Jennifer Leaning, MD, SMH, assumed the position of Director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights on January 1, 2010. An expert in public health rights-based responses to humanitarian crises, Dr. Leaning is the FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at Harvard School of Public Health and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her appointment followed an international search for a successor to Jim Yong Kim, Director from 2006 to 2009. As Steven E. Hyman, provost of Harvard University, noted in the Harvard Gazette, “Jennifer's experience on the ground in hotspots from Afghanistan to Somalia gives her a unique perspective on the connection between human rights and public health. We are excited to think about the ways in which the FXB Center and its commitment to children's health will evolve under her leadership.”

The FXB Center was founded in 1993 with the support of philanthropist Albina du Boisrouvray and places special attention on the rights of children. In announcing the selection of Dr. Leaning, HSPH Dean Julio Frenk expressed gratitude to du Boisrouvray for her generous support, adding, “The FXB Center represents an extraordinary commitment to improving the lives of children living in vulnerable circumstances around the globe. I am confident that Dr. Leaning will increase that commitment and strengthen the center's sense of mission.”

Prior to her current appointment, Dr. Leaning served as Co-Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. From 1999 to 2005, Dr. Leaning directed the Program on Humanitarian Crises and Human Rights at the FXB Center, during which time she also served as Editor-in-Chief of Medicine & Global Survival, an international quarterly. She is Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and the Center for International Development at Harvard University, and is the former Senior Advisor in International and Policy Studies at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Dr. Leaning serves on the boards of Physicians for Human Rights (an organization she co-founded), Amnesty International, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Oxfam America, The International Rescue Committee, The Humane Society of the United States, and the Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the American Red Cross. She is Visiting Editor of the British Medical Journal, serves on the editorial board of Health and Human Rights: An International Journal, and is a member of the Board of Syndics at Harvard University Press. She is on the faculty of HSPH’s Department of Global Health and Population, and teaches disaster management, human rights, and public health and policy response to humanitarian crises. She edited a seminal textbook on the topic, Humanitarian Crises: The Medical and Public Health Response, published by Harvard University Press in 1999.

Dr. Leaning has documented human rights abuses and provided medical care and public health services on the ground to refugees in almost every crisis over the last twenty years, including humanitarian emergencies in Afghanistan, Albania, Kosovo, Angola, Darfur, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, Somalia, and the African Great Lakes region. She was awarded a Special Citation for Exceptional Volunteer Service by the American Red Cross and the Humanitarian Rose Award by the People's Princess Charitable Foundation in the UK. One of the first to identify the conflict in Darfur as genocide after extensive field investigations, Dr. Leaning testified before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the United States Congress, and the United Nations on the plight of women in humanitarian crises, particularly in the case of Darfur. She received her AB degree from Radcliffe College, magna cum laude, a Master's degree in demography and public health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and her MD with honors from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. 

Policy Director Arlan Fuller has experience in international policy, federal government operations, and legislative strategy. He has served as a public affairs consultant to the Formosan Association for Public Relations, a Taiwanese-American organization, where he worked with Formosan and the Taiwanese government in coordinating their legislative efforts in the US Congress. He has also been a consultant to the Citizens Trade Campaign, where he advised grassroots labor and trade organizations on strategy for legislative campaigns regarding the Chile and Singapore Free Trade Agreements. He was the Legislative Assistant for international relations and trade policy to Congressman Sherrod Brown, a senior member of the House International Relations Committee. In this role, he was responsible for the Congressman’s policy campaign to increase USAID funding for anti-tuberculosis efforts as well as organizing a legislative and whipping strategy with the House Democratic Caucus on trade policy issues. Mr. Fuller also worked for Senator Edward Kennedy, serving on the Senator’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee staff, and focused on National Institutes of Health grants. Mr. Fuller received his BA in economics from the College of the Holy Cross. He holds a master’s degree in peace and conflict studies from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, and a JD from Boston College Law School.

