Track Session Speakers
Nassim Assefi, a 2nd generation Iranian-American, is an internist specializing in women’s health and global medicine. For the last decade, she has been an academic in Seattle, a humanitarian aid worker and underground salsa dance teacher in Kabul, an aspiring musician in Havana, and a novelist in Istanbul. In 2009, she was selected as a TEDGlobal Fellow. She has traveled to more than 45 countries, and is based in Seattle when she is not abroad. She is a graduate of Wellesley College, University of Washington Medical School, and Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s residency program. She is the author of numerous scientific publications; Aria is her first novel. She is currently writing a second novel set in post-conflict Afghanistan entitled Say I Am You, producing a documentary film about Afghan midwives, serving as a volunteer doctor, and living as a thrillionaire.
Amineh Ayyad is a UW graduate, public health worker, filmmaker and artist. Ayyad’s work and research interests include international understanding and peacebuilding through health and cultural and art exchange programs. She is currently working on a Peace Through Health collaborative training curriculum for community health workers in Palestine. Ayyad founded and directs Adapt International, a nonprofit organization that aims to design, deliver and evaluate community-based psychosocial interventions serving refugee youth through health and art programs both in Seattle and in the Middle East. Ayyad’s current art projects include the Muslim Peace Mosaic, a project bringing together Muslim artists from around the globe. The mosaic will be displayed in Seattle in Summer 2011 during the One World 2011 Games on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to foster positive relationships between people of the Muslim world and people of the United States. She also directed and curated “Global to Local: Narratives of War, Resilience and Peace,” an art exhibit currently on display at the UW Odegaard Undergraduate Library. Ayyad studied economics and public health at UW, and health and human rights, and ethics in international health research at Harvard University.
Holly Barker lives in Seattle and teaches at the University of Washington. Previously she worked for the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ (RMI) Embassy in Washington, D.C. for nearly 20 years, a job she landed after serving in the Marshall Islands with the Peace Corps. Barker recently published Bravo for the Marshallese, a book detailing the effects of U.S. nuclear weapons testing on the health and culture of the Marshallese. The title refers to both the Bravo test of 1954 (the largest thermonuclear weapon ever tested by the U.S. Government), and the courage of the Marshallese in defining themselves as survivors rather than victims of the testing program. Generations of Marshallese families have been decimated by exile from homelands, cancer, and other radiation-related illnesses caused by the testing between 1946 and 1958. Barker has noted that cancers may appear decades later when people contract illnesses. She emphasizes the nuclear testing legacy of the will endure for centuries over many generations of Marshallese. Barker is currently conducting research with a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for a project entitled, “Considering the Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: Legacies and Lessons from the Marshall Islands.”
Sutapa Basu, PhD, is the executive director of the internationally known the UW’s Women’s Center. Dr. Basu’s area of academic specialization is women in developing economies and international development. She has worked extensively with women’s groups in India and the U.S. The primary focus of her current research and activism is ending violence against women and fighting the global trafficking of women and children. Dr. Basu has been recognized as a national leader and advocate for young immigrant women and victims of human trafficking abuse. Through her work at the UW Women’s Center, she helped create the first statewide anti-trafficking legislation. Similar legislation has now been introduced in 24 other states. Dr. Basu has received many awards worldwide for her advocacy and advancement of women in society.
Rajaie Batniji, MD, MA is a physician and public health researcher. He is currently a research associate at Oxford’s Global Economic Governance Program, and a D.Phil candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford – studying as a Marshall Scholar. His doctoral research explains the conditions and drivers for international cooperation on health. He has interests in global health financing, the priority-setting processes of global health institutions, and the political determinants of health. He was a lead author for the Lancet series on health in the occupied Palestinian territory. Dr. Batniji received his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and M.A. and B.A. degrees in History from Stanford University. He has previously worked as a consultant to the World Health Organization.
Lillian D. Benjamin, MPH, MAIS, has conducted an array of qualitative and quantitative research in public health that has focused on maternal and newborn health, displaced populations, HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases, and social determinants of health. Lillian previously worked as a Research Associate at the Global Health Council; her portfolio included HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. After completing her graduate studies, Lillian served as the Albert Schweitzer Public Health Fellow in Lambaréné, Gabon, where she conducted a retrospective chart review of neonatal deaths and also worked with the Community Health Team to provide maternal and child health services at the hospital and the villages in the surrounding area. Lillian’s first experience with international public health was as a health education Peace Corps volunteer in Cote d’Ivoire. Lillian completed her Master’s in Public Health in Global Health and a Master’s in International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College in Sociology and Chinese Studies. She has experience working in several African countries, and is currently serving as a Health Officer at the US Agency for International Development. (The views expressed by this presenter are those of the individual and do not necessarily represent those of the US government or the US Agency for International Development.)
