GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Population Health Sciences, School of Medicine and Public Health
Education
Ph.D., Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health;
MHS, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health;
B.S., Physiology, University of Maryland-College Park
Biography
Ajay Sethi received his Ph.D. in epidemiology and MHS in molecular microbiology and immunology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He received a B.S. in physiology from the University of Maryland-College Park.
Sethi's research interests lie broadly in the study of infectious diseases. His studies aim to identify modifiable behavioral and structural factors associated with transmission and morbidity if infection is established. His research employs both quantitative and qualitative methods in clinic- and community-based settings, observational and quasi-experimental study designs, and is conducted in both the U.S. and in Uganda. He works in the area of HIV/AIDS, strategies to improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy, healthcare-associated infections, adult vaccination and alcohol and other substance use.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Associate Director of the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian
Education
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
MS, Texas A&M University
Alberto Vargas is the associate director of the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program. He holds a bachelor's degree in general agriculture from the Monterrey Technological Institute in Mexico and an M.S. from Texas A&M University. His Ph.D. is in both Forestry and Land Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Vargas's doctoral research examined the interactions of federal, state and local actors in the sustainable use and conservation of tropical forests by local communities in Quintana Roo, in southern Mexico.
Vargas has extensive training and work experience in the institutional, social and technical aspects of community-based natural resource management and the conservation of natural resources. He has conducted research and implemented projects in agriculture, forestry, energy and coastal resource management in Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States.
In the past 20 years, Vargas's consulting has engaged him in work in Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico working for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Federal Environmental Attorney's Office of the Mexican Government, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the Inter American Development Bank, the World Wildlife Fund-U.S., the Overseas Development Authority, the National Wildlife Federation, the Integral Institute and the UW-Madison Land Tenure Center. He has been an Honorary Fellow with the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies since 1998 In the early 1980s, Vargas helped found the Centro de Investigaciones de Quintana Roo (CIQRO), an eco-development research center in the Mexican Caribbean, a region rich in natural resources that is dominated economically by tourism. In June 2004, CIQRO became the recipient of the National Ecology Award for work conducted by center staff during the first five years of its operation (1979-1984). In the late 1980s, Vargas worked in Washington, D.C., as a consultant and independent scholar in environmental conservation and natural resource management in Latin America. He helped spearhead a campaign that resulted in the first incorporation of environmental considerations into the policies of the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank.
More recently, Vargas spent the last decade as a planning analyst for the State of Wisconsin's Department of Administration. There he coordinated a statewide effort to conserve Wisconsin's Great Lakes coastal resources, to address problems of shoreline erosion along Lakes Michigan and Superior and to provide a unified plan among state agencies and the UW-Madison for coastal issues.
Vargas was raised in Pachuca, Hidalgo in central Mexico. He is married to Laurie Greenberg, who also holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the UW-Madison. He is the father of two children: Gustavo Zach and Ilana.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine
- Scientist in Yoshihiro Kawaoka
Amie Eisfeld, a scientist in Yoshihiro Kawaoka's lab in Pathobiological Sciences, looks at microbiomes in the human gut. She wants to understand how different cultural and socioeconomic factors and lifestyles affect the microorganisms that live in every human body. "Other research tells us that there are healthy microbiomes and unhealthy versions," she says. "We're trying to broaden our understanding of what's a healthy microbiome and what we may have eliminated already in developed cultures."
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Family Medicine and Community Health UW Family Medicine Residency
- Member in the UW Family Medicine Residency and Sees Patients at UW Verona
Education
M.D., UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health
Biography
Ann Evensen, MD, FAAFP, is the director of Global Health for the UW-Madison Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and the Faculty Director for the Graduate/Professional & Capstone Certificates in Global Health Online, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Evensen is a faculty member in the UW Family Medicine Residency and sees patients at UW Verona clinic and admits obstetric and newborn patients at UnityPoint Meriter and St. Mary's Hospitals.