Tricia Spellman is Administrative Director at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Before joining the Center, Ms. Spellman was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS). EOHHS represents about half of the state government, encompassing 16 agencies serving the most vulnerable citizens of the state including the MassHealth program. At EOHHS, she was responsible for the financial management of a $12 billion budget and over $6 billion in annual revenue. In this capacity, she played an important role in the recently enacted health care reform law and other initiatives including employment programs, community housing programs, and health care access. In her previous work experience, Ms. Spellman was the Budget Director and CFO for MassHealth and a Health Policy Analyst at the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). Ms. Spellman holds a BA in sociology from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Simmons College.

Theresa Stichick Betancourt is Assistant Professor of Child Health and Human Rights in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). Dr. Betancourt is a member of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, where she directs the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity (RPGCA). Her central research interests focus on the developmental and psychosocial consequences of concentrated adversity on children and families, resilience and protective processes in child refugee mental health, health and human rights, and applied cross-cultural mental health research. Dr. Betancourt is the Principal Investigator of an ongoing longitudinal study of former child soldiers in Sierra Leone, which provides the basis for a planned intervention study of war affected youth. She is currently collaborating with Partners in Health Rwanda on a mixed-methods study assessing mental health services needs of HIV/AIDS-affected youth and an adaptation of evidence-based preventative interventions for use in this site. She recently served as Co-Principle Investigator of a randomized-controlled trial of interventions for the treatment of depression symptoms in northern Ugandan IDP youth. Her prior research investigated social connectedness and mental health among Chechen IDP youth, and the relationship between caregiver and youth mental health among Kunama refugees living on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border. Dr. Betancourt graduated summa cum laude in psychology from Linfield College and holds a Master’s degree in art therapy from the University of Louisville. She completed her doctoral work in maternal and child health with concentrations in psychiatric epidemiology and health and human rights at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2003. Previously, Dr. Betancourt worked as a mental health clinician in both school and community settings and consulted on global children’s mental health issues for various international NGOs and United Nations agencies, including work with the United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict in 1999. She was recently awarded a K01 Career Development Award from the National Institutes for Mental Health to study modifiable protective processes in the mental health of refugee children and adolescents.

Sarah Arnquist is a Case Writer for the Global Health Delivery Project. Previously, she worked as a journalist, reporting on public health issues. Her work has appeared in the New York Times and other publications. She has a master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Sarah grew up in rural Minnesota and completed her undergraduate degrees in journalism and Spanish at the University of St. Thomas.
 

Amy Elizabeth Barrera is a Project Coordinator for the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity (RPCGA) at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Her interests are in HIV prevention and health promotion, as well as, community based interventions that address psychosocial concerns of youth and their families. Prior to joining the HSPH, Ms. Barrera collaborated on HIV prevention projects in Mexico and South Africa. She also worked at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as a research assistant where she aided in adapting intervention materials to be used within multiple international settings. Ms. Barrera holds a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology and Human Biology degree and a Master of Public Health degree from Emory University.

Matt Bonds is a Research Associate at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. As a Research Associate, Matt is developing an active research program particularly focused on the economic evaluation of health care delivery and the efficacy of various interventions in resource-poor settings. The focus of his work is in Rwanda. Prior to joining the FXB Center, Matt was a Fellow at the Earth Institute and a Research Assistant at the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia. He received his BA in economics from Francis Marion University and has a PhD in economics, as well as a PhD in ecology, from the University of Georgia.

Nikita Carney is a Research Assistant for the Global Health Delivery Project. At GHD, Nikita participated in the qualitative research portion of the WHO Maximizing Positive Synergies project, examining the impact of global health initiatives on national health systems. She has also served as a course coordinator for the Global Health Effectiveness Program at Harvard School of Public Health. Over the course of an internship with Partners in Health during the summer of 2008, Ms. Carney researched quality assurance and suppliers of 2nd line TB drugs. She graduated from Wellesley in December of 2008, where she focused on women’s studies, anthropology, and French. Nikita's independent studies at Wellesley examined the Chicago women’s health movement and access to health care and social services for women in the Nomzamo and Lwandle townships outside of Cape Town, South Africa.