Howard Campbell is a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). He is the author or editor of six volumes about Mexico including a new book from University of Texas Press called “Drug War Zone: Frontline Dispatches from the Streets of El Paso and Juárez.” Additionally, he is the author of a forthcoming children’s book titled “A Dog Named Pavlov.” Dr. Campbell received his Ph.D. and two Master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin. He also received a B.A. from the University of Idaho. Dr. Campbell is a specialist in Latin American Studies with a primary focus on Mexico. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the Zapotec people of Oaxaca, Mexico at various times since 1982. Dr. Campbell has also conducted extensive research with the Piro-Manso-Tiwa Indian tribe of Las Cruces, New Mexico. His academic expertise is concerned primarily with ethnicity, political anthropology, social and intellectual movements, U.S.-Mexico border culture, and drug trafficking. Dr. Campbell has been a professor at UTEP since 1991.
Charles Cange is a doctoral student in public health at the University of Washington. He received his masters degree in environmental sociology from the University of Paris. He has worked as a research scientist for the National Institutes of Health’s nascent National Children’s Study, a statistician for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and as a teaching assistant in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington. He also interned at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Paris Office in 2004 and at the US State Department where he served in the Science, Technology and Non-Proliferation Office in Paris and drafted the Department’s 2005 Human Rights Report: Madagsacar in Antananarivo.
TOM CARPENTER
Tom Carpenter is the Executive Director of the Hanford Challenge. He brings decades of experience in organizing, litigating, and policy oversight in the nuclear field, much of it devoted to Hanford. He is an attorney and has a Masters in Organizational Design and Renewal from Seattle University.
Through his work at GAP and Hanford Challenge, Tom has visited dozens of nuclear sites in the U.S. and Russia, hosted international conferences on protecting nuclear whistleblowers and examining the legacy of highly-contaminated nuclear facilities, and focusing on the Hanford Nuclear Site in southeastern Washington State.
Dr. Juanita Celix received her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She completed an internship in General Surgery at the University of Washington and is currently a resident in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington. She is also completing a Master’s Degree in Public Health in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington. Her clinical interests include traumatic brain injury and neuro-critical care and her public health interests include trauma systems in low resource settings, prevention and management of traumatic brain injuries in low resource settings and the sequelae of traumatic brain injury in settings of conflict. She is currently working on a clinical study of the use of intracranial pressure monitoring in moderate and severe traumatic brain injury in different resource settings in South America. She will be presenting on blast injuries as the signature injury of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly the traumatic brain injury that results from blast exposure.
Diana Chamrad, Ph.D., is a Licensed Psychologist in the Seattle area. She recently worked at the US Agency for International Development, Bureau of Global Health, Office of HIV/AIDS, through the Global Health Fellows Program. She is Affiliate Faculty at Antioch University Seattle with teaching interests in global community psychology, global health and social justice. Dr. Chamrad has also been working with humanitarian aid projects in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and the Gambia.
Patrick Clarkin (Ph.D. Binghamton University, SUNY) is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. As a biological anthropologist, his research has focused on nutrition, growth, and the developmental origins of chronic disease. He has conducted research on Hmong, Lao, and Khmer living either in French Guiana or the United States, looking at the contributions of war, forced displacement, and socioeconomic status on stature, body composition, and health.
Rob Crawford is professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at University of Washington, Tacoma, where he teaches courses related to human rights, war, and post-9/11 politics in the U.S. He also founded and co-facilitates the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture.
Anita Verna Crofts is a Clinical Instructor at the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health and adjunct faculty at the Master of Communication in Digital Media program at the UW Department of Communication. In this capacity she designs and delivers curriculum on professional communication strategies, storytelling as a leadership and evidence tool, digital media adoption in resource-poor environments, and cross-cultural communication techniques for an international development setting. In addition to her work at the University of Washington, Anita is an award-winning food journalist who writes about the intersection of culture, food, and identity. Her article, “Silver Lining,” on food and Sudan is currently featured in Gastronomica’s 10th anniversary Winter 2010 issue.
Shannon Dorsey, Ph.D., is a Clinical Psychologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, School of Medicine. Dr. Dorsey’s research and clinical focus is on evidence-based treatment for children and adolescents. Within this area, she has particularly focused on evidence-based interventions for youth impacted by trauma, youth with behavior disorders, and youth involved with child welfare. Dr. Dorsey is an expert in Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and conducts trainings nationally and internationally. She is the Principal Investigator on an NIMH-funded project evaluating TF-CBT and evidence-based engagement strategies for youth exposed to trauma who are in foster care. Recently, Dr. Dorsey also has been focusing on launching evidence-based interventions in low-resource countries. She is a Co-Investigator on an NIMH-funded study examining the feasibility of providing TF-CBT to youth who have been orphaned in Tanzania. In addition to her NIMH-funded work, Dr. Dorsey is currently working on a number of state and private foundation-funded projects with the goal of improving outcomes for youth by increasing their access to and receipt of evidence-based treatments. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Washington in 2007, Dr. Dorsey was an Assistant Professor in the Duke University, School of Medicine where she worked on both NIMH and SAMHSA-funded projects and initiatives, including the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative.
Linda Doull trained as a Registered Nurse in the UK-NHS (Aberdeen 1997-1980) and has a BA in Anthropology & Geography from University College London (1988-1990). She gained her MPH from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1997. She has 19 years experience in the international health and humanitarian sector. During this time she has worked with Medical Aid for Palestinians and Medecins Sans Frontiers in acute and chronic crises such as Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Palestinian Territories, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Kenya and Former Yugoslavia.
Linda joined Merlin in 1997 as Health Advisor, became Health Director in 2000 and has been Director of Health & Policy since 2006, managing a team of ten staff. During this time she has played a central role in shaping Merlin’s strategic vision of improving health in fragile states through more a coherent emergency relief and longer-term health system strengthening approach Linda is also a core member of the WHO-led Global Health Cluster and the Health and Fragile States Network. She represents Merlin on a wide range of international health fora and has written and reviewed a number of articles on international health and humanitarian work.
Roger Dowdy, LICSW, ACSW has worked in a variety of mental health crisis settings – including the Emergency Room at Harborview Medical Center and as a King County Designated Mental Health Professional. In his current role with the Department of Veteran Affairs at Puget Sound Health Care System he serves as the Associate Social Work Director for Mental Health Services as well as Director of Suicide Prevention Programs. He is a Clinical Faculty Member at the University of Washington School of Social Work as well as Faculty for the Department of Veteran Affairs’ Center of Excellence in Substance Abuse Treatment and Education. Mr. Dowdy will speak on the topic of suicide prevention in the Veteran’s Administration.
Jeff Ellis is an attorney who represents individuals condemned to die. He currently serves as Oregon Capital Resource Counsel, providing assistance to Oregon attorneys representing individuals facing or under a death sentence. Mr. Ellis is also an adjunct professor teaching capital punishment law at Seattle University Law School. He previously ran a death penalty clinic at the University of Texas Law School. For the last three years, Mr. Ellis served as the President of the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Dr. Ghannam is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, Faculty in the Center for Global Public Health in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley, and Adjunct Professor of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. He serves as a consultant with CCR and Reprieve and is working on many of the Guantanamo cases currently under review. He is also working with the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center on a project evaluating the post-release health effects of detention in Guantanamo.
Amy Hagopian is on the faculty in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle, where she teaches, advises students, and conducts research on international health workforce issues. She is senior health workforce policy advisor to Health Alliance International, a non-governmental organization working with Ministries of Health around the world to improve population health. Her particular research interest is in the area of health worker migration from low-income countries to wealthy countries. She serves on the American Public Health Association governing council, as a representative of the international health section.
Dr. King Holmes became the first William H. Foege Chair of Global Health at the University of Washington effective Nov. 1, 2006. Dr. Holmes also heads the Infectious Diseases Section at Harborview Medical Center and founded and directs the UW Center for AIDS and STD, a WHO Collaborating Center for AIDS & STD. The Center for AIDS and STD includes the UW/FHCRC Center for AIDS Research, established in 1988, and several NIH-funded research training programs. Dr. Holmes is also principal investigator for the International Training & Education Center on Health (I-TECH), a collaboration between UW and University of California San Francisco – one of the largest HIV/AIDS training programs in the world. Dr. Holmes chairs the STI Working Group for the NIH HIV Prevention Trials Network. He has participated in research on STIs for over 40 years in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific. He has authored over 500 peer-reviewed publications and edited 30 books, monographs, and journal supplements. He has trained and/or mentored over 100 scientists involved in HIV/STI research and care.
Randall Horton is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Seattle University. He is a licensed clinical psychologist whose teaching and research interests lie in the areas of cultural psychology, refuge and immigrant mental health, and the psychology of ethno-political violence.BA English, The University of Virginia; PhD Psychology and Human Development, 2006, The University of Chicago.
Hanson currently directs the UW Master of Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) and is a media strategist at HRH Media. In his previous career as a war correspondent, Hanson was embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq, reporting for NBC News. Often armed only with a laptop, satellite phone and camcorder, he filed ongoing live coverage from the Persian Gulf.
Matthew Jakupcak (Ja Koop Check), PhD is a clinical psychologist in the Deployment Health Clinic of the Puget Sound Health Care System and is an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Boston and received clinical training at the Boston VA Behavioral Science Division at the National Center for PTSD. Dr. Jakupcak interned at the Seattle VA, and following internship, served as a research fellow in the Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) and in a clinical fellow on the Seattle VA PTSD Inpatient Unit. Dr. Jakupcak has served as the lead psychologist in the Deployment Health Clinic since 2005 where he provides direct clinical services to Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans, supervises psychology interns and post doctoral fellows, and conducts research. His research interests are specific to gender differences in traumatic responses, emotion dysregulation and high risk behaviors associated with PTSD, and applications of Behavioral Activation for trauma-exposed populations. Dr. Jakupcak has published more than 20 scientific articles, including studies establishing associations between PTSD with violence, substance abuse, and suicidal behaviors in Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans seeking VA health care. Dr. Jakupcak will be speaking on the impact of PTSD on high-risk behaviors and the ways in which family members and communities are impacted.
Larry Johnson has been a journalist for more than 30 years, most recently as the national/foreign editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers and he has traveled in more than 35 countries, covering Iraq for the PI in 1999, 2002 and 2003. He lives in Seattle.
“Mama” Muliri joins us from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She has led the “Heal My People” program to address gender-based sexual violence since the program began in North Kivu, Congo in 2003. Mama Muliri is one of the head counselors at Heal Africa who help to identify women who have been raped and bring them to Goma for treatment. She provides maturity and wisdom as well as teaching and leadership skills, making this more than a medical program; it’s healing for mind, body and spirit. Training, research, community decisions and action are an integral part of the healing for all in this war-torn province.
Evan Kanter, MD, PhD is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist specializing in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. As Staff Psychiatrist in the PTSD Outpatient Clinic at the Seattle Veterans Affairs Medical Center he treats psychiatric casualties of war from World War II to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He introduced a new course at the University of Washington, War and Mental Health, and is developing additional curriculum on the health consequences of war for the Department of Global Health. Dr. Kanter is Immediate Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Dr. Nagam Khudir graduated from the School of Dentistry, University of Baghdad in 1996. She worked as a dentist in specialized hospitals for 12 years. From 1996-2003, her job became increasingly difficult as medical supplies became scarce due to the UN-imposed international sanctions. As a practicing Christian, she volunteered often in her church in Baghdad, focusing on teaching and educating children. She has faced many struggles in the workplace, in particular discrimination and the threats from medical staff in Baghdad. She is married with two young children. She relocated to Seattle seven months ago.
Dr. J. David Kinzie is Professor of Psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists. He received his MD degree from University of Washington and also took a residency in Psychiatry there. He worked as a general physician in Vietnam and Malaysia and had a fellowship in Transcultural Psychiatry at University of Hawaii. He originated the Intercultural Psychiatric Program at OHSU which has been operating continuously since 1976. Dr. Kinzie is actively treating patients from Vietnam, Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia, and Ethiopia – many of whom have been severely tortured.
Milli Lake is a PhD student in the Political Science Department of the University of Washington studying international justice and human rights. Her research interests include the relationship between international, domestic and traditional justice mechanisms in post-conflict societies and the prosecution of gender-based crimes under international law. She has worked closely with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court in this regard and has spent time in various post-conflict settings. Prior to embarking on her PhD, she worked as a programme assistant for the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association (IBA) in London, and has also worked on the violence against women campaign for Amnesty International, and for Transparency International, in Berlin. Milli earned her BA/MA at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Laura Lee is a PhD Student in Interdisciplinary Studies based at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia. She holds a MSc in International Health from Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh, 2006) and a BMSc in Honours Physiology from the University of Western Ontario (2004). Laura has done significant research and program based work seeking to strengthen the psychosocial well-being of child and youth-headed households in Rwanda through community-based approaches. She has worked as researcher and community health and development practitioner with former child labourers in India, prison children in Bolivia and communities affected by conflict and HIV/AIDS in Kenya, Angola and Tanzania.
Her current research maintains an interdisciplinary approach, including perspectives of anthropology, public health, and development studies with a focus on marginalized children and youth in contexts of social reconstruction. Her work at present focuses on East Africa and the Great Lakes region and her research interests include inter-generational poverty transmission, social development, resilience, Aboriginal health, participatory methods, and community-based approaches to healing. She currently works as a Research Assistant with the Transitional Justice Network at the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the Justice and Reconciliation Project which works with marginalized and war-affected communities to strengthen locally-owned approaches to the reintegration of ex-combatants, justice and reconciliation in war-torn northern Uganda.
Andrew Lim worked for a year from 2008 to 2009 along the Thai-Burmese Border as a fellow of the Global Health Access Program. He provided technical assistance and training to community-based health programs which deliver health services and education to conflict-stricken communities in eastern Burma. His work focused on program implementation and evaluation of trauma management care, village health worker education, and population-wide health and human rights surveys.
Andrew’s current research is on the intersection of health disparities and human rights violations among displaced persons in Karen State, Burma. He plans to return to the border to work on training evaluation for trauma medics in conflict areas. He is currently an MD candidate at the UCSF Medical School and an MS candidate at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. He is on the board of directors of the US Campaign for Burma and has spoken at Brown University, the Watson Institute for International Studies and UCLA on health and human rights issues in Burma.
Maggi Little graduated from the UW in the fall of 2009 from the European Studies program at the Jackson School of International Studies. Her thesis work delved into a comparative analysis of the UN and the EU missions in Kosova for which she received recognition from the Undergraduate Library Research Award. Following her graduation, Ms. Little serves as the Seattle IRC’s AmeriCorps VISTA, Community Outreach Coordinator. Having been resettled as a refugee from Kosova in 1999 and now working with the IRC to help resettle refugees, Ms. Little has gained a twofold understanding of the work, courage and determination both refugees and those doing their settlement work must have in order to make the immense transition a successful one.
For over a dozen years and on several continents, Scott Long has documented and advocated against human rights violations based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV status. For five years he lobbied the United Nations on sexual rights issues; his work led to U.N. human rights mechanisms agreeing publicly for the first time to take up gay and lesbian concerns. As program director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) for almost six years, he edited or co-authored reports on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender parenting, and on the use of sexuality to target women’s and feminist organizing. He authored Public Scandals: Sexual Orientation and Criminal Law in Romania, a report by Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC, and of More than a Name: State-Sponsored Homophobia and Its Consequences in Southern Africa, also for Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC. He also researched and authored In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt’s Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct, Human Rights Watch’s detailed report on sexuality and Egyptian criminal justice. Long has also produced a widely-used manual introducing grassroots activists to international human rights systems. He has written and published extensively on issues of sexuality, culture, and human rights. He graduated from Radford University at the age of 17, and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1989 at the age of 25. He has taught at the University of Budapest, as well as holding a Fulbright lectureship at the University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania. He was a founding member of the Romanian gay and lesbian organization ACCEPT. While in the latter capacity shortly after the Romanian revolution, he began his career as a human rights activist, documenting and defending people imprisoned under Romania’s repressive sodomy law. He joined Human Rights Watch as a consultant in 2002 to develop a project on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and in March 2004 was hired as its director
Gary Machlis, PhD is a Professor of Conservation in Human Ecology at Yale University, as well as Science Advisor to the Director, National Park Service/Professor of Forest Resources, Science Advisor to the Director, National Park Service, and Professor of Conservation at the University of Idaho. He is the founding principal of the Human Ecosystems Study Group, a collaboration of faculty and graduate students working on human ecosystems around the world. Machlis recently published an article on Warfare Ecology in BioScience.
Scott Michael received his clinical psychology doctorate from the University of Kansas. He obtained specialized PTSD training from the National Center for PTSD during internship at the VA Palo Alto Healthcare System. He obtained further specialized PTSD training during his postdoctoral fellowship in the Mental Illness Research, Education & Clinical Center at the VA Puget Sound. Dr. Michael is currently a staff psychologist in the PTSD Outpatient Clinic at the VA Puget Sound. Topic: Psychotherapeutic Approaches for Veterans with PTSD
Christopher JL Murray, MD D.Phil is a physician and health economist and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. He holds Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degrees from Harvard University, a D.Phil in International Health Economics from Oxford, and an MD from Harvard Medical School. From 1998 to 2003 he was executive director of the Evidence and Information for Policy cluster at the World Health Organization, and from 2003 to 2007 he was director of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health and Richard Saltonstall Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Dr. Murray’s early work focused on tuberculosis control and development of the Global Burden of Disease methods and applications, including the design of the Disability-Adjusted Life Year, a metric for measuring and comparing population-level burdens of disease which addresses mortality and non-fatal health loss. He has written or edited 14 books and 130 peer-reviewed journal articles on topics including health measurement, health policy evaluation and health systems performance assessment. His current work at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation covers a range of topics including global mortality and cause-of-death patterns, coverage and cost-effectiveness of interventions, and the development of new health measurement methodologies
Professor Ngugi joined the faculty in 2004. His research interests include the role of law in economic development, the role of governments in market regulation and wealth allocation, and legal reforms in transition and developing economies. He teaches Contracts Law and Contracts Theory, Public and Private International Law (including courses in Law and Development, International Business Transactions, Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Rights, International Economic Law), and Business Organizations. Professor Ngugi was selected by the students as a Philip A. Trautman Professor of the Year for 2004-05. Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Ngugi practiced law with the Boston law firm of Foley Hoag, LLP, as a corporate and international litigation associate. He also practiced law with the Kenyan firm Kariuki Muigua & Company Advocates. Professor Ngugi has worked with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and conducted research work for the Global Coalition for Africa/World Bank, Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR) at Harvard University and at the Global Trade Watch Division of the Public Citizens, Inc. in Washington, DC.
Hope O’Brien, MPA, MPH is the National Student Program Coordinator for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). She has a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington’s Evans School and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Hope has worked to promote access to justice, health and development domestically, as well as in India, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, and Mozambique. She recently returned from working in a field hospital in Haiti. Hope will present PHR’s research about attacks on Darfuri women in Sudan and Chad.
Karen Parker is a San Francisco based attorney who practices human rights and humanitarian law fulltime. She is responsible, in part, for the evolution of international law in such areas as economic sanctions, weaponry, environment as a human right, and the rights of the disabled. In 1982, she founded the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers and has served as its president for over twenty years. In addition, she is the chief delegate for International Educational Development – Humanitarian Law Project, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) accredited by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). She has also represented or served as a consulting attorney for Disabled Peoples International, Human Rights Advocates, and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. Ms. Parker received her J.D. degree with honors from the University of San Francisco Law School in 1983. She interned at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and externed for California Supreme Court Justice Frank Newman, a close friend until his death in 1996. Today, she testifies regularly at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and its Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. She is a recognized expert on the application of humanitarian law with regard to Depleted Uranium (DU), and more recently has brought a lawsuit against the United States on behalf of victims of Iraqi medical facilities bombed by U.S. forces. This case has been accepted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In the case of Depleted Uranium, in 2001, Ms. Parker and her colleagues lobbied successfully for the appointment of a special rapporteur on the legality and use of this material during the annual session of the Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination Against Minorities. She has prepared a report and conference statement on this subject. Ms. Parker is bilingual English/Spanish and also speaks French and Italian. A native of Rochester, New York, she is a former classical musician and educator.
Susan Purdin, RN, MPH, is Deputy Health Director of the International Rescue Committee. She is part of a team overseeing projects addressing the health needs of persons affected by armed conflict in 25 countries around the world. In addition, to her work with the IRC she holds an adjunct faculty position in Columbia University’s Forced Migration and Health Program, teaching classes on program planning, reproductive health, and HIV in situations of forced migration. Her career has focused on public health in the international arena since 1986. She is recognized as an expert in the provision of humanitarian assistance in general and in reproductive health in particular. She also has wide experience in the development of technical and managerial capacity of program staff. Ms Purdin led the development of phase one of the Sphere Project which fostered consensus among international NGOs on minimum standards for humanitarian assistance. In 1999 she received the Global Health Council award for “Best Practice in the Field of Global Health” for her work providing field-based, on-site, technical assistance to reproductive health projects in conflict settings. Purdin has worked in: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia, Macedonia, Malawi, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Rwanda, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Zambia.
Murray A. Raskind, MD, is Director of the VA Northwest Network Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System (with campuses in Seattle and American Lake/Tacoma, Washington). He is also Professor and Vice-Chairman in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Director of the University of Washington Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.
Professor Rivin directs the Global Health and Justice Project, a multidisciplinary project that is based at the UW School of Law. The project encompasses academic activities at UW as well as field activities in developing countries in collaboration with the Seattle-based NGO, Uplift International. She is a co-investigator on the International Biomedical Research Ethics Fellowship Grant, funded by the Fogarty Center. Professor Rivin co-directs the Certificate in International Bioethics, Social Justice and Health. In addition to her appointment at the Law School, Dr. Rivin has appointments in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health. She is Adjunct Research Associate Professor of Global Health and Bioethics and Humanities.
Her professional experience ranges from clinical pediatrics and adolescent medicine to field research, epidemiology, emergency humanitarian assistance and public health and human rights program development and evaluation. In addition to domestic work, Professor Rivin has field experience in China, Cambodia, Haiti, Indonesia, Israel, Nepal, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Tajikistan. She has consulted with Ministries of Health, large governmental and international organizations, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Health Organization, and various non-governmental organizations.
Dr. David Roesel is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Global Health at the University of Washington. He earned his medical degree at Stanford University, and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington. He holds a Masters of Public Health from Berkeley and a Diploma of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has been interested in reducing global health disparities since he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gabon 20 years ago. He has worked in clinical and research settings in Zimbabwe, Honduras, Uganda, and Gabon, and maintains an ongoing relationship with a hospital in Madagascar, where he helps with capacity building and training. In Seattle, Dr. Roesel is an Attending Physician in the International Medicine Clinic at Harborview Medical Center, which cares for a large number of East African and Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees. His interests include tropical diseases, immigrant health, the ethics of humanitarian interventions, and medical education. He currently directs several programs for medical students and residents interested in global health.
Bert Sacks first became involved concerning conditions in Iraq when in 1994 he read The New England Journal of Medicine’s survey of the impact of the first Gulf War and continuing sanctions on Iraq: the report of 46,900 excess children’s deaths within the first 8 months stunned him.
He made the first of nine trips to Iraq in 1996 to bring medicine there and to bring the story of what was happening back to this country. For his second trip in 1997 he was fined by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control $10,000 for choosing not to request a license for his activities.
Mr. Sacks has consistently refused to pay that fine, arguing in federal court that a policy which eventually led to the excess deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children — done as a means of coercing the Iraqi government — came to constitute genocide (among other crimes). The US government has just recently brought suit against him to collect.
Melanie Sears, RN, MBA has been a certified trainer for the Center of Nonviolent Communication since 1991. She currently works with businesses, hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, individuals, couples and parents in transforming their usual way of operations, interpersonal interactions and dealing with conflict to one which is more compassionate, conscious and effective. Using her diverse background and vast experience, Melanie helps people learn how to shift common communication patterns in any setting to create more connecting, honest and meaningful professional and personal relationships.
Julia Sewell, LICSW, Has 15 years clinical experience working in the trauma field with a background in co-occurring addiction disorders. Currently, she is the Military Sexual Trauma Coordinator for both divisions of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System as well as the VISN 20 MST Point of Contact. Ms. Sewell also serves as clinical provider with the Women’s Trauma and Recovery Center at the Seattle Division VA Medical Center. She is a Clinical Instructor affiliated with the University of Washington, School of Social Work as well as at Smith College, Northampton, Mass. Ms. Sewell will be speaking on current issues concerning military sexual trauma.
Kevin Sites is an award-winning journalist and author who has spent the past decade covering global war and disaster for ABC, NBC, CNN and Yahoo! News. He has revolutionized the media coverage of war with his use of portable digital technology to shoot, write, edit and transmit multimedia reports from the world’s most dangerous places.
Sites has been recognized with Manchester College’s 2008 Innovator of the Year Award, a National Headliner Award, the Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism and two Emmy nominations. He was recently selected as a 2010 Nieman Fellow, a prestigious journalism fellowship at Harvard University.
Cindy Sousa is a doctoral student in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington, where she is a NIMH prevention research trainee. She holds a MSW from Portland State University and has a MPH with a Certificate in Global Health from the University of Washington. Her current areas of research focus are trauma, prevention, resiliency and mental health. She is particularly interested in the impacts, intergenerational transmission, and mediators/moderators of recurring trauma and stress. Cindy is a PI on a study in Palestine examining the impacts of political violence on mental health and potential areas of resilience such as family and social cohesion, education, religion, political involvement and empowerment.
Meg Spratt, Ph.D. is director of Dart Center West, the academic programs and West Coast office of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. With more than 20 years experience as a journalist and journalism educator, her research interests include news coverage of tragedy, race and gender, and political communication, with an emphasis on photojournalism. Her work has been published in American Journalism; Visual Communication Quarterly; Journalism; The Howard Journal of Communication; Popular Communication; and Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.
Norm was a police officer for 34 years, the first 28 in San Diego, the last six (1994-2000) as Seattle’s Chief of Police. He has a doctorate in Leadership and Human Behavior, and is the author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing (Nation Books, 2005; recently out in paperback), several op-eds (Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, San Jose Mercury News, AlterNet, and Real Change News), and a recently completed novel. He is a member of Drug Policy Alliance and an advisory board member of both Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). He is a member of the Constitution Project’s Death Penalty Committee as well as Death Penalty Focus, an organization working to end executions. He does expert witness work, and serves on the board of directors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services in San Juan County, Washington. Norm lives and writes in the San Juan Islands. Visit his website at www.normstamper.com.
Dr. Takaro is a physician-scientist who investigates linkages between occupational & environmental exposures and disease and looks for preventive solutions. His primary interests are in lung disease, indoor-air hazards, and field use of biomarkers for medical surveillance and risk assessment with mixed exposures. Additional interests include asthma and health effects of climate change. He recently published a paper in the American Journal of Public Health on Childhood exposure to leukemia in Iraq.
Dr. Teruel is a Senior Advisor in International Health and Special Advisor to the Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the American continent. He coordinated the “Health: A Bridge for Peace” strategy, an initiative implemented by PAHO/WHO throughout Central America that utilizes international health cooperation as a means for reducing conflict. Dr. Teruel received his medical degree at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, with post-graduate studies in Brazil and England. He received his training in epidemiology and statistics at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Currently, he serves as a professor of Global Health and International Affairs at the Department of International Health, Georgetown University, and is the Coordinator of the Global Health Course taught at the Summer Session in Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, University of Michigan.
Dr. Theodosis is a graduate of the New York University School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed internship and residency in Emergency Medicine at Yale University. His work focuses on health system development in politically fragile countries–in particular, states emerging from crisis and those where continued deterioration threatens basic stability. His research interests are directed at understanding and implementing strategies that can consolidate system gains and ensure “peace dividends” in the form of better health, in settings of severe resource limitation. Dr. Theodosis’ professional assignments emphasize central, southern and western Africa where he has been engaged since 1998. At present, he leads the University of Chicago’s efforts on health sector redevelopment in post-conflict Liberia. Christian is also Chief Health Policy Advisor to the HEARTT Foundation, a Liberian NGO, tasked by the Government of Liberia to lead academic reconstruction efforts at the John F. Kennedy Medical Center–Liberia’s only teaching hospital.
Gordon Thompson is Executive Director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Dr Thompson has more than three decades of experience in technical and policy analysis and public education on inter-disciplinary issues related to environment, energy, sustainability, human security, and international security. He received an engineering and science education in Australia and a DPhil from Oxford University, in theoretical plasma physics. Since 1979, he has been based in the United States.
Judith N. Wasserheit is a Professor of Medicine and Global Health and Vice Chair of the Department of Global Health. She is also an Affiliate Investigator the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She was formerly the Director of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, a global clinical trials platform linking 28 sites on four continents in evaluating preventive HIV vaccines; led the CDC’s national STD prevention program for almost a decade; and was the founding chief of the NIH’s STD research branch. She has had extensive experience in sexually transmitted disease (STD) and HIV research, policy development, and program implementation both in the United States and in developing countries.