Her primary global health partnership is with India's Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI) Green as an advisor to their emergency obstetric program development (Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics and Basic Life Support in Obstetrics). Evensen has also led Global Health Institute field courses in Uganda, assisted with the development of Family Medicine as a specialty in Ethiopia, and has served as an external examiner for Family Medicine residencies in three countries. She is part of a novel One Health partnership (interdependence of human, animal and environmental health) that includes EMRI and the School of Veterinary Medicine. She was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in 2019 and received the American Academy of Family Physicians' Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2018.
Evensen earned her medical degree from the UWSMPH and completed her residency at Valley Family Medicine in Renton, Washington.
Job Titles:
- Accountant
- Accountant for the Office
Biography
Aslesha Shakya is an accountant for the Office of the Chancellor and the Global Health Institute. She is pursuing a Master of Business Administration with an Accounting concentration at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She graduated in 2016 from Nepal's Tribhuvan University with a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration with specialization in Banking and Finance. Accounting and finance have been core interest areas of her journey so far, and she stays updated with the latest developments, software and courses. Apart from work and school, Shakya also loves gardening, traveling, reading books and listening to music.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine
- Professor
Education
Ph.D., Zoology and Entomology, Iowa State University
B.S., University of Wisconsin - River Falls
Biography
Bruce Christensen, Professor Emeritus, continues to work in the general fields of Parasitology and Medical Entomology. Mosquito-borne diseases, including malaria, lymphatic filariasis and numerous arboviruses, have been at the forefront of his research interests. Factors influencing the competence of insect vectors for the pathogens they transmit have been a central theme of these research endeavors. International collaborative research has involved studies in Taiwan, Egypt, Mexico, Papua New Guinea and most recently work in Colombia in concert with the UW-GHI One Health Colombia. This present project is aimed at clarifying the epidemiology of mansonellosis and its impact on indigenous populations in the Colombian Amazon.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director, Strategic Partnerships & Development
Calyn Ostrowski, MNO, is the associate director of strategic partnerships and development for UW-Madison's Global Health Institute (GHI) where she leads philanthropic, research and academic partnerships to advance the interconnected issues of One Health. In 2022, Calyn led GHI's research investigating industrial hemp's versatility to advance the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to UW, she served as Managing Vice President for Business Development & Financial Empowerment at Summit Credit Union and executive director of the Worldwide Foundation for Credit Unions where she worked with cooperatives, trade associations and development partners to advance accessible financial services and products to communities worldwide. In 2008 - 2012, she managed the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' Global Health Initiative - a top 10 global think tank - where she researched and facilitated policy-relevant dialogue events on the intersections of global health, maternal and reproductive health, equity and climate change to generate transdisciplinary solutions and catalyze global action for policymakers, civic leaders and public.
Ostrowski holds a master's degree in nonprofit management from Case Western Reserve University and a bachelor's degree in political science and psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she was a member of the Women's Swimming and Diving team.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Planning & Landscape Architecture, College of Letters & Science
Education
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley;
MCP, University of California, Berkeley;
MS, University of California, Berkeley;
BA, Brown University
Biography
Carolyn (Carey) McAndrews is an associate professor in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her fields of research are transportation planning, policy, and design.
Her research seeks to understand how emerging health, safety, and environmental goals become part of mainstream transportation decision making. Equity is central to these goals, and her research analyzes the distribution of transportation's health impacts, as well as how people organize to influence transportation decision making.
Dr. McAndrews received her doctorate in city and regional planning with a designated emphasis in global metropolitan studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Her prior training includes degrees in economics (BA Brown University), urban planning (MCP UC Berkeley), and transportation engineering (MS UC Berkeley). In 2010-2012 she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Anthropology, College of Letters and Science
Education
Ph.D., University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2004
Ob/Gyn, University of New Mexico, 1994
M.D., Michigan State University, 1990
Biography
As a medical anthropologist, Claire Wendland focuses on the globalization of biomedicine, particularly in Africa. Related work includes the anthropology of reproduction, sexuality and the body. Her first book, "A Heart for the Work: Journeys through an African Medical School," was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2010. That book explores the experiences of medical students learning to be doctors in Malawi, and argues that their responses challenge several longstanding assumptions about biomedicine and about African healing.