Claire B. Cole is a Writer for the Global Health Delivery Project (GHD) focusing on large-scale HIV prevention programs in resource-poor settings. Prior to joining GHD, Ms. Cole worked as researcher and project manager of a year-long study on population control policies in northwestern India in which she provided strategic analysis to a national coalition seeking to combat Two-Child Norm policies while refocusing government attention to improving health care access. Her research is being used to inform organizing around the fifteen-year anniversary of the International Convention on Population and Development. Ms. Cole received her Masters of Public Health from the University of Washington, and has a background in community and reproductive justice organizing.

Chris Desmond is an economist specializing in HIV and AIDS with a particular focus on responses to children in the context of the epidemic. Dr. Desmond coordinates the Costs of Inaction Project, which seeks to examine the costs of our failure to respond to children. The project considers how current inaction alters children’s life chances and increases the costs of fulfilling their rights. Previously, he was a research specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa and a research fellow at the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His past work has covered a range of research topics relating to the impacts of HIV and AIDS as well as the provision of technical assistance to governments, private sector organizations, multi- and bilateral donors, and international NGO’s working in the Southern African Development Community region in the design of their responses. Dr. Desmond holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and a Masters in economics from the University of Natal.

Bevan Dowd is a Research Assistant for the Cost of Inaction Project, which examines the multiple social and economic costs that follow when societies fail to address the pressing needs of their children in the context of HIV and AIDS. The project is currently examining the responses for children in Angola, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania and has special consideration of these children’s ultimate life chances and fulfillment of their rights. Bevan is responsible for assisting with the compilation, research, and evaluation of data on the specific countries relevant to the study. Such research includes collecting historical background, economic factors, and health indicators on each country as well as communicating with the project’s in-country partners. Ms. Dowd uses this data to assist with the identification of possible interventions on the behalf of children. Prior to joining the Cost of Inaction project, Ms. Dowd was an intern for the Lesotho Project, which is also located at the FXB Center. Ms. Dowd holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University, and in the near future she plans to pursue a career in law and international public health.

Shalini Dutta is a Research Assistant for the Cost of Inaction Project which investigates the short and long term consequences to society from its failure to adequately support children impacted by HIV/AIDS. Currently, the project is building case studies in Angola, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania. Ms. Dutta’s work on the project consists of researching as well as synthesizing available data as it relates to a country’s historical background, economic status, health indicators, and government policy. Through such research and vital communication with in-country partners an accurate understanding of each country’s specific response to children can be ascertained. From such work, gaps in the current response can be determined and policy interventions that will benefit children as well as broader society can be developed. Ms. Dutta received a Bachelor of Arts from Bryn Mawr College and is interested in pursuing degrees in medicine and public health.

A’Nova Ettien is a a Project Coordinator for the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity (RPCGA) at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. She recently spent two years in under-resourced rural and urban areas in western Jamaica, where she worked primarily in HIV prevention and health promotion through behavior change strategies. She has also worked in a variety of capacities to support expecting and new families in the Boston area and in Portland, Oregon. Her interests include holistic and culturally appropriate approaches to promoting the health of youth, families, and communities. Ms. Ettien is also very much interested in the responsibilities of developed nations to work globally against injustice and inequities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and American literature from Reed College, and a Master’s degree in Public Health from Boston University, where she took a dual concentration in maternal and child health as well as in health law, bioethics, and human rights.

Susan Holman is an academic writer and editor with dual training in public health nutrition and the religious history of responses to poverty as they relate to human rights. She received her MS in nutrition from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University with a clinical internship at Frances Stern Nutrition Center, Tufts-New England Medical Center. As a registered dietitian, she specialized in maternal-child health nutrition at several community health centers in Boston and at the Joslin Diabetes Center, until a compelling curiosity about the history of faith-based attitudes to poverty, nutrition, and health choices drew her back to graduate school. She holds an MTS degree from Harvard Divinity School and a PhD from Brown University. She is author of three academic books (two by Oxford University Press), and of numerous articles and contributed chapters. Prior to joining the FXB Center, she was a managing editor with Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins, and a medical writer and editor for Faculty Services at the Department of Medicine of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. At the FXB Center, she empowers research on poverty and human rights through academic and research editing and writing. She serves as a writer/editor on various projects, and contributed to the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS (JLICA) Learning Group 3. With Dr. Alec Irwin, she is a managing editor for Health and Human Rights: An International Journal.

Alec Irwin is an ethicist and public health policy analyst whose primary areas of work include (1) HIV/AIDS policy, (2) the underlying social and political determinants of health, and (3) human-rights based approaches to health. After completing a PhD in the philosophy of religion in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Irwin taught for four years as an assistant professor at Amherst College. Dr. Irwin left Amherst in 2002 to work full time under Dr. Jim Yong Kim at the Boston-based health charity, Partners In Health, and subsequently at the World Health Organization, Geneva. In 2003, as a member of the Transition Team for incoming WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook, Irwin contributed to the preparation of the new Director-General’s global health leadership agenda. Subsequently, Irwin accepted an offer to remain at WHO in the Department of Equity, Poverty and Social Determinants of Health (EIP/EQH), where he served as a member of the technical secretariat of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health. While at WHO, Irwin was a principal writer on two World Health Reports: WHR 2003: Shaping the future, and WHR 2004: HIV/AIDS: Changing history. He was also a member of the Task Force which drafted WHO's eleventh General Programme of Work (GPW), the organization's principal long-range planning document, covering the period 2007–2015. Dr. Irwin contributed in particular to drafting the sections of the GPW dealing with health equity, the social determinants of health and an ethical framework for global public health. Irwin was a co-editor of and contributor to the book Dying for growth: Global inequality and the health of the poor (2000). Through a series of regional case studies and thematic chapters, the book explored the impact of recent patterns of global economic and political change on the health of poor people. Irwin’s 2003 book Global AIDS: Myths and facts, written with Joyce Millen and Dorothy Fallows, continues to enjoy frequent course adoptions in academic institutions and has been translated into Spanish and Japanese.

Robyn Libson Gray is the Financial Associate at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Her role at the Center for the last seven years has been to help coordinate the financial and administrative processes of the Center. She graduated in 2000 from Colgate University with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and women’s studies, and graduated with a master’s degree from the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at Lesley University in 2008. In addition to her work at the FXB Center, Ms. Gray has worked as a counselor at Respond, an agency for victims and survivors of domestic abuse, and as a counselor at the Wheelock College Counseling Center. She is currently working part time as a clinician at Somerville Mental Health, as part of the addictions team delivering treatment to opiate addicts. Her interests include the effects of trauma; processes of recovery, late adolescent development, addiction; and mental health issues and human rights.

Nadejda Marques is Research Coordinator for the Cost of Inaction Program. She holds degrees in economics (UNA, Brazil), international finance (FGV, Brazil), and human rights and development, in which she is completing a PhD in Seville, Spain. She has worked as a special correspondent for the Washington Post in Latin America, and has taught languages and Latin American culture at Harvard, Bentley College, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. For the past decade, Ms. Marques has worked in human rights with Human Rights Watch in Brazil and Angola. Ms. Marques is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. She serves as a consultant and member of the board for leading human rights NGOs in Brazil and Angola.

Sarah Meyers-Ohki is the Faculty Assistant to Dr. Theresa Betancourt, Director of the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity (RPCGA) at the FXB Center. She currently provides administrative and research support to Dr. Betancourt and to the RPCGA team, whose focus on cross-cultural mental health research is of special interest to Ms. Meyers-Ohki. In 2009, Ms. Meyers-Ohki received her Bachelor of Arts in French and Francophone Studies from Columbia University, where she also pursued a pre-medical curriculum. She is especially interested in maternal and child health, and hopes to achieve a medical degree in the near future.

Dr. Miller is a Research Associate and Epidemiologist at the FXB Center, and is collaborating with Partners in Health as their Head Epidemiologist for Africa Sites. Her research focus over the last decade has been in the evaluation of tools and strategies for use in public health practice and at the community level, with a central research focus in the effectiveness of community-based strategies for tuberculosis control. Her recent work includes various collaborative studies between the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research and the Rio de Janeiro Health Department, including a community-randomized trial of case detection methods for tuberculosis in Rio’s most impoverished neighborhoods, a community-randomized trial of effectiveness of clinic-based vs. community-based tuberculosis treatment strategies, and an evaluation of care-seeking behavior among respiratory symptomatics an impoverished setting in Brazil. In the past, Dr. Miller worked as an Epidemiologist and Assistant Director for Epidemiology and Surveillance in the Division of Tuberculosis Prevention and Control at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, where she was co-principal investigator on several grants evaluating the utility of genotyping for public health practice. Dr. Miller received a BA from Case Western Reserve University, an MPH from Boston University with dual concentrations in social/behavioral science and epidemiology, and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in epidemiology, with a concentration in infectious disease epidemiology. She is delighted to be back in Boston.

Kileken ole-MoiYoi is a Case Writer for the Pediatric Team of the Global Health Delivery Initiative. He is predominantly involved in the development of malaria treatment and prevention cases to be used in the academic program of the GHD Initiative. Prior to joining the FXB Center, he worked for TechnoServe, a Washington, DC-based international development organization, as a volunteer business consultant in Nairobi, Kenya. He primarily focused on delivering business skills to rural farmers to enhance their ability to generate income and improve their quality of life. Mr. ole-MoiYoi also worked with Community Centered Conservation in the Comoros, integrating economic development with conservation efforts to increase awareness and train community conservationists on alternative income generation activities. While double majoring at Brown University (BA in the political economy of development, BA in human biology), he wrote an honors thesis on integrating principles of sustainability with the fight against malaria in sub-Saharan Africa and co-founded EduVision, a Zurich-based organization that focuses on incorporating innovative information communication technology with rural education programs in developing countries.

Catlin Rockman is Creative Director for the FXB Center. She designs and creates the pages for Health and Human Rights: An International Journal and other Center publications, and creates photographic illustration for the FXB Center’s website. She has been working for the FXB Center (with a one year break) since 1998. Ms. Rockman is also a professional visual artist and has exhibited her paintings in over 25 gallery exhibitions across the country. Ms. Rockman holds a Bachelor of Science in communications from Emerson College, and a Master of Fine Arts from Tufts University / The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Erin Sullivan is a Research Associate at the Global Health Delivery (GHD) project, a collaboration between Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Division of Global Health Equity, and the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School. At GHD, Dr. Sullivan has conducted research that applies business models to the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV in low-income countries. Currently, she is the methodologist for a multi-country and multi-institutional study commissioned by the World Health Organization to examine the synergies between disease-specific Global Health Initiatives (GHIs) and health systems.

A recent PhD graduate in business studies at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, Dr. Sullivan focused her doctoral dissertation on the impact of research and development on the pharmaceutical supply chain. She previously served as a researcher at the Institute for International Integration Studies (Trinity College), Visiting PhD Fellow at Copenhagen Business School, and Research Assistant and Consultant at Harvard Business School.

Dr. Sullivan also has a BA in art history and history from Wellesley College.

Tim Williams is Project Coordinator for the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Mr. Williams' research and programming interests include developing evidence-based services and programming for children and families in concentrated situations of adversity, particularly those affected by commercialized sexual exploitation, HIV/AIDS, armed conflict, and natural disaster. Prior to joining the team at the FXB Center, Mr. Williams worked as Research Associate for the Division of Global Health and Human Rights at Massachusetts General Hospital on a multi-country research project examining public-health responses to commercial sexual exploitation in India and the Philippines, among other projects. Recent professional experiences include working with the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and AIDS, McLean Psychiatric Hospital, a pediatric after-school program for HIV-affected youth at Boston Medical Center, and The Home for Little Wanderers. He recently served as a co-investigator on a Boston University School of Medicine needs assessment of HIV/AIDS-affected children and their caretakers in rural Uganda. Mr. Williams holds Master's degrees from Harvard School of Public Health and Boston College Graduate School of Social Work as well as an undergraduate degree in sociology from George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon.