana in 1999, when he received a W.H.O. fellowship award to study medicine in Ghana. The W.H.O. Fellowship was tenable immediately, so he terminated his national service, which was supposed to be for a year after serving for 5 months and came to Ghana where he did pre-med at the University of Ghana in Legon before coming to the University of Ghana Medical School in Korle'Bu Teaching Hospital for his medical studies.

John McGoldrick, Senior Vice President, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI)

John McGoldrick is Senior Vice President at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), a global non-profit organization whose mission is to ensure the development of a safe, effective, accessible preventive HIV vaccine for use throughout the world. He joined IAVI in 2006 after careers in business and law, including in recent years responsibility for HIV/AIDS treatment programs and drug access. Previously, he was one of two Executive Vice Presidents reporting to the CEO and the Board of Bristol-Myers Squibb. His responsibilities there included responsibility for: global public policy and government affairs; philanthropy; law; company strategy; and line responsibility for the Medical Devices Group of businesses with revenues of $2-3 billion. He was vice chair of the company’s executive committee. He was also a Director of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, and oversaw the $150 million “Secure the Future” program to test HIV treatment models in Africa. In this role, he was instrumental in creating, along with Baylor, the Pediatric AIDS Corps and Children’s Centers of Excellence Programs, as well as the Community-Based Treatment Site Models for scaling up ARV treatment. He chaired the Accelerating Access Initiative (AAI), the global consortium of five U.N.-led international agencies and eight pharmaceutical companies to increase access to anti-retroviral medicines. At BMS he was instrumental in a number of other HIV initiatives including reducing prices to no-profit levels, licensing patents, and technology transfer to generic companies, and the donation of a promising pipeline microbicide. Before joining BMS, John practiced law with McCarter & English, where he was a Senior Partner and sat on the firm’s Executive Committee. He has sat on a number of non-profit, educational, commercial and public boards including: NJTransit, 3d largest transit company in the U.S.; Zimmer, worldwide leader in hip and knee replacement; the Visiting Committees of Harvard College and of the Harvard School of Public Health; NJN (public television) Foundation; Montclair State University; Association of State Colleges and Universities; Advamed; and the Aspen Institute on the World Economy. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute. He has lectured and taught on a variety of subjects, and is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School.

Benjamin Mason Meier, JD, LLM, MPhil; International Development and Globalization Fellow, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University

Benjamin Mason Meier has been an IGERT International Development and Globalization Fellow in Columbia University's Department of Sociomedical

Sciences since 2005. He received his B.A. in Biochemistry from Cornell

University, his J.D. from Cornell Law School, and his LL.M. in International

and Comparative Law from Cornell Law School and University de Paris I. His

interdisciplinary research - at the intersection of law, political science,

and public health - examines the insalubrious effects of neoliberal economic policy on individual health status and national health systems. He is currently writing his dissertation on the development and evolution of the

human right to health, publishing various articles in the international law and public health literature, teaching Health & Human Rights at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, and working with Dr. Kristine Gebbie at the Center for Health Policy to research state public health modernization pursuant to the Turning Point Model State Public Health Act.

Pradeep Mettu, MD Candidate, University of Kentucky College of Medicine

Pradeep is originally from Pikeville, Kentucky. He graduated from Duke University with a B.S. in Psychology and Neuroscience in 2005. Currently, he is in his third year at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in Lexington. Pradeep initially became interested in international medicine through his parents, Dr. R. V. Mettu and Dr. Jyothi Mettu, and their service experiences in India. In July of 2006, Pradeep was a Unite for Sight Volunteer at the Uma Eye Clinic in Chennai, India. This experience solidified his interest in global healthcare, ophthalmology, and international service. Following medical school, Pradeep plans to complete a residency in ophthalmology and pursue a career in academic medicine.

Derek Mladenovich, OD, FAAO, MPH, World Council of Optometry; External examiner, International Rescue Committee, Thailand ; I & Vision Research Institute, Singapore

Dr. Mladenovich works on developing optometric programs globally.

He has served as an optometric consultant for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Ministry of Health and Social Services of Republic of Namibia, the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired, and the I & Vision Research Institute in Singapore.

Currently, Dr Mladenovich serves as an external examiner and blindness prevention consultant for International Rescue Committee in Thailand, and a course director for evidence-based medicine at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry.

On behalf of the World Council of Optometry, Dr. Mladenovich serves on the committee for the relations with the World Health Organization and Public Health and Development Committee.

Emily Morell, BA Candidate, Yale University

A third-year neurobiology major at Yale University, Emily Morell is pursuing a career in global health policy and medicine. She spent the summer of 2006 working for the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Rwanda, where she helped draft the first national pediatric HIV/AIDS care and treatment plan. Having identified the need to combat the impact of malnutrition on effective HIV/AIDS treatment, she co-founded Gardens for Health International (GHI), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. GHIâ€™s vision is to provide sustainable nutritional independence for HIV-positive individuals through a unique combination of education, training, food production, and community support.

Ms. Morell was selected as a 2007 Goldman Sachs Global Leader. She has received a grant from Youth Venture for social entrepreneurship and was a finalist in The Lancetâ€™s 2006 Wakely Prize essay competition for her essay on challenges to public health development in Rwanda. She is founder of the Roosevelt Institutionâ€™s International Development Policy Center and an editor of the Yale Journal of Public Health. She has worked on a neurosurgery research team studying cognitive functioning in epileptic patients at Yale-New Haven Hospital and has done genetic research on autism at the Yale Child Study Center. As an intern in 2004 at Mahidol Universityâ€™s Faculty of Tropical Medicine in Bangkok, Thailand, she conducted malaria vaccine research and worked on the human HIV/AIDS vaccine trial.

Padmini Murthy, MD, MPH, MS, Assistant Professor, Department of Behavioral Science and Community Health, Program Director Global Health, New York Medical College School of Public Health; NGO Representative of Medical Women International Assocaition to the United Nations

Padmini(Mini) Murthy is a physician who did her residency in Obstertics and Gynecology . She has a Masters in Public Health and a Masters in Mangement from New York University. She is also a Certified Health Education Specilaist. Murthy has been the recepient of numerous awards and has presented at national and international conferences. Currently she is Assistant Professor Of behavioral science and Community Health and Global Health Program Director at New York Medical college School of Public Health. Murthy is the NGO representative of Medical Women International Assocaition to the United Nations. Currently she is working on a book on women's health to be published by Jones and Bartlett.

Mini Murthy, MD, MPH, MS, Assistant Professor, Department of Behavioral Science and Community Health, Program Director Global Health, New York Medical College School of Public Health

John Mutter, PhD, MSc, Deputy Director and Associate Vice Provost, The Earth Institute at Columbia; Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University; Professor, International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; Bamboo Bike Project

Dr Mutter is appointed Professor in two departments at Columbia University; the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Department of International and Public Affairs. He is active in teaching and research in both. At the undergraduate level he teaches an introductory course in Earth Sciences and in a new Core Curriculum course called Frontiers of Science that is now required by all Columbia College students in their first year. At the graduate level he teaches Marine Seismology in his role with the School of International and Public Affairs he is the Associate Director of the PhD Program in Sustainable Development program where he advises all the students on their natural science needs for the studies and elps direct the students research. He also created a teaches with a group of faculty colleagues a course titled Environmental Science for Sustainable Development that is a core requirement for the PhD students and am developing a similar course for the undergraduate special concentration in sustainable development that will be given first in the Spring of 2008.

His research also has two foci. At the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory his studies are based in seismology where he studies how continents break apart, and ocean basins form using geophysical methods, primarily marine reflection seismology. More recently he has turned his attention to the vexing issue of the role of Earth systems in sustainable development. He is especially interested in the way in which natural systems interact with human well-being especially the role of natural extremes such as earthquakes and hurricanes in reducing development opportunities.

He also has responsibility for several activities for the Earth Institute and until July 2007 was Deputy Director. The Institute is taking a comprehensive approach to understanding to nexus between the Earth's environment and the nature of the human condition. He oversees the Fellows program and the establishment of a disasters and development initiative and chairs the committee for the State of the Planet Conference.

He has a B.Sc in Physics and Pure Mathematics from the University of Melbourne, Australia, an M.Sc in Geophysics from the University of Sydney, Australia, and a Ph.D. in Marine Geophysics from Columbia University. Born in Melbourne he is a permanent U.S. resident.

Neal Nathanson, MD, Associate Dean, Global Health Programs, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Dr. Neal Nathanson is currently Associate Dean for Global Health Programs, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center. In July, 2003, Dr. Nathanson retired as Vice Provost for Research, at the University of Pennsylvania, in, having served since December, 2000 responsible for oversight of the whole research enterprise of the University. From July, 1998 to September, 2000, Dr. Nathanson served as Director of the Office of AIDS Research (OAR) at the National Institutes of Health responsible for coordinating the scientific, budgetary, legislative, and policy components of the NIH AIDS research programs, as well as for promoting collaborative research activities in domestic and international settings.

Dr. Nathanson was educated at Harvard University where he received both a BS and an MD degree, followed by clinical training in internal medicine at the University of Chicago and postdoctoral training in virology at the Johns Hopkins University. Early in his career, Dr. Nathanson spent two years at the Centers for Disease Control, where he headed the Poliomyelitis Surveillance Unit. Later he joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health, where he became Professor and head of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Epidemiology. He then moved to the University of Pennsylvania where he chaired the Department of Microbiology for 15 years, finally serving for two years as Vice Dean for Research and Research Training. Dr. Nathanson is particularly known for his contributions to the field of viral pathogenesis, having edited the definitive text on this subject. He has also made significant contributions to the epidemiology of viral diseases.

Michael Nedelman, BA Candidate, Yale University

Michael Nedelman is a current student at Yale University studying Molecular Biology and Film Studies. Originally from Miami, Florida, Michael has directed various programs in film and the educational arts. Past projects have included a documentary on Cuban political prisoners, a music video with up-and-coming rap artists, and most recently Project Phokas, a photographic auto-ethnography for which patients of free vision care provided by Unite For Sight were encouraged to capture images of what they were able to see with their restored sight. Michael and his innovative Project Phokas has been featured on CNN International. After graduation, Michael plans to pursue a career in medicine and/or film.

Cliff OCallahan, MD, PhD, Pediatric Faculty, Middlesex Hospital Family Practice Program; Chair, AAP Section on International Child Health

Cliff O'Callahan, MD,PhD,FAAP is the pediatric faculty and Director of Nurseries at the Family Medicine residency of Middlesex Hospital in CT. Cliff is also the Chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatric's Section on International Child Health. Domestically he works on early childhood obesity, development, and oral health issues.

Cliff lived and worked in the northern Peten jungles of Guatemala after residency, initiating a rural health promoter and midwife training program that is now in its 13th year. He returns to work with the health workers annually, now bringing medical learners through the Concern America Immersion Program.

Hafeezah Omar, BA Candidate, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Accra, Ghana

Hafeezah Omar is currently a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is majoring in Health Policy and Administration. She will attend optometry school at University of Alabama at Birmingham starting in the Fall of 2008.

Hafeezah has been involved with Unite For Sight for two years. She served as a volunteer in the Summer of 2006 for three weeks in Ghana. Then in the summer of 2008 she returned to Ghana for two months and volunteered as a administrative assistant for Unite For Sight and helped set up a educational presentations that helped over 1300 students learn more about eye care. For two years, she also has been the Outreach officer for her local Unite For Sight Chapter, setting up eye screenings and presentations about eye care. While working with Unite For Sight, Hafeezah developed her passion for optometry.

Barbara Allerton and Nancy Otterness, RN, MSN, Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, Boise State University

Barbara Allerton is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Boise State University. She received her BS in nursing from Vanderbilt University and her MSN degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her interests lie in emergency nursing, pharmacology and in Holistic Nursing,Traditional Chinese Medicine and pain management. She has been instrumental in developing a partnership between the Hangzhou College of Nursing in China and has coordinated faculty exchanges between Boise State University and Hangzhou Nursing College. She is part of a collaborative research team with Hangzhou Nursing College. In 2007 she wrote 2 grants thru Partners of the Americas to develop relationships with 3 universities in Ecuador. Memoranda of Agreements are currently being signed for faculty and student exchanges in Ecuador.

Nancy Otterness is an Associate Professor of Nursing at Boise State University. Nancy's B.S. degree is from South Dakota State University and her Master's degree in nursing is from Idaho State University. She currently teaches Public Health Nursing, as well as the RN transition course. Her interests include community and public health nursing, environmental issues, diversity, international health care, and international nursing partnerships. Research interests include environmental issues that impact health and incivility in nursing education. She is part of the collaborative research team with Hangzhou Nursing College. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau, Phi Kappa Phi, American Public Health Association, American Nurses Association, and the Idaho Nurses Association.

Marc Owens, JD, Caplin & Drysdale

Marc is a member of the Washington, DC, law firm of Caplin & Drysdale where he specializes in federal tax issues relating to tax-exempt organizations, including charities and issue advocacy groups. Prior to joining Caplin & Drysdale, he spent 25 years with the US Internal Revenue Service, including serving as Director of the Exempt Organizations Division from 1990 until 2000. As Director of the Exempt Organizations Division, he was responsible for the design and implementation of federal tax rulings and enforcement programs for charities and other tax-exempt organizations. He is a member of the District of Columbia and Florida Bars and he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance and of the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest. He is also co-chair of the Subcommittee on Audits and Appeals of the Exempt Organizations Committee of the American Bar Association Tax Section.

Elijah Paintsil, MD, Associate Research Scientist, Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine

Elijah Paintsil, MD, is an Associate Research Scientist at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Paintsilâ€™s research interests are; cellular pharmacology of HIV nucleoside analogs in relation to clinical toxicities, fitness and evolution of HIV drug resistant mutants; and molecular epidemiology of HIV/HCV transmission. He is involved in collaborative studies in Ghana aimed at understanding the determinants and dynamics of Mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Ghana.

In addition to his research, he provides clinical care as a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He has special clinical interest in the management of multi-drug-resistant HIV infection; pediatric community acquired Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections; and infections in special populations (immigrants and refugees).

Ellen Palmer, RN, PhD, Assistant Clinical Professor, University of Texas at Arlington School of Nursing

Ellen L. Palmer is faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Nursing for 19 years. Her nursing experience has been in the clinical setting as manager and educator. Ellen’s 35 years of volunteer work has taken her to Haiti, Dominican Republic, India and Bolivian, SA, and the US projects. Her passion is for children's and woman’s health.

Matthew Paul, MD, Danbury Eye Physicians and Surgeons

Dr. Matthew Paul is President of Danbury Eye Physicians and Surgeons, P.C., an eight MD and 2 OD multi-specialty opthalmology group. In addition, Dr. Paul is the director of research for DEPS. He is board certified in ophthalmology and is a certified physician investigator. He is a member of AAO, ASCRS, FACS, ACRP, Fairfield County Medical Association, and Connecticut Eye Physicians. He has presented dozens of papers at international cataract meetings and has been a principal investigator in over 30 research studies.

Dr. Paul is a Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi graduate of Wesleyan University where he received his BA in Biology with High Honors. He received his MD at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons where he received the Spotnitz and Behrens Prize.

Yannis Paulus, MD Candidate, Stanford University School of Medicine

Yannis Paulus is currently an M.D. candidate at Stanford School of Medicine. He is pursuing the Bioengineering Scholarly Concentration and investigates patterned retinal photocoagulation, a treatment for diabetic retinopathy, and the healing of the eye in the lab of Dr. Palanker and Dr. Blumenkranz in the Stanford Department of Ophthalmology. He is particularly interested in the development and implementation of laser technologies in ophthalmology and in retinal regeneration.

Yannis received his B.A. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard College in 2005. Yannis served as Administrative Manager of Pacific Free Clinic, Director of the Harvard Hippocratic Society, and Director of the Harvard Community Health Initiative. Yannis used single molecule fluorescence and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) to study chromatin remodeling with Dr. Zhuang in the Harvard Department of Chemistry. Conducting research at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary with Dr. Gragoudas and Dr. Miller, Yannis studied novel treatments of uveitis. In the lab of Dr. Goldowitz at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Yannis coupled bioinformatics and histology to determine two gene loci in mice.

Steven C. Phillips, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Global Issues and Projects, Exxon Mobil Corporation

Dr. Steven C. Phillips is the Medical Director, Global Issues and Projects, Exxon Mobil Corporation, where his responsibilities include overseeing the Corporation's "outside-the-fenceline" community and public health programs throughout its global operations. In this capacity, he has worked closely with governments, NGO's, U.N. agencies, multilateral, faith-based, and community organizations, and the private sector in fostering "public-private partnerships" as a development platform to address urgent global health priorities.

Dr. Phillips received his B.S. and M.D. degrees from Stanford University. He did his post-graduate training in internal medicine at the University of California San Francisco, received a Master of Public Health from UCLA, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Occupational Medicine. Prior to joining Exxon, Dr. Phillips served in the U.S. Public Health Service and was assigned to the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Dr. Phillips is a member of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology. He currently serves on the Boards of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, malaria NO MOREâ„¢, and the World Economic Forum's Global Health Initiative. He is also a member of the Harvard School of Public Health's Leadership Council and the advisory panels of Medicines for Malaria Ventures, Episcopal Relief and Development's "NetsforLife" Initiative, and the International Strategic Advisory Group of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.

Joe Pringle, Forum One Communications

Joe Pringle has over 10 years experience leading projects focused on communications strategy, organizational effectiveness, knowledge management, environmental health, and performance based management. He has consulted for a wide range of clients including public utilities, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, industry associations, and the private sector and has work experience in 10 countries in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. His current work focuses on helping clients design and implement intranets, extranets, web conferencing, and other online tools and services that support team collaboration. He holds a BS in Chemistry from Washington and Lee University and an MS from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina.

Chiwing Jessica Qu, BA Candidate, Yale University; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Chennai, India

ChiWing “Jessica” Qu is currently a sophomore Molecular Biology major at Yale University. She was born and raised in Hong Kong, and moved to the U.S. at the age of 11.

Jessica is involved with a wide variety of on-campus organizations, including the Yale Ambassadors Program, the Yale Scientific Magazine, the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics, the Yale Journal of Medicine and Law, the Yale Undergraduate Society of Biological Science, and the Yale Daily News. She has also been working at a cancer and viral chemotherapy laboratory at the Yale School of Medicine since her freshman year.

Jessica spent two months volunteering with Unite for Sight in Chennai, India during the summer of 2007. Her volunteer work with Unite For Sight has been featured on CNN International. Jessica says that she is passionate about medicine, philanthropy, public health, social entrepreneurship, and business management, and hopes to work abroad for a few years upon graduation before entering medical school.

Thomas Quinn, MD, Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health

Thomas C. Quinn, M.D., M.Sc. is Associate Director for International Research and Senior Investigator in the Laboratory of Immunoregulation at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Since 1981, he has been assigned to The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he is a Professor of Medicine and Pathology, and has adjunct appointments in the Departments of International Health, Epidemiology, and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology in The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2006 he became the inaugural Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health coordinating all international research at the allied medical institutions of Johns Hopkins University. He is board certified in internal medicine and in infectious diseases and is on the clinical staff of Johns Hopkins Hospital and the NIH Clinical Center.

Dr. Quinn's investigations have involved the study of the epidemiologic, virologic, immunologic features of HIV infection in Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Asia.

Dr. Quinn is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science. He is a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America, a member of the American Association of Physicians, and American Society for Clinical Investigation. He is an Advisor/Consultant on HIV and STDs to the WHO, PAHO, UNAIDS, and FDA. He served on the Board of Directors for the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. He is a founding member of the Academic Alliance for AIDS Care and Prevention in Africa and helped design the Infectious Diseases Institute of Makerere University School of Medicine where he also holds an adjunct appointment in Medicine. He is the recipient of multiple awards and honors and is an author of more than 700 publications on HIV, STDs, and infectious diseases.

Nathan Radcliffe, MD, Glaucoma Service at New York Eye & Ear Infirmary

Nathan Radcliffe, M.D. grew up in the state of Maine and completed his undergraduate studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He graduated from Temple University School of Medicine in 2003 and then completed his internship at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu in 2004. His was selected chief resident during his ophthalmology residency at New York University and Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital. He is currently enjoying his fellowship in Glaucoma at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, under the preceptors Drs. Robert Ritch, Jeffrey Liebmann, and Celso Tello. In July of 2008, he will be joining the faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College as Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

Suzanne Rainey, Forum One Communications

Suzanne Rainey is a Director at Forum One Communications, a leader in web strategy and development for policy-focused organizations. Suzanne is an expert in online strategy and implementation and has been with Forum One for 9 years. She oversees a portfolio of web projects focused on global health and international development. She helps clients to use the web as a communication tool for communities interested in common topics, and has overseen management of several large health-focused professional networks. Suzanne's recent and ongoing clients include Abt Associates, The SEEP Network, CEDPA, the Supply Chain Management System, and International Medical Corps. Prior to joining Forum One, she spent 5 years with Arthur Andersen and KPMG Peat Marwick as a project manager on international fiscal development projects, and spent 2 years in Poland with the US Peace Corps. She speaks conversational Polish and basic French. Suzanne has a degree in English Literature and International Studies from Washington University in St. Louis.

Bonzo Reddick, MD, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Bonzo Reddick is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. He received his M.D. degree from Morehouse School of Medicine in 2002. He completed his residency in family medicine at UNC Hospitals, serving as Chief Resident from 7/2004 - 6/2005. He has an added certificate of qualification for interdisciplinary work in health disparities, and he has been a faculty advisor for the Honduran Health Alliance since 2005.

James Phillips MD, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine and Mark Rego, M.D., Lecturer in Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine

James Phillips, M.D. is in the private practice of psychiatry, with a focus on medically oriented psychotherapy, and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Yale School of Medicine. His interest in developing-country psychiatry began with two tours as a Peace Corps physician, in Ghana and Tunisia, following his medical training. Along with Dr. Rego, he has been involved in supporting the psychiatric clinic in Ayacucho, Peru since 2004. He has also worked in the Yale Hispanic Clinic, which serves a monolingual Hispanic population, for the past ten years. In addition to these activities, he has maintained a strong third interest in the interface of philosophy and psychiatry. He was a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry, remains on the executive committee, and is editor of the AAPP Bulletin. He has written extensively in this field and is currently editor of Philosophic Perspectives on Technology and Psychiatry, Oxford University Press, in press.

Mark D.Rego, MD, is a psychiatrist in private practice specializing in the psychopharmacology of diverse disorders. He is a graduate of New York Medical College, class of '85, did his medical internship at the Westchester County Medical Center and his training in psychiatry at Yale from '86 through '89. Currently he is a Lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Rego's other professional interests include the delivery of mental health care to poor populations in developing countries and philosophical issues in the diagnoses, causes and treatments within psychiatry. He has been involved with the free mental health clinic in Peru since 2004.

Allison Richard, MD, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine; Associate Director of the Division of International Medicine, University of Southern California and Global Health Access Program

Dr. Richard first developed an interest in international medicine while earning her medical degree at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. After a 2 month medical rotation at a rural hospital in Nepal, where she observed and participated in the challenges of providing health care in an impoverished setting, she was determined to incorporate international medicine into her future medical career.

Now, as an attending physician at LAC-USC medical center in Los Angeles, and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, she continues to volunteer her time on international health issues. She is Associate Director of the Division of International Medicine at LAC-USC Department of Emergency Medicine, where she mentors medical students and medical residents with interests in international medicine. She is also a volunteer and technical advisor to Global Health Access Program (GHAP), a Berkely based NGO dedicated to serving the medical needs of populations that fall outside of the usual aid agencies' umbrella. Most recently, she worked with GHAP and local organizations to develop trauma and TB health care programs serving the internally displaced people of conflict ridden Eastern Burma.

Robert Riviello, MD, MPH, Associate Surgeon, Instructor in Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital

Dr. Robert Riviello is an Acute Care Surgery Fellow at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an Instructor of Surgery for Harvard Medical School. He received his BA and MPH from Harvard University, his MD from University of California, San Diego, and completed his residency in General Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. During 2006-07 he completed a Fellowship in Global Surgery at the Centro Evangelico de Medicina do Lubango in Angola.

Dr. Riviello is also currently a Research Fellow at Brigham and Women's Center for Surgery and Public Health. His areas of research interest are centered on delivery of surgical services in sub-Saharan Africa. To this end, he is undertaking descriptive hospital epidemiological work to assess surgical burden of disease in Angola. He hopes this will be a stepping stone towards the evaluation and promotion of training of mid-level surgical providers in sub-Saharan Africa. He is also collaborating with the Global Health Delivery Project (a joint project of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness) to identify and write-up cases of excellence in surgical delivery in resource-poor setting. Ultimately, he hopes to make his life's work about improving surgical services in sub-Saharan Africa through direct patient care, training of surgical providers, and healthcare delivery sciences.

Jeffrey Robinson, PhD, Assistant Professor, NYU Stern School of Business

Jeffrey A. Robinson is a business scholar, an entrepreneur and an advocate for community economic development. Professor Robinson has been an Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Stern School of Business, New York University since 2003. Professor Robinson is the recipient of the 2007 Faculty Pioneer Rising Star award from the Aspen Institute for his research, teaching and service activities at the intersection of business and society. His research projects cover the areas of high growth African American women entrepreneurs, early stage social entrepreneurship, inner city business development and economic development in western and southern Africa..

Professor Robinson is the co-editor (with Johanna Mair and Kai Hockerts) of the research volume Social Entrepreneurship and the forthcoming, International Perspectives in Social Entrepreneurship and co-founder of the International Social Entrepreneurship Research Conference. His most recent papers explore the role of social entrepreneurship and social venture incubators in economic development and the intersection of wealth, race and new venture creation. He advises several social ventures and social entrepreneurship initiatives including the Louisiana Lt. Governor’s Office of Social Entrepreneurship. He is a sought after speaker, author and media commentator appearing on PBS, Dateline NBC, NBC Nightly News and in the New York Times.

Professor Robinson is a 3rd generation entrepreneur. He has co-founded two social ventures: MBS Enterprises, LLC and Building Community Technology (BCT) Partners. As Seniors at Rutgers University, Robinson along with his college roommates Randal Pinkett and Aldwyn Porter, developed an on-campus music retailing business that funded educational programs they presented in underserved communities. As graduate students in 2001, Pinkett, Robinson, and three other co-founders launched BCT Partners, a firm that provides management, technology and policy consulting to non-profits, foundations, corporations and various government entities as they plan and implement change strategies and improve organizational effectiveness. Through BCT he has worked on numerous public policy, community technology and community building projects in the State of New Jersey, and the cities of New York, Baltimore, and Atlanta.

Professor Robinson holds degrees in engineering, urban studies and organization theory. He received a B.S. in Civil Engineering and a B.A. in Urban Studies from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; an M.S. in Civil Engineering Management from Georgia Institute of Technology and an M. Phil. and a Ph.D. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.

Jeffrey Robinson., PhD, Assistant Professor, NYU Stern School of Business

Allan Rosenfield, MD, DeLamar Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Dean, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

Allan Rosenfield, MD, dean of the Mailman School of Public Health, has positioned the School as a major force in New York City’s public health arena and extended its reach around the globe. He has spent his career fighting for the health and well-being of the most vulnerable populations at home and abroad, especially women. An obstetrician gynecologist, Dr. Rosenfield is known for his work on women’s reproductive health and human rights, innovative family planning studies, strategies to address the tragedy of maternal deaths in poor countries, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, both domestically and globally. His pioneering work has focused on the role of non-medical personnel in prescribing contraceptives, averting maternal mortality and morbidity from pregnancy-related complications, and treatment and care of HIV-infected women and children in resource-poor settings. In addition to being at the forefront for calling attention to women’s health as more than a mere adjunct to child health, Dr. Rosenfield, with Mailman School colleagues, was also among the earliest to voice the ethical challenges of decreasing transmission of HIV to newborns by treating mothers with antiretroviral drugs before delivery, without consideration of ongoing care and treatment of mothers. His early work at the Mailman School focused on clinical, community-based, and school-based reproductive health programs in Northern Manhattan, with special attention to adolescents and family planning. Dean of the Mailman School since 1986, he continues to serve as an advisor to numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations concerned with reproductive rights, maternal and child health, and other public health issues.

Steven Rothstein, President, Perkins School for the Blind

Mr. Steven Rothstein, President of Perkins School for the Blind, has broad experience in human services, government and nonprofit programs. He was a co-founder of Citizens Energy Corporation, a nonprofit organization that provides tens of millions of dollars in energy and medical benefits to low-income citizens nationally and internationally. He graduated from Williams College and has an MBA from Northeastern University, and was Assistant Commissioner of the State of Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation. Mr. Rothstein has served on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Education and a variety of local and regional community, nonprofit and education organizations.

Mr. Rothstein's commitment to serving Perkinsâ€™ mission at home and abroad is enriched by his understanding of the interlocking roles of private organizations, government agencies and charitable organizations. Since joining Perkins as its ninth President, he has worked to expand the organizationâ€™s international efforts. Perkins currently serves 87,000 people in the U.S. and around the world. Working closely with local partners in 61 countries, Perkins provides direct services to children and their families, strengthens the skills of teachers and school administrators, promotes Braille literacy, and advocates for improvements in education, health and disability policies. Perkins School for the Blind (www.perkins.org), which was founded in 1829, is currently in its 179th year of service.

Ilya Rozenbaum, MD, GANY Glaucoma Fellow, New York Eye and Ear Institute

Dr. Ilya Rozenbaum is a clinical glaucoma fellow with Drs. Ritch, Liebmann, and Tello in New York City. He attended NYU School of Medicine and received his ophthalmology training at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Leonard Rubenstein, President, Physicians for Human Rights

Leonard Rubenstein, JD, is President of or of Physicians for Human Rights, an organization that mobilizes the health professions to advance human rights. He has been a leader in promoting health policy on the basis of human rights both in the United States and in the developing world, especially through PHRâ€™s Health Action AIDS Campaign, which brings the knowledge and voices of physicians and other health professionals, both in the United States, and in Africa, to advocacy for resources and sound policy on HIV/AIDS; and has been at the forefront of the movement to increase human resources for health in Africa. He has conducted human rights investigations throughout the world and has published widely, from academic journals to the op-ed pages of the Washington Post and New York Times. He has received numerous awards including the Health Care Hero Award from the Congressional Minority Caucuses.

Leslie Rubin, MD, Visiting Scholar, Department of Pediatrics, Morehouse School of Medicine; Founder and President, Institute for the Study of Disadvantage and Disability; Co-Director, Southeast Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, Emory University

Leslie Rubin MD is President and Founder of the Institute for the Study of Disadvantage and Disability, is Visiting Scholar in the Department of Pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, Medical Director of TEAM Centers in Chattanooga Tennessee and Developmental Pediatric Specialists of Atlanta, GA; Medical Director of Adult Down Syndrome Program and Co-director of the Southeast Pediatric Environmental Health Unit at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Rubin is originally from South Africa where he trained in Pediatrics and came to the USA to specialize in Neonatology and then in Developmental Medicine. He was initially at the Hospitals of the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio and then moved to The Childrenâ€™s Hospital in Boston and the Harvard Medical School where he spent 14 years. In July 1994 he moved to Atlanta, Georgia as Director of Developmental Pediatrics at Emory University and as Medical Director of the Marcus Institute. In May 2004, he founded the Institute for the Study of Disadvantage and Disability, which is dedicated to improving awareness and understanding of the relationship between social and economic disadvantage and disabilities. In September 2004 he left Emory University and Marcus Institute and joined the Morehouse School of Medicine. He continues to be committed to serving children and adults with developmental disabilities, their families and their communities.

Relevant & Recent Publications:

I Leslie Rubin, Allen C. Crocker: Delivery of Medical Care for Children and Adults with Developmental Disabilities. 2nd Edition. Paul Brookes â€“ January 2006

Howard Frumkin, Robert Geller, I Leslie Rubin with Janice Nodvin: Safe and Healthy School Environments. Oxford University Press â€“ August 2006

Contact Information:

776 Windsor Parkway

Atlanta, GA 30342

Phone 404 303 7247

Fax 404 303 7837

e mail lrubi01@emory.edu

website: http://www.isdd-home.org

Jennifer Ruger, PhD, MSc, Assistant Professor, Division of Global Health, Yale School of Public Health; Co-Director of the Yale/World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion, Policy and Research; Interdisciplinary Research Methods Core Investigator, Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, and Candace Feldman, MD Candidate, Yale School of Medicine

Dr. Ruger is an assistant professor at Yale University at the School of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Adjunct faculty at the Law School. She is Co-Director of the Yale-WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion, Policy and Research and Senior Research Fellow at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. She is a faculty associate of Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, and the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. She received master’s degrees from Oxford University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a doctoral degree from Harvard University. Following a post-doctoral fellowship (Bell Fellowship) at Harvard's Center for Population and Development Studies, she served on the health and development satellite secretariat of WHO Director-General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland's Transition Team. She then worked as a health economist at the World Bank and later served as Speechwriter to President James D. Wolfensohn. Previously she worked as one of two non-partisan Health Policy Analysts for Massachusetts Governor William Weld’s Task Force on the Health Care Industry, Governor’s Council on Economic Growth and Technology. She co-authored the Task Force Report with policy recommendations for health financing and insurance reform in Massachusetts. She has advised national and state governments on health finance and insurance reform.

Her research interests focus in health economics and ethics on the political economy of health and include health financing and insurance; health, health systems, and economic development; the economic evaluation of addiction programs and emergency and humanitarian services; health and social justice; global health justice; and global health governance. These contributions are unified by an overarching interest in disparities and equity in health and health care, focusing on vulnerable and impoverished populations at the national and global level. She has published both theoretical and empirical work on equity and efficiency of health system access, financing, resource allocation, policy reform and the social determinants of health. Much of this work is in global health and earlier work stems from her doctoral dissertation at Harvard where she worked with Amartya Sen as her primary dissertation advisor and Joseph Newhouse and Jerry Green as secondary dissertation advisors.

Dr. Ruger’s work has been published in Lancet; British Medical Journal; American Journal of Public Health; Quarterly Journal of Medicine; Academic Emergency Medicine; Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities; Bulletin of the World Health Organization; Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health; Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy; Health Affairs; Value Health;and Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

Lisa Russell, MPH, Filmmaker

Lisa Russell, MPH, is an independent filmmaker whose background in humanitarian and international development work has inspired her to produce films about the health and well-being of our global society. After completing her Masters in Public Health from Boston University in 1998, Lisa found her way toward filmmaking as a tool for health and human rights advocacy and has since produced a variety of films on development topics in countries including Brazil, Ghana, Niger, Malawi, Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Successfully building a film-based campaign around her short film, LOVE, LABOR, LOSS on obstetric fistula in Niger, Lisa screens her films around the country at universities, conferences, festivals and hill briefings and has reached thousands of students, young people and others with messages about U.S. responsibility in global women's health. In September 2005, Lisa collaborated with Grammy-nominated artist Zap Mama to create â€œThe WOMAN Tourâ€ â€“ a 3-week nationwide initiative of film screenings and musical performances to increase awareness of global womenâ€™s health. Residing in Brooklyn, NY, Lisa is currently a teaching artist where she leads workshops blending film screenings and creative writing to initiate awareness and dialogue about social issues.

Jeffrey Sachs, PhD, Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University; Special Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. From 2002 to 2006, he was Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by the year 2015. Sachs is also President and Co-Founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization aimed at ending extreme global poverty.

He is widely considered to be the leading international economic advisor of his generation. For more than 20 years Professor Sachs has been in the forefront of the challenges of economic development, poverty alleviation, and enlightened globalization, promoting policies to help all parts of the world to benefit from expanding economic opportunities and wellbeing. He is also one of the leading voices for combining economic development with environmental sustainability, and as Director of the Earth Institute leads large-scale efforts to promote the mitigation of human-induced climate change.

In 2004 and 2005 he was named among the 100 most influential leaders in the world by Time Magazine. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, a high civilian honor bestowed by the Indian Government, in 2007. Sachs lectures constantly around the world and was the 2007 BBC Reith Lecturer. He is author of hundreds of scholarly articles and many books, including New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty (Penguin, 2005). Sachs is a member of the Institute of Medicine and is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to joining Columbia, he spent over twenty years at Harvard University, most recently as Director of the Center for International Development. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University.

Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH, Health Coordinator, Millennium Village Project

Dr. Sonia Ehrlich Sachs is a Senior Health Scientist at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and the Health Coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project. She received a BA from Harvard University, an MD from the University of Maryland Medical School, and an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. A pediatrician with a specialty in pediatric endocrinology, Dr. Ehrlich Sachs practiced medicine for over 20 years, 14 of which she spent at the Harvard University Health Services. She joined the Earth Institute in 2004.

Sarwat Salim, MD, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Tennessee, Memphis

Dr. Sarwat Salim graduated summa cum laude from the accelerated Combined B.A./M.D. Program of the State University of New York. She completed her residency in Ophthalmology at the State University of New York- Health Science Center at Brooklyn. She was then selected by her peers and the faculty to be the Administrative Chief Resident. After residency, she completed Glaucoma fellowship at Yale University-School of Medicine. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at University of Tennessee -Health Science Center in Memphis.

Dr. Salim has an interest in international medicine and public health. She has traveled extensively to provide medical and surgical care in underprivileged areas. Her research interests include developmental anomalies, novel medical and surgical therapies for glaucoma, and imaging modalities and visual function assessment for the early detection of glaucoma.

Sarang Samal, Kalinga Eye Hospital, Orissa, India

Sarangadhar Samal is the head of one leading Non Government Social Development organisation in India ( Orissa province)Called NYSASDRI ( visit www.nysasdri.org) innovated and implemented several challanging health projects successfully like, Influenced Government to Introduce SEX Education policy and sylabus in Government high schools, Public Private partnership in Health Sector Reforms to ensure basic health servises to under served Areas of Orissa province and Set up a Low cost Eye hospital in Rural Area to provide comprehensive Eye care servises to poorest to the poor which is conducting more than 5000 cataract IOL surgeries minimum in a year out of which almost 94% are pree servises.NYSASDRI and Kalinga Eye hospital has long term project partnership with UNITE FOR SIGHT in terms of sponsoring cataract surgeries and deploying volunteers to work in Eye hospital and its out reach Eye care programme.

Mr Samal has done his post graduate in Social Work and gather 20 years experience in community Development.

Georgia Sambunaris, MA, Senior Financial Markets Specialist, USAID

Ms. Sambunaris is with USAID and her career there spans over 25 years experience and includes travel and work in 40 countries, primarily in the former Soviet Union and Ukraine, and most recently in Kenya where she evaluated public private partnerships in health and youth. She has worked for USAID's Program and Policy; Latin America and Caribbean; and, Europe and Eurasia Bureaus, and presently is a senior financial markets specialist in the Bureau for Economic Growth and works globally. Her current portfolio centers upon financial market development and capacity building; public private partnerships; economic governance and business environment development related to health services. Her experience includes a detail to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations.

Ms. Sambunaris holds a B.S. in International Affairs from George Washington University and an MA degree from Georgetown University's Graduate School of Foreign Service. Her master's work and thesis concentrated on trade and banking privatization in Latin America.

Shakira Sanchez-Collins, BA Candidate, Yale University; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Tamale, Ghana

Shakira Sanchez-Collins is a senior at Yale University. She began her participation with Unite for Sight in the summer of 2007 in Tamale, Ghana. She is a pre-medical student majoring in Religious Studies. Shakira is an intern in the Elder Horizons Program at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. Shakira has received the Fund for Theological Education Undergraduate Fellowship and the Richter Fellowship. After graduation, Shakira plans to attend Divinity School and then Medical School to combine her interests in religion and medicine.

Harshad Sanghvi, MD, Medical Director, JHPIEGO, Johns Hopkins University

Harshad Sanghviâ€™s professional background is in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Clinical Epidemiology. He received his medical education and residency in Kenya and graduate and postdoctoral training in United Kingdom and USA. He was formerly Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Nairobi. Currently he is the Vice President and Medical Director for JHPIEGO, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University. He is the main contributor to â€œManaging Complications in Pregnancy and Childbirth, a manual for doctors and midwivesâ€ and contributing author in Managing Newborn Problems two of the Integrated Management of Pregnancy and Childbirth (IMPAC) series of manuals published by WHO now available in 18 languages. For the last fifteen years he has led the global effort in expanding emergency obstetric care as well as seeking solutions for preventing PPH and cervical cancer and HIV in low resource settings.

Inon Schenker, PhD, MPH, Senior HIV/AIDS Prevention Specialist; Director, International Department; Chair, Israeli Multi-Center Research Group on Male Circumcision; The Jerusalem AIDS Project

Dr Inon Schenker, PhD, MPH is a Senior HIV/AIDS Prevention Specialist,

Director, International Department of the Jerusalem AIDS Project, Chair, Israeli Multi-Center Research Group on Male Circumcision and the initiator and Director of "Operation AB": Bringing Training in Surgery for HIV Prevention to Africa.

Dr Schenker has over 18 years of experience in public health and international health with a focus on: global health leadership, HIV/AIDS, new technologies in education for prevention and public health interventions in conflict areas.

Currently holds an adjunct lecturer position at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Medicine. He teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the Hadassah Jerusalem College and is an invited speaker internationally.

Former staff member of WHO and UNESCO.

Joel Selanikio, MD, Founder, DataDyne.org

Joel Selanikio is a pediatrician, former Wall Street computer consultant, and CDC epidemiologist with a passion for combining computer science and public health to address health inequities in developing countries. He leads DataDyne.org's efforts to develop and promote new technologies for health, and is a pioneer in the promotion of open-source development for public health.

In his former role as an officer of the Public Health Service, Dr. Selanikio led the response to numerous foreign and domestic outbreaks, and served as the Chief of Operations for the HHS Secretary's Emergency Command Center in the aftermath of 9/11. He has received awards for outstanding service from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense, and other organizations, and was a recipient of a

World Bank Development Marketplace Award in 2003. In 2005, he was given the Haverford Award for Humanitarian Service for his work in treating tsunami victims in Aceh, Indonesia (for which he was profiled in the Washington Post). Most recently, Dr. Selanikio has been nominated by the World Bank for the MIT-Lemelson Award for Sustainability, for the development of the open-source EpiSurveyor project.

Dr. Selanikio holds a bachelor's degree from Haverford College, and an MD from Brown University, and is a graduate of the Epidemic Intelligence Service fellowship of the CDC. He continues to practice clinical pediatrics both as an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University and on the Emergency Response Team of the International Rescue Committee. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

V. Panneer Selvam, MS, DO, MPhil, Arasan Eye Hospital, India

Dr. V.Panneerselvam is Director of Arasan Eye Hospital in Erode, India. He started the eye hospital in 1997 with the aim of providing quality eye care at an affordable cost. It is a 30-bedded hospital that focuses mainly on the anterior segment. Community outreach programs are an integral part of the hospital. To date, 2048 eye camps have been completed, and 52,389 surgeries have been provided. He also trains surgeons in phacoemulsification cataract surgery. Thus far, 144 doctors have been trained from 35 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Libya, UAE, Syria, Egypt, and Ghana.

He was selected by the World Health Organization for a short term fellowship, and he worked in Nepal for their blindness eradication program in the year 1984. He was the first person to implant an intraocular lens in Erode in 1986. In 1996, he was the first person to introduce sutureless phacoemulsification surgery in Erode. He started the first private eye bank in Erode-Arasan Eye Bank in 2001, and 2047 eyes have been collected, which provided 106 corneal transplants. Additionally, he has conducted three eye camps in Ghana at the invitation of the Ghana government and Rotary Club of Madras in the years 2005, 2006, and 2007.

He received his MBBS degrees from Madurai Medical College.

Rosh and Roshan Sethi, BS Candidate, Yale University; Unite For Sight Volunteers in New Delhi, India

Rosh and Roshan Sethi are twin brothers studying biology at Yale. They are currently in their third year, and are also co-Presidents of the Yale Chapter for Unite for Sight.

Rosh and Roshan both spent three weeks volunteering with Unite for Sight in New Delhi, India at Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital. They are both passionate about volunteerism and humanitarianism, and hope to study medicine after graduating from Yale.

Chirag Shah, MD, Chief Resident, Wills Eye Hospital

Dr. Chirag Shah's interest in international ophthalmology developed from his background in public health. While at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, Dr. Shah worked with the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) and their women's health cooperative in Ahmedabad, India. He has also completed a medical trek in the Ladahki Himalayas and helped design a novel health surveillance system in Costa Rica. After earning a masters in public health at the Harvard School of Public Health, he collaborated with Rochester's Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired to design an outreach project aimed at improving the visual health of Latinos. This project won a National Eye Health Education Program grant. In 2003, Dr. Shah was one of twenty-five medical students across the country to be awarded the American Medical Association Leadership Award. Dr. Shah completed an internal medicine internship at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and is currently a co-Chief Resident at the Wills Eye Hospital.

Kuldev Singh, MD, MPH Professor of Ophthalmology, Director, Glaucoma Service, Stanford University

Kuldev Singh, Professor of Ophthalmology and Director, Glaucoma Service, Stanford University, completed MD and MPH degrees from the Johns Hopkins University, residency at the Casey Eye Institute and a Heed Glaucoma Fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. Dr. Singh is Executive Vice President of the World Glaucoma Association, serves on the Board of Directors of the American Glaucoma Society and the Glaucoma Research Foundation, chairs the American Academy of Ophthalmology(AAO)Glaucoma Ophthalmic Technology Assessment Panel and has chaired Glaucoma Subspecialty Day at prior AAO Meetings. Dr. Singh received the AAO Senior Achievement and Secretariat Awards in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

Satyajit Sinha, MBBS, Ophthalmologist, AB Eye Institute, Patna, India

Dr Satyajit Sinha is an ophthalmologist at AB Eye Institute in Patna, Bihar, India. He attended medical school at KMC Mangalore, and received Post graduation from Davangere, Phaco Fellowship from Sanaka Netralaya, Chennai, and Observership attachment in glaucoma at Stanford University. He lectures worldwide and also volunteers annually in Ghana.

Pooja Sinha, MBBS, Ophthalmologist, AB Eye Institute, Patna, India

Dr Pooja Sinha is a retina specialist at AB Eye Institute in Patna, Bihar India. She attended Medical School and Post Graduation in South India at KMC Mangalore. She received super specialization in retina from Sankara Netralaya, Chennai, and she also did observership attachments at Stanford University in the US and at Oxford and Hull in UK. She regularly lectures worldwide, and she also volunteers annually in Ghana to provide free surgeries.

Satyajit Sinha., MBBS, Ophthalmologist, AB Eye Institute, Patna, India

Satyajit Sinha.., MBBS, Ophthalmologist, AB Eye Institute, Patna, India

Piya Sorcar, MA, PhD Student, Stanford University

Piya Sorcar is the author and director of Interactive Teaching AIDS, an animation-based curriculum developed to teach HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention strategies via ICT. Based on IRB-approved research, this application targets the vulnerable category of young adults to promote awareness despite cultural and social barriers abundant in many developing countries. Sorcar is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Stanford University in Learning Sciences and Technology Design / International Comparative Education and is a program advisor for Stanford's Learning, Design & Technology master's program. She is a board member of XRI, a California-based non-profit which specializes in rich media medical education.

Sorcar has been a storyboard/screenplay consultant for many international award-winning children's educational programs and was nominated for a Regional Emmy Award as a lead actress. She was previously an economic research analyst with Analysis Group where she completed financial models for complex litigation and transfer pricing cases, and conducted market research and data analysis. Sorcar holds an M.A. in Education from Stanford University, and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a B.A. in Economics, B.S. in Journalism, and B.S. in Business Administration.

Jonathan M. Spector, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, UMass Memorial Children's Medical Center

Jonathan M Spector, MD, MPH, has worked for over a decade to improve the well-being of children living in global resource-limited settings. A Pediatrician focused on issues in malnutrition and newborn health, Dr. Spector treated children at the height of nutritional crises in Angola and Darfur, where he worked in therapeutic feeding centers operated by Doctors Without Borders/MÃ©decins Sans FrontiÃ¨res (MSF). Dr Spector has also worked with other NGOs, health ministries, and academic groups in Liberia, Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa, Ecuador, Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, and Ukraine. He recently completed a Master of Public Health at Harvard and is currently a Neonatology Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. In the past, he practiced within the Departments of Pediatrics at Harvard University and M.I.T. Health Services, and was Chief Resident in Pediatrics at UMass. His publications include research on tropical infectious and nutritional pediatric illnesses, and global neonatal survival.

Glenn Strauss, MD, Vice President of International Health Care and Programs, Mercy Ships, Int'l

Dr. Glenn Strauss graduated Magna Cum Laude from U.T. Austin in 1976, and from medical school at Univ. of Tex. Medical Branch, Galveston in 1980. He completed his residency in ophthalmology at UTMB. His career in private practice has had a strong emphasis in educational activities including Clinical Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology (1984 to 1987) and as Residency Director ('87-'90) at UTMB. Since 1990 he has served as Clinical Associate Professor at University of Texas Health Center at Tyler and, in addition, taught nationally as the course director and consultant for the recently approved procedure known as Refractive Keratoplasty ('03-'04). He has authored and presented numerous papers nationally.

Dr Strauss began international work in 1986 as a missions surgeon. He has worked with Mercy Ships since 1997, and after 21 years in private practice, retired in Jan. 2005 to serve full time with as V.P. of International Health Care and Programs for Mercy Ships, a faith based medical service to developing nations. He and his wife of 32 years reside in Tyler, Texas. They have served for extended periods in West Africa, Pakistan, and central America where Dr. Strauss continues to teach and perform surgery to address the problem of treatable blindness.

Laurie Sylla, MHSA, BSW, International/Community Research Director, Yale AIDS Program, Yale School of Medicine

Laurie Sylla has worked in HIV/AIDS since 1982 and has been a microbicides advocate for two decades. She was Co-Principal Investigator of an NIMH-funded microbicide acceptability study, has served on the Steering Committee of the Global Campaign for Microbicides and is the Founder and Co-Coordinator of Connecticut Microbicides Now! She was Founding Executive Director of the AIDS Council of Northeastern New York and a Co-Founding Board Member of the Community Research Initiative of New England. She has directed programs at the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the HIV Action Initiative and Yale University, where she is currently the International/Community Research Director for the Yale AIDS Program at the Yale School of Medicine.

Juanita Tjallinks, RN, MCur, in Health Studies, Midwife, Department of Health Studies, University of South Africa

A South African citizen. married with 2 children. Registered General Nurse, Midwife, Psychiatric Nurse, Community Health Nurse, Nurse Educator and Manager.

I have been teaching at the University of South Africa for the past 21 years in the fields of Nursing Education, Transcultural Nursing and Advanced Midwifery.

I have authored several articles in accredited journals and chapters in text books.

I have been the coordinator and lecturer in a project to empower Angolan nurses to embark on degrees in higher education in order for them to develop their own curriculum.

My special interest are: nursing education, transcultural nursing and advanced midwifery.

Busy completing a DLitt in Transcultural Nursing.

James C. Tsai, MD, Robert R. Young Professor and Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Yale University School of Medicine; Chief of Ophthalmology, Yale-New Haven Hospital

Dr. James C. Tsai was appointed the Robert R. Young Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at Yale University in 2006. He serves as Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at Yale Medical School and Chief of the Ophthalmology Service at Yale-New Haven Hospital. A Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude graduate of Amherst College and an alumnus of the Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Tsai completed his residency in ophthalmology at the Doheny Eye Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Following his residency, Dr. Tsai completed glaucoma fellowships at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami and at Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Institute of Ophthalmology in London. He also received a master’s degree in business administration from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Tsai is a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American College of Surgeons, and the Royal Society of Medicine in the United Kingdom. He has received an Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology and is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, Best Doctors in America, and America’s Top Ophthalmologists. He is a panel consultant for the Ophthalmic Devices Panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, an associate examiner for the American Board of Ophthalmology and a member of the National Eye Health Education Program Planning Committee of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Tsai is on the Board of Directors of the Glaucoma Foundation and serves as Chairman of its Medical Advisory Board.

Daniel Vekhter, BA Candidate, Yale University; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Asikuma Breman, Ghana

Daniel Vekhter is a senior at Yale University. During Summer 2007, he was a Unite for Sight volunteer in Asikuma Breman, Ghana, and in Accra, Ghana.

Jennifer Vines, MD, MPH, Oregon Health and Science University

A graduate of the Brown-Dartmouth MD program in 2002, Dr. Vines completed a combined residency in family medicine and preventive medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon in 2006. She currently practices full-spectrum family medicine at a safety net clinic caring for primarily refugees and the homeless in downtown Portland. She also works as a health officer on various public health projects spanning communicable disease and environmental health. Fluent in Spanish and French, Dr. Vines has done clinical and population-based work in Guatemala, Gabon, Peru, rural Alaska and Laos and has a strong interest in bringing a collaborative public health perspective to the programs designed to increase exposure to global health issues among medical students.

Gwen Vogel, PsyD, Director of Field Operations, SalusWorld

Dr. Vogel is a licensed clinical psychologist with extensive experience working in the international arena. She worked as a psycho-social/trauma specialist with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Nigeria and has been consulting with The Center for Victims of Torture in Liberia since March 2007. Before starting at SalusWorld, in September of 2006, Gwen worked part-time as a professor in the International Disaster Psychology (IDP) masters program at the University of Denver.

A core member of the SalusWorld team, Gwen is currently stationed in Liberia and is focused on researching and applying psychosocial and mental health interventions in non-western settings. During the summer of 2006 she worked in Bosnia, supervising advanced doctoral students working in a variety of NGO environments. She also developed the internship program for the IDP program and built partnerships with a number of local non-profits dedicated to working with refugees and trauma survivors.

Gwen received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Iowa in 1999, her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Denver in 2004 and completed her internship at Manhattan Psychiatric Center, an inpatient psychiatric and forensic hospital, in New York, New York in 2005.

Sharon Gschaider-Kassahun, MA

Mrs. Gschaider-Kassahun is a clinical psychologist from Austria/Europe. Since January 2003, Sharon has lived and worked in West Africa (Ghana, Guinea and Liberia). She was employed by WISE (Women's Initiative for Self Empowerment), a Ghanaian local NGO fighting Domestic Violence for 3 years and designed and implemented the sexual gender based violence project (SGBV) for UNHCR-Ghana at the Buduburam Liberian Refugee Settlement. This Refugee settlement hosted approximately 40.000 Liberian refugees who fled the civil crisis in their home country between 1990 and 2003.

During her stay in Ghana, Sharon also consulted with UNHCR on a project focused on assisting unaccompanied minors in Guinea in the process of resettlement to the US. Since October 2006 she has been functioning as a clinician and trainer for the Center of Victim of Torture (CVT) in Liberia. CVTs aim is to support survivors of torture psycho-socially through direct services like individual and group counseling. As a trainer, Sharon focused on capacity building activities with CVT's National staff as well as the staff of partner organizations. She also assisted in providing education to community members on Human Rights abuses.

Ruru Wang, BA Candidate, Mount Holyoke College; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Tamale, Ghana

Ruru Wang is a junior at Mount Holyoke College. She is concentrating her studies on anthropology and biology, and is interested in cultural understandings of health and disease. Ruru is grateful for the opportunity to volunteer in Tamale, and extends her thanks to the Tamale Eye Clinic Staff and her fellow UFS volunteers for an amazing summer.

Seth Wanye, MD, Ophthalmologist, Eye Clinic of Tamale Teaching Hospital, Ghana

Dr. Seth Wanye is an ophthalmologist at The Eye Clinic of Tamale Teaching Hospital in Northern Ghana and a member of Unite For Sight's Medical Advisory Board. Born in Ghana, he received his medical degree from Kharkov Medical School (Ukraine) in 1990 and continued graduate studies at Ulianovsk State University (Russia). From 1997-2000, he completed his internship and Master of Surgery (Ophthalmology) in Moscow Medical Academy and completed his PhD in Ophthalmology at the Russian Academy for Advanced Medical Training in 2002. He subsequently worked with SDA Hospital at Asamang near Kumasi and at Komfo Anoyke Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana. In May 2004, Dr. Wanye became Regional Ophthalmologist and Coordinator for Trachoma Control Program for Northern Region, Ghana. He is also a part-time lecturer at the University for Development Studies in Tamale.

Seth Wanye., MD, Ophthalmologist, Eye Clinic of Tamale Teaching Hospital, Ghana

Stan Watowich, PhD, Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sealy Center for Structural Biology, University of Texas Medical Branch

Dr. Stan Watowich is an Associate Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Dr. Watowich’s research interests include high performance computing, infectious disease drug discovery and development, virus structure and assembly, and integrated network analysis of receptor kinase signaling. He graduated from the Chemistry Department of University of Chicago and was a research associate at Harvard University before joining the faculty at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He has served as Deputy Director of the Sealy Center for Structural Biology, and is a member of the Keck Executive Council for Interdisciplinary Training in Houston, Texas.

Sarah Wells, MA, Associate Director, Women in Government

Sarah Wells is the Associate Director of Women In Government, a national, non-profit, bipartisan organization for women state legislators. As Associate Director, she provides research and council on projects, manages all Public Policy Department and staff, directs international programming, oversees the development of agendas for the organizationâ€™s conferences, and assists the President and Board of Directors with strategic planning. She has also represented and given presentations on behalf of Women In Government at both domestic and international conferences and has published numerous articles on the organizationâ€™s partnership strategies to eliminate cervical cancer.

Sarah received a Masterâ€™s of Public Policy from The George Washington University and a Bachelors Degree in Political Science and Womenâ€™s Studies from the American University.

Emily Whichard, Program Director, Global Health Access Program

Emily Whichard, graduate of UCLA, has extensive field experience in South Africa, Central America and Southeast Asia working on a variety of public health interventions. These include malaria control, HIV harm reduction, Vitamin A distribution, and de-worming programs. She has worked with Global Health Access Program since January 2006 and currently serves as GHAP Program Officer. Emily is applying to medical school for matriculation in Fall 2007 and plans to pursue a career in international health and policy.

Tanya Whitehead, PhD, Research Associate Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Nursing

After an appointment in research and teaching at the University of Kansas, School of Medicine (1987-1996) Dr. Whitehead has served at the University of Missouri- Kansas City (1996 - present) as research and teaching faculty. Her background includes 9 years in clinical practice of psychology, 14 years in higher education teaching, and 20 years in research. Dr. Whitehead's record of technical publishing includes new media workshops, website development, scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, technical manuals, program evaluations, online educational and training workshops, and print-based training materials. Currently she designs projects and conducts evaluations on the development of higher education leadership and nursing education programs nationally and internationally, and serves as a peer reviewer for the US Department of Health and Human Services and US Assistance for International Development. She is a Commissioner on Accreditation for the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and a member of the board of the Association for the Advancement of Higher Education Research.

Michael Wilson, MD, Parasitology Unit, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana

Professor Michael Wilson is an Associate Professor of Parasitology and the Deputy Director of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana. He is also Deputy Director of the West African Centre for International Parasite Control (WACIPAC), a regional training center of the Global Parasite Control Initiative, Japan and a senior scientific advisor to the Lymphatic Filariasis Support Centre for Africa (LFSCA), which is under the ambit of the Global Alliance for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis.

Until recently he was the Project Leader of the WHO/African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC)/Onchocerciasis Vector Eradication Programme on the Island of Bioko, in Equatorial Guinea, Central Africa which assessed the feasibility and implemented the project. He was also a consultant entomologist on the APOC team that evaluated activities in Sudan and Nigeria. In the 1980’s he was a consultant entomologist, Onchocerciasis Control Programme in West Africa (OCP) where he was instrumental in developing the multivariate morphological methods for routine identification of adult members of the onchocerciasis vectors Simulium damnosum species complex by the programme.

Prof. Wilson is a graduate of University of Ghana (BSc General Degree in Biochemistry and Zoology, and BSc Honours degree in Entomology), London School of Hygiene &Tropical Medicine UK (MSc in Medical Parasitology) and University of Salford, UK ( Ph.D. in Biological Sciences).

In addition to his main research interest on systematics and ecology of vectors and of vector-parasite relationships and control of the major parasitic diseases of the tropics, Professor Wilson is the driving force at NMIMR in developing further collaboration with Yale University; in research, participation in the Yale Bulldog Program and annual invitational lectures by Yale Professors.

He serves on several boards and committees including a membership on the Advisory Committee, Mebendazole Donation Initiative – an initiative of Johnson & Johnson Inc., Vice President of Health Improvement and Promotion Alliance (HIP), a Seattle-based non governmental organisation which is interested urban slum areas in developing countries. He has served on the WHO/TDR scientific working group on insect vectors, and also as Temporary Advisor to OCP and APOC on numerous occasions.

Emma Sachs and Meg Wirth, Health Equity Team, Earth Institute, Columbia University

Emma Sacks is currently an NIH fellow in International Maternal and Child Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She previously worked on the Health Equity Team at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, in collaboration with colleagues from UNICEF and UNDP to support the Maternal and Child Task Force of the UN Millennium Project. She continues to contribute to both the Health Data and the Sexual and Reproductive Health Working Groups of the Millennium Village Project in sub-Saharan Africa at the Earth Institute and is currently writing a guide for provision of maternal and neonatal health services in the villages.

Emma has previously worked on an anthropologic studies of midwifery and maternity care transitions in Latin America, as well as a study of organized cooperatives and health care planning in post]disaster areas. She has worked with womenfs groups on community based health and education initiatives in Central America and East Africa. Her current research focuses on the provision of home-based maternal and neonatal health care in South Asia by community health workers.

Meg Wirth is an independent consultant working on a new web portal highlighting maternal health technologies and called Maternova. Currently, she advises the Commons Global Health Fund on a global health strategy with a focus on women’s health. For two years she was a consultant to the United Nations Millennium Project for the Task Force (4) on Child Health and Maternal Health, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University; and a co-author of the final Task Force 4 Report, Who’s Got the Power?: Transforming Health Systems for Women and Girls. Further work on maternal health inequalities was supported and funded by the Earth Institute’s CIESIN and the World Bank. Ms. Wirth specializes in issues of maternal health and health equity. She worked with The Rockefeller Foundation's Health Equity Division for three years, overseeing the Global Health Equity Initiative, an international research program documenting health disparities in 13 countries. Ms. Wirth was also a program manager in Indonesia for John Snow Inc.'s MotherCare project, a major initiative to prevent maternal mortality. She has a Master's degree from Princeton University in the field of international development and an undergraduate degree from Harvard University.

Arthur Wood, Vice President of Alternative Financial Services, Ashoka

Arthur Wood brings over twenty years of experience in the finance sector to his work on social investing. He heads the Social Financial Services (SFS) at Ashoka, engaging global financial service firms in investing in the social sector. He creates strategies and delivers insight into how investors can use their capital to increase the flow and efficiency of financing to the social sector.

Prior to joining Ashoka, Arthur worked with a number of banks – both institutional and private – creating product models and services that have been widely accepted and replicated across the sector. At Coutts, the UK’s most prestigious private bank, Wood conceptualized and managed a project for the innovative use of Offshore Insurance products which has now been adopted across the private banking industry as a key planning tool. As a Director of another leading UK bank, Kleinwort Benson Private Bank, Wood re-engineered and headed the teams associated with Product Development across the entire range of financial instruments. The group was voted the most innovative product team in an award by Private Asset Management magazine. Arthur was also head of e-commerce for the private bank, and he pioneered a model which McKinsey & Co. described as the cutting-edge of strategic web development. He attended the London School of Economics, HEC in France, and Bocconi School of Management in Italy.

As an accomplished debater and innovative thinker on finance, Arthur brings a valued perspective on financing the citizen sector.

Gavin Yamey, MD, MRCP, Senior Editor, PLoS Medicine; Consulting Editor, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases; Public Library of Science, San Francisco

Gavin Yamey MD MA MRCP studied medicine at the University of Oxford and University College London, graduating in 1994. He received his Membership of the Royal College of Physicians in 1997. After five years of working as a physician in a variety of settings - including an AIDS hospice, a dialysis ward, and a brain injuries unit - he joined the British Medical Journal (BMJ)in 1999 as a trainee in medical journalism and editing. In 2001, he moved to San Francisco to be the deputy editor of the Western Journal of Medicine, published by the BMJ and the University of California. In 2004, he was recruited by the Public Library of Science to be a Senior Editor at PLoS Medicine, an open access international health journal. Gavin has written extensively on global health, malaria, and HIV/AIDS, and has helped to train medical editors at workshops in Barcelona and Addis Ababa. He is Consulting Editor to PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, which was launched with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Claudia Hopenhayn and Thomas Young, MD, Department of Pediatrics, University of Kentucky; Shoulder to Shoulder

Dr Thomas Young is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Kentucky. Currently he serves as medical director of a primary care center for low income children and 4 school based health centers. He has been involved in Global Health for over 15 years. Current international efforts include leadership of Shoulder to Shoulder Ecuador (STSE). STSE operates a health center in a shantytown outside of Santo domingo de los Colorados, Ecuador. STSE is a university-community partnership with goals of providing health care to the community we serve, work to empower the community, address other issues of poverty, and to be a service learning site for a broad range of students, faculty, and community members.

Dr. Claudia Hopenhayn is an associate professor in the College of Public Health, University of Kentucky, where she teaches several graduate-level epidemiology courses. Her primary research interests include cancer and reproductive outcomes, within the context of environmental and occupational exposures and cancer control, and global health issues. She has participated in several multidisciplinary international projects, including a short term assignments with the World Health Organization in Inner Mongolia and principal investigator of a large, multidisciplinary pregnancy cohort study in Chile investigating reproductive effects of arsenic exposure from drinking water.

Some of her recent research projects include assessing risks from cervical cancer, and knowledge, attitudes and perceptions regarding HPV infection and HPV vaccination. She has been involved in the Shoulder to Shoulder-Ecuador project since 2006, co-leading service trips of students, faculty and community professionals with her colleague Dr. Tom Young. They are developing innovative strategies to combine short service trips with the establishment of a permanent, locally staffed site in a very poor neighborhood of Santo Domingo de los Colorados in Ecuador.

Philemon Yugi, MPH, Director for Health, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA)

Philemon Yugi, currently the Project Director for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency’s (ADRA) Abstinence and Behavior Change for Youth (ABY) Project; he has over seven years of experience in the management and provision of technical support to HIV/AIDS programs in East and Central Africa. He has demonstrated competencies in the HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support continuum including peer education programs for young people and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), voluntary counseling and testing (VCT); and home based care, including care for orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC). Philemon has also managed community health facilities, coordinated disaster response programs in drought and flooding situations in Kenya, and worked in the rehabilitation of those visually impaired following the 1998 Nairobi bomb blast.

Philemon holds many academic credentials displaying the breadth of his acquired knowledge including: a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from BRAC University, Bangladesh, a diploma in Community-Based Development from PREMESE Africa, Kenya, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Hospital Management from Central Institute of Management, India; a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Psychology and Health Education from Spicer Memorial College India, and a certificate in Community Health Nursing from Kendu Mission Hospital School of Nursing, Kenya.

A Weekend Conference of Ideas and Exchange of Best Practices toImprove Public Health and International Development

April 12-13, 2008Yale University, New Haven Connecticut

Keynote Addresses

Plenary Panels (Confirmed Thus Far)

Brain Drain: The Health, Development, and Economic Effects on African Countries

Introduction:

Panelists:

Building Capacity With Community Health Outreach Workers

Introduction:

Panelists:

Featured Speakers (Confirmed Thus Far)

Biographies of Speakers

Sam Abbenyi, MD, MSc, Director, Programs and Logistics, International Trachoma Initiative

Rob Abel, MD, Delaware Ophthalmology Consultants

Ronald Adelman, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Director of Retina Service, Yale University School of Medicine

Greg Allgood, PhD, Director, Children's Safe Drinking Water, Procter & Gamble

R. Rand Allingham, MD, Professor of Ophthalmology; Director, Glaucoma Service, Duke University Eye Center

Jared Ament, MD, MPh, Clinical Research Fellow, Ophthalmlology & Corneal Surgery, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School; Harvard School of Public Health

Jane Aronson, MD, Director, International Pediatric Health Services; Founder and Executive Executive Officer, Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO); Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Elizabeth Ashbourne, Results Secretariat, OPCS, World Bank

Vidush Philip Athyal, MD, MPH, Fellow/Clinical Instructor, University of Rochester Medical Center

Hibah Ayaz, BS Candidate, Union College; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Chennai, India

Adeline Azrack, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Hopital Albert Schweitzer

Thomas Baah, MD, MSc, Ophthalmologist, Our Lady of Grace Hospital, Ghana

Abrahim Bagheri, BS Candidate, Loyola Marymount University; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Chennai, India

Robert Bailis, PhD, Assistant Professor, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Michele Barry, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine and Global Health Director, Office of International Health; Chief, General Medicine Firm, Yale University School of Medicine

Ravin Bastiampillai, BSc Student, University of Alberta

Georges Benjamin, MD, Executive Director, American Public Health Association

Habib Benzian, , MSc, Director Public Health & Development, FDI World Dental Federation, France

Elvira Beracochea, MD, MPH, Founder, President and CEO, MIDEGO

P. Berman, OD, FAAO, Senior Global Clinical Advisor and Founder, Special Olympics Lions Clubs, International Opening Eyes

Paul Berman, Paul Berman, OD, FAAO, Chairman, The Coalition to Prevent Sports Eye Injuries

Julie Bernas-Pierce, MEd, Executive Director, Blind Babies Foundation

Terry Blaschke, MD, Professor of Medicine and of Molecular Pharmacology (Active Emeritus), Stanford University School of Medicine

Susan Blumenthal, MD, MPA, Former US Assistant Surgeon General, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown School of Medicine and Tufts University Medical Center; Senior Medical Advisor, amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research

Neil Boothby, EdD, Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health; Director, Program on Forced Migration and Health, Mailman School of Public Health

Philippe van den Bossche, Executive Director, Raising Malawi

Peter Bourne, MA, MD, Visiting Scholar, Oxford University; Vice Chancellor Emeritus, St. George's University; Formerly Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Health Issues; Chair, Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC)

Major Bradshaw, MD, Founding Dean, University of Botswana School of Medicine

Michael Brennan, MD, President-Elect, American Academy of Ophthalmology

Harry S. Brown, MD, Founder, Surgical Eye Expeditions (SEE) International

John Bryant, PhD, Professor, Johns Hopkins University

Richard Bucala, MD, PhD, Yale University School of Medicine

Donald Budenz, MD, MPH, Professor of Ophthalmology, Epidemiology, and Public Health, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Dale Buscher, Director, Protection Program, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children

Ann Campbell, RN, MSN, CPNP, Old Dominion University/Operation Smile International

Michael Cappello, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine; Director, Yale World Fellows Program

Kristin Ow Chapman, MD Candidate, NYU School of Medicine

Nancy Chin, MPH, PhD, MA, Assistant Professor, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, University of Rochester

James Clarke, MD, Ophthalmologist and Medical Director, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana

Anna Cooper, MPH, MD Candidate, University of Rochester School of Medicine; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Bihar, India

Ismael Cordero, Advisor, Healthcare Technology, Orbis

Scott Corlew, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Interplast

Rachel Davis, OD

Samantha Diamond, BA Candidate, Yale University; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Asikuma Breman, Ghana

Julia Dickinson, RN, Yale University School of Nursing

Kartee Karloweah and Robert Dolo, ON, RN, Ophthalmic Nurses, Unite For Sight-Ghana

Cody Donahue, Director of Partnerships, Tostan Empowered Commmunities Network

Syril K. Dorairaj, MD, Glaucoma Associates of New York, The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Medical Center

Margaret Duah-Mensah, RN, ON, Ophthalmic Nurse, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana

William D. Evans, PhD, Vice President, Research Triangle Institute

Anthony Farah, MD Candidate, Jefferson Medical College

Sheri Fink, MD, PhD, Kaiser Media Fellow; Visiting Scientist, Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health; Senior Fellow, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

Susan Hall Forster, MD, Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Medical Studies, Department of Ophthalmology, Yale School of Medicine; Chief, Ophthalmology, Yale University Health Services

Clark Freifeld, Healthmap.org

David Friedman, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and International Health, Johns Hopkins University

Stephen Furlow, MD Candidate, University of Kentucky School of Medicine; Unite For Sight Volunteer in Accra, Ghana

Ulrick Gaillard, JD, Founder and Executive Director, The Batey Relief Alliance

Gabriel Garcia, MD, Professor of Medicine, Associate Dean of Medical School Admissions, Stanford University School of Medicine

Lan Gien, BSc, MEd, PhD, Professor of Nursing, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Roger Goldberg, MD, MBA Candidate, Yale University School of Medicine

Silvia Golombek, Senior Vice President, Youth Service America

Sarabeth Gottlieb, CNM, MS, Lecturer, Yale University School of Nursing

Katherine Graves-Abe, MIA, Director of Operations, International Center For Equal Healthcare Access (ICEHA)

Joe Graziano, PhD, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Pharmacology; Associate Dean for Research, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Eric Green, PhD, MD Candidate, Stanford University School of Medicine

Nora Groce, PhD, Associate Professor and Director, Yale/WHO Collaborating Centre, Global Health Division, Yale School of Public Health

Michael Gyasi, MD, Ophthalmologist and Director of the Bawku Eye Care Program, Ghana

Michael Gyasi., MD, Ophthalmologist and Director of the Bawku Eye Care Program, Ghana

A Weekend Conference of Ideas and Exchange of Best Practices to
Improve Public Health and International Development

April 12-13, 2008
Yale University, New Haven Connecticut