Wendland's research also looks at changing concepts and loci of risk in childbirth in southeast Africa, in a setting in which very high maternal mortality rates force professionals and lay people alike to develop explanations for the link between birth and death. She seeks to understand how the narratives of maternal death they produce reflect experiences of a rapidly changing social, economic, and biomedical context.
Wendland teaches an introductory course in medical anthropology, a graduate seminar in anthropology and international health, and various courses in the anthropology of Africa and in general cultural anthropology. She also has an interest in ethics and has taught both anthropological ethics and bioethics courses.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Professor and Chair
Education
M.S., Ecole National Supérieure d'Agronomie de Toulouse, France;
MPS Cornell University;
Ph.D., Cornell University
Biography
Dominique Brossard is professor and chair in the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an affiliate of the UW-Madison Robert & Jean Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, the UW-Madison Center for Global Studies, and the Morgridge Institute for Research.
Brossard's research agenda focuses on the intersection between science, media and policy with the Science, Media and the Public (SCIMEP) research group, which she co-directs. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a former board member of the International Network of Public Communication of Science and Technology, Brossard is an internationally known expert in public opinion dynamics related to controversial scientific issues. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of values in shaping public attitudes and using cross-cultural analysis to understand these processes. She has published numerous research articles in outlets such as Science, Science Communication, the International Journal of Public Opinion, Public Understanding of Science, and Communication Research and has been an expert panelist for the National Academy of Sciences on various occasions. Her teaching responsibilities include courses in strategic communication theory and research, with a focus on science and risk communication.
Brossard has a varied professional background that includes experience in the lab and in the corporate world. Notably, she spent five years at Accenture in its Change Management Services Division. She was also the communication coordinator for the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSPII), a position that combined public relations with marketing communication and strategic communication. Her family worked dairy farms for many generations.
Brossard earned her M.S. in plant biotechnology from the Ecole Nationale d'Agronomie de Toulouse and her M.P.S and Ph.D. in communication from Cornell University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine and Public Health
- Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison School of Medicine & Public Health
Education
M.D., Cornell University
Biography
Dr. James Conway is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine & Public Health in the Divisions of Infectious Diseases & Global Pediatrics. He serves as Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program Director and Medical Director for UW Health Immunization Programs, as well as well as Director of the SMPH Office of Global Health. He is responsible for coordinating global health educational programs involving health professional students at UW-Madison, and oversight of international programs in the UW School of Medicine & Public Health through the Dept. of Academic Affairs. He previously served as the Associate Director for Health Sciences in the UW Global Health Institute from 2011-2022 and is now a member of the GHI Advisory Committee.
Dr. Conway has spent much of his career working to improve immunization systems and address vaccine hesitancy in the US and abroad. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, where he serves as a Global Sustainability advisor, and received an AAP Special Achievement Award in 2009 for his global immunization projects and another in 2016 for HPV advocacy. He is a member of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society Vaccine Advocacy Committee and has served on the American Board of Pediatrics - Pediatric Infectious Diseases Sub Board since 2018, and is now Chair for 2022-4.
He has been engaged in a longitudinal project spanning nearly a decade as a Technical and Global Sustainability Advisor for a collaborative program between the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control, working to simultaneously strengthen pediatric professional societies and immunization programs in over a dozen high priority countries in Africa & Asia.
He has served on the UW System & UW-Madison Emergency Operations Committees as well as the State Disaster Medical Advisory Committee on COVID-19 vaccines since early in the pandemic. He also has been a scientific advisor to pharmaceutical, healthcare and public health organizations regionally and internationally, including most recently working on an array of COVID-19 vaccine development projects.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine
Education
Ph.D., Texas A&M University;
Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine;
Residency, University of Florida;
Internship, University of Georgia;
DVM, University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine;
Dr. Johanna Elfenbein earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard College, her DVM from the University of Florida, and her PhD from Texas A&M University. In addition to research training, Dr. Elfenbein pursued advanced clinical training in large animal internal medicine and is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. Her love for Salmonella came from years of clinical practice where she was amazed by the spectrum of disease caused by the organism. In her spare time, Dr. Elfenbein enjoys running, hiking, cycling, and travel to exotic places.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Education
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison;
M.S. Caltech, 1987;
B.E., Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, India
Biography
Giri Venkataramanan studied electrical engineering degree at the Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, India. He received the B.S. degree from the University of Madras, India, the M.S. degree from Caltech, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1992. He began his academic career at Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA, before joining the faculty at UW-Madison in 1999. He is currently the Director (WEMPEC at UW-Madison and Keith and Jane Nosbusch Professor of Engineering. He has been actively conducting research in the areas of power converter topologies, microgrids, wind power systems, and utility-scale power electronic systems. Dr. Venkataramanan is the recipient of several major awards recognizing his preeminence as an engineering educator at the department, college and university level, including the Chancellor's Award.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Education
Ph.D., Energy and Resources, University of California, Berkeley;
A.B. Dartmouth College
Biography
Gregory Nemet is an associate professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Nelson Institute's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment. He is also chair of the Energy Analysis and Policy certificate program. His research and teaching focus on improving analysis of the global energy system and, more generally, on understanding how to expand access to energy services while reducing environmental impacts. He teaches courses in energy systems analysis, governance of global energy problems and international environmental policy.
Nemet's research analyzes the process of technological change in energy and its interactions with public policy. These projects fall in two areas:
empirical analysis identifying the influences on past technological change;
modeling of the effects of policy instruments on future technological outcomes.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Director of CALS Global at the University of Wisconsin - Madison
Education
M.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison;
Ph.D., National-Louis University
Biography
Jennifer Kushner is the Director of CALS Global at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she provides leadership for international research and outreach in agriculture and the life sciences. For the past thirty years she has led and evaluated US-based and global initiatives related to agriculture, the environment and health. Kushner specializes in systems approaches to complex issues, with focused work in water. She holds a bachelor's degree in agricultural sciences and a master's degree in adult education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a doctorate in adult education from National-Louis University. Dr. Kushner is an executive member of APLU's International Agriculture Section and its Policy Board of Directors, the Globalizing Extension Innovation Network's leadership council and the Journal of Systems Thinking Editorial Board.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Education
PhD., Indiana University
Biography
Dr. Hite and her team work on puzzles to understand the proximate and ultimate drivers of pathogen evolution, sometimes from the pathogen's perspective, other times from the hosts, usually in multiple host-pathogen/parasite systems, often using a combination of molecular and quantitative tools from ecology, epidemiology, and evolution, and increasingly, with extension and art-science outreach projects that seek to bridge the gap between the needs of complex human societies and the amazing environments we inhabit. Dr. Hite is a population ecologist by training where feedbacks between consumer-resource dynamics are key to understanding complex systems. Before joining the UW-Madison, Dr. Hite was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in Clay Cressler's lab, an EPA-STAR PhD student at Indiana University working with Dr. Spencer Hall, a Fulbright Scholar working with conservation groups and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panamá. This Fulbright experience occurred at the height of a fungal outbreak that continues to decimate amphibian populations and played a pivotal role in shifting the direction of her research toward epidemiology and public health.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
- Director of Distance Education for the UW - Madison 's PA Program
Education
MPAS, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Biography
Joel Hill, MPAS, PA-C, is an assistant professor at the UW-Madison Physician Assistant (PA) Program, where he started in 2010. He served in the United States Air Force from 1985 to 2006, where he practiced in family medicine and urgent care from 1996 until his retirement in 2006. From 2006 to 2010 he worked as a PA in general and thoracic surgery in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Hill currently serves as the director of Distance Education for the UW-Madison's PA Program. Other roles at the PA Program include mentoring distance education students, and coordinating courses and developing curriculum for prevention and pharmacology. He developed the program's international curricula, managing the international course and facilitating the annual interprofessional service-learning trip to central Belize. He was also selected to coordinate the online "Global Health Field Work Fundamentals: Engagement, Ethics, Policy and Methods" course for the Global Health Institute.
Additionally, Hill is on the advisory board for Wisconsin Without Borders, which recognizes the work of students, faculty, staff and community partners demonstrating excellence in collaboration between the university and local and global communities. He is also a member of the Global Health Interprofessional Education Committee and the School of Medicine and Public Health Student Safety Travel Review Committee. He currently practices primary and urgent care at the Access Community Health-Wingra Family Medicine Clinic in Madison, Wisconsin.
Job Titles:
- Associate Research Professor
Biography
John Chan is an associate research professor for the Global Health Institute. Chan is responsible for securing new funding and providing comprehensive editorial review on proposals, bringing teams of faculty investigators together to pursue multidisciplinary funding and developing and maintaining collaborative relationships with the Research and Sponsored Programs office at UW-Madison. Prior to joining GHI in July 2023, John and his lab at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh worked on searching for new anti-schistosomal druggable targets and lead compounds to design alternative anti-schistosomal drugs with unique mechanisms. Since his undergraduate studies, Chan has authored and contributed to over 30 publications.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Education
M.D., Case Western Reserve University
MPH, Johns Hopkins University
Biography
Jonathan Patz, M.D., MPH, (@jonathanpatz) was inaugural director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who stepped down in May 2022 to concentrate fully on his work in climate and health. He is the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and the John P. Holton Chair of Health and the Environment with appointments in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Population Health Sciences. For 15 years, Patz served as a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC)-the organization that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. He also co- chaired the health expert panel of the U.S. National Assessment on Climate Change, a report mandated by the U.S. Congress. He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Patz is committed to connecting colleagues from across campus and communities around the world to improve health for all and is continua lly striving to integrate his research into teaching for students and communication to policy makers and the general public.
Patz has written more than 200 scientific papers with more than 100 peer-reviewed, a textbook addressing the health effects of global environmental change and co-edited the five -volume Encyclopedia of Environmental Health (2011). He, most recently, co-edited "Climate Change and Public Health" (2015, Oxford University Press) and is leading a Massive Open Online Course "Climate Change Policy and Public Health."
He has been invited to brief both houses of Congress and has served on several scientific committees of the National Academy of Sciences. Patz served as Founding President of the International Association for Ecology and Health.
In addition to directing the university- wide Global Health Institute, Patz has faculty appointments in the Nelson Institute, Center for Sustainability & the Global Environment (SAGE) and the Department of Population Health Sciences. He also directs the NSF sponsored Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment (CHANGE).
Patz is double board- certified, earning medical boards in both Occupational/Environmental Medicine and Family Medicine and received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University (1987) and his Master of Public Health degree (1992) from Johns Hopkins University.
Patz talks health opportunities - not risks - en route to Paris climate conference
Patz interviewed by CNN, Buzz Herald and Well+Good about the impact of climate change on mental health
Biography
Jorge Osorio, DVM, Ph.D., M.S., is a professor in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine. Osorio has had a lengthy career in medical sciences, including virology, field epidemiological studies, vaccinology, antivirals and vector control programs. He is also the co-director of a Colombia-Wisconsin One Health Consortium, a joint effort between the University of Wisconsin and Universidad Nacional in Colombia that is studying emerging diseases and one-health issues. Osorio recently founded VaxThera, a Colombian-based company that will produce vaccines and biologicals for Colombia and the region. He was also a co-founder and chief Scientific officer of Inviragen, a biotechnology company that developed a novel chimeric tetravalent dengue vaccine that recently completed successfully Phase 3 clinical trials. He also developed vaccines against chikungunya, influenza, rabies, plague and many other emerging infectious diseases. Osorio also has served as vice president of Research and vice president of Government Affairs for the Vaccine Business Division of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. His industry career also included positions at Heska Corporation (Ft. Collins, Colorado), Merial LTD (Athens, Georgia), and Chiron-Powderject Vaccines (Madison, Wisconsin). He has more than 30 years of research and industry experience with more than 130 scientific publications in international journals and 32 patents.
Job Titles:
- Director of the GHI One Health Center - Colombia
- Director, GHI One Health Center - Colombia
Biography
Juan Pablo Hernandez Ortiz is the Director of the GHI One Health Center-Colombia. This program has no precedents in the region, and it comes from efforts between the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The OH program is recognized as a center of excellence by the Global Virus Network, and it is part of the Abbott Pandemic Awareness Program. Hernandez-Ortiz recently co-founded VaxThera with Professor Jorge Osorio from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. VaxThera is a Colombian based biotechnology company centered in a strong research program to develop vaccines and treatments for infectious diseases. Under the premises of "health security", "biologicals' accessibility" and "pandemic awareness", they join efforts with Grupo SURA to establish VaxThera as a state-of-the-art company that makes science to serve life. Hernandez-Ortiz's research projects in Colombia and in the USA have resulted in fruitful collaborations and novel methods demonstrated by more than 100 publications with more than 3,000 citations, an h-index of 26, 18 graduate alumni and a regular size group of 20 graduate students and 20 scientific staff.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Clinical Assistant Professor
Education
MS, DNP University of Illinois at Chicago
Biography
Katie Collins is a clinical assistant professor and Global Health Coordinator in the UW-Madison School of Nursing. She is a nurse practitioner with certifications in both the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care and Family Nurse Practitioner specialties. Collins also currently practices in the Internal Medicine Department at SSM Health. Her prior experience includes medical mission work in Gramothe, Haiti, as well as disaster preparedness research on the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis. Her most recent prior health care experience includes working for Access Community Health, a federally qualified community health center in the suburbs of Chicago providing healthcare to underserved and minority populations. In this position, she also served as an onboarding mentor for new providers. Collins conducted her doctoral research project on improving screening and follow-up for domestic violence in primary care. She is a member of the Alliance of Nurses For Healthy Environments (ANHE) as well as Wisconsin Health Professionals For Climate Action. Collins's main academic interests are in the areas of psychological trauma, planetary health and justice and global health. She earned her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Iowa and her master's and DNP degrees at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Katie Newcomb is the communications director for the Global Health Institute (GHI) where she is leading efforts to raise GHI's visibility, as well as provide creative & consultation services for effective exchanges of information between GHI, UW-Madison, and their many stakeholders.
Prior to joining GHI, Katie was president of the Jefferson County Area Tourism Council and tourism & communications director for the Village of Johnson Creek. Katie has been in public relations and marketing for over 25 years and worked with some of Southeastern Wisconsin and Northern California's most sought after organizations such as the Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee Betty Brinn Children's Museum, Milwaukee Chamber Theater, and the Sonoma County Museum. Her agency work also afforded her the opportunity to work with an array of clients including the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Ascension, Northwest Side Community Development Corporation, Hispanic Professionals of Greater Milwaukee, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Butler Gum, and many more. Growing up in a family devoted to public service, Katie is happy to be part of a team that embodies the Wisconsin Idea.
Katie is also an author, having penned the children's book, Balthazar the Pink, with her two sons. She is a graduate of Marquette University with a bachelor's degree in broadcasting and currently serves on the board of the Oconomowoc Area Foundation. She is big on partnerships and brainstorming and looks forward to promoting great news, innovations, and partnerships with GHI.
Kendall Buehl is a sophomore currently pursuing a double major in Communication Arts and Psychology, along with a Digital Studies certificate. Buehl started with GHI in 2023, and is creator and host of the podcast, "The Burnout Batch." Buehl is looking forward to exploring her interest in, and sharing stories of, global health issues.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Khushi Tanna is a sophomore at UW-Madison majoring in Global Health and Nutritional Science. With her eyes set on becoming a physician, she hopes to immerse herself in local and global advocacy during her time in Madison. With experience volunteering at a hospital, a preschool in India and a local women's shelter, she has a strong desire to uplift and strengthen the lives of mothers and young women. This position is the perfect stepping stone to accomplish these goals.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Surgical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine
Education
DVM, University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine;
M.S., Psychology (Animal Behavior), University of Wisconsin-Madison;
B.S., Meat and Animal Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Biography
Kurt Sladky is an associate professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Education
Ph D Social Studies Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2008
Postgraduate Diploma in Education Geography and Social Studies Education (Secondary), National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 2000
MA Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, 1998
BS International Relations (2nd Upper Honors), London School of Economics and Political Science, 1995
Biography
Li-Ching Ho is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and a Faculty Director of Global Engagement of the School of Education. Her research, conducted primarily in East and Southeast Asia, focuses on global issues of diversity in civic education, differentiated access to citizenship education, and environmental citizenship. She was previously a recipient of the Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award and the College and University Faculty Assembly Early Career Research Award. She is a co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Global Citizenship and Education and has published research in Theory and Research in Social Education, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Teachers College Record and Teaching and Teacher Education. She has also worked closely with scholars, teachers, and students in numerous countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Education
MSPH, Harvard School of Public Health
MTS, Harvard Divinity School
Biography
Lori DiPrete Brown focuses her scholarship on global health, particularly the health and well-being of women and children in highly vulnerable situations around the world. She teaches in the Department of Civil Society and Community Studies at the School of Human Ecology and is affiliated with the School of Medicine and Public Health.
She is the Director for Global Health and Human Ecology and distinguished teaching faculty in the School of Human Ecology. She served as a GHI Associate Director from 2011-2022, where she was an architect of UW-Madison's global health education programs and has developed and facilitated internships and service-learning programs in local settings and around the world. DiPrete Brown is the lead author and editor of Foundations for Global Health Practice, a text that articulates a broad vision of global health that goes beyond health care systems, to include topics such as human rights, global mental health, water and sanitation, food systems, climate change and urban health. She is also the founding Director of the campus-wide 4W Women and Well-being Initiative, which has catalyzed a range of innovative programs that address gender-based inequality and injustice.
Before joining UW-Madison, DiPrete Brown collaborated with a range of international organizations to develop quality improvement strategies for health and development programs. She continues this work at UW through the QI Leadership Institute, which has trained over 100 leaders from 17 countries. She has collaborated on QI research, capacity building, policy development and evaluation in Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Cameroon, India, Nepal, and Malawi.
DiPrete Brown holds degrees from Yale College, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Harvard Divinity School. Her teaching and service inform writing and speaking about global health, gender equity, civil society, and social change. Her novel entitled Caminata: A Journey, is based on her Peace Corps Service in Honduras, where she lived and worked in an orphanage, providing guidance and social services for teenage girls.
DiPrete Brown is also an affiliate of the UW-Madison African Studies Program and the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program. She serves on the advisory boards of the Morgridge Center for Public Service, the UniverCity Alliance and the Latino Earth Partnership. Listen to Lori DiPrete Brown's TEDx Talk "Small Changes are Big" here. Read her blog "Global Health Reflections" here.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Education
Undergraduate Certificate in Global Health
Biography
Maria Moreno, a cultural anthropologist by training, is working with the Undergraduate Certificate in Global Health program and is a multicultural outreach specialist for the Earth Partnership program. She joins the undergraduate certificate team to develop curriculum and courses, document impact and help manage the program. At Earth Partnership, she develops curricular materials and outreach programs centered on ecological restoration for youth, college students, community members and professional development for teachers. She also designs, teaches and supervises service learning as well as domestic and international internships on environmental education. She leads Earth Partnership Global Initiatives in Mexico, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Puerto Rico.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine
Education
Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University;
Postdoctoral Fellow, McGill University;
Ph.D., Iowa State University;
BS, Iowa State University
Biography
Mostafa Zamanian is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Zamanian earned his doctorate in Neuroscience at Iowa State University and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University and Northwestern University.
Dr. Zamanian's research program is primarily focused on neglected infectious diseases that afflict humans and animals. The goal of his research is to identify new targets and strategies for parasite treatment and control, as well as to connect this effort to a better understanding of basic parasite receptor biology and the molecular interactions that occur between helminths and their vertebrate hosts and vectors. His laboratory uses a mixture of molecular, computational, and field work approaches to advance the study of these pathogens in a global health context.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Professor
Education
PhD International and Comparative Education, Stanford University, 2004
BA Cultural and Social Anthropology, Brown University, 1996
Biography
Nancy Kendall is a professor of educational policy studies. Her research examines the consequences of national and international policies and funding streams directed at improving the lives and wellbeing of children, communities, and states positioned as "marginalized" by national and international regimes.
Research projects have examined Education for All, political democratization and educational governance, structural adjustment and education, US higher education, sexuality and HIV/AIDS education, and gender and schooling. Kendall has conducted extended research in Malawi, Mozambique, and the U.S., and has conducted short-term research in Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Zimbabwe. Kendall was a 2009 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellow, and 2019 recipient of the Lyle Spencer Foundation Award. She has received research support from the Fulbright Foundation, Social Science Research Council, TAG Philanthropic Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, WT Grant Foundation, and Lumina Foundation, among others. She is the author of The Sex Education Debates (University of Chicago Press, 2012), and has published in journals including Compare, Comparative Education Review, Current Issues in Comparative Education, Educational Assessment Evaluation and Accountability, International Journal of Educational Development, and Sexuality Research and Social Policy.
Kendall is the Director of the African Studies Program and the Development Studies Program. She is also affiliated with the Department of Gender and Women's Studies and a member of the 4W Leadership Circle and the Advisory Committee for the Global Health Initiative.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering
Education
Ph.D., Civil Engineering, University of Colorado;
M.S., University of Colorado;
B.S., Valparaiso University
Biography
Paul Block is an assistant professor of civil engineering in the College of Engineering. Block's research group creatively addresses critical water resources management challenges in local to international trans-boundary capacities through stakeholder and decision-maker collaborations. They work at the intersection of engineering and socio-economics to enhance management, adaptation and sustainability of water resources by leveraging across the sciences.
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Education
Ph.D., history, Rutgers University;
M.A., history, University of Colorado at Boulder;
B.A., University of Colorado at Boulder
Biography
Richard Keller, Ph.D., is associate dean of the UW-Madison International Division and a professor in the Department of Medical History and Bioethics. He is also a research fellow at the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Enjeux Sociaux in Paris.
His most recent book, Fatal Isolation, (Chicago University Presss, 2015) looked at the effects of the Paris heat wave of 2003. He is also the author of Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa (University of Chicago Press, 2007) and Enregistrer les morts, identifier les surmortalités: Une comparaison Angleterre, Etats-Unis et France (Presses de l'Ecole des hautes études en santé publique, 2010, with Carine Vassy and Robert Dingwall), and is co-editor of Unconscious Dominions: Psychoanalysis, Colonial Trauma, and Global Sovereignties (Duke University Press, 2011, with Warwick Anderson and Deborah Jenson).
His articles have appeared in the Journal of Social History, the Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Historical Geography and Mouvements, among other venues.
He is the recipient of the H.I. Romnes Award from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and is co-director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Andrew W. Mellon Sawyer Seminar in Biopolitics for 2011-2012. His current project is a book that looks at the deadly European heat wave of 2003, with a specific focus on the social dimensions of the catastrophe in Paris. His work on the 2003 heat wave has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Mairie de Paris.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Assistant Professor in the Department of Horticulture
- Department of Horticulture, College of Agricultural & Life Sciences
Shelby Ellison is an assistant professor in the Department of Horticulture at UW-Madison and a member of the graduate programs Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics, Agroecology and Horticulture. Her research interests include preserving, characterizing and utilizing genetic diversity in alternative crops. She is also interested in how human interactions with plants, through domestication and breeding, have altered the plant genome and how we can use these selection signatures to trace domestication and improvement throughout history. Ellison is currently working with a multidisciplinary team of scientists and extension educators to identify best production practices for emerging crops in Wisconsin and beyond. She teaches the undergraduate courses ‘The Science of Cannabis' and ‘Survey of Horticulture'.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Education
LL.M., University of Cambridge (U.K.)
Ph.D., University of Cambridge (U.K.)
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee