Here's an overview of my career path, as well as my areas of expertise.
After studying International Relations in college I was compelled to do humanitarian work with the outbreak of the Vietnamese Boat People crisis in 1980. I began volunteering for International Rescue Committee to resettle Vietnamese, Lao and Khmer refugees in San Jose, CA. After 2 years I was working for Joint Voluntary Agency (represented by IRC) in various refugees camps in Thailand, spending 2 years "processing" refugees for US resettlement.Upon returning to the U.S. I continued to resettle refugees. I observed a disconnect between the US health care system and the newly arrived refugees. While working to address this problem my interest and involvement in cross-cultural health promotion was piqued. I returned to school to study health education and received my MPH in 1983.
Becoming an intern at Save the Children's headquarters in Westport, CT, in 1985, I was trained by the highly reputable Drs. Warren and Gretchen Berggren. They mentored me in Child Survival programming, the Hearth Methodology and Health Information Systems. I have continued to be involved in all aspects of Child Survival programs since working on that first round of Child Survival funds in 1985.
While living in Indonesia for 9 years, I managed Save the Children's urban Child Survival program in Jakarta Indonesia, and later became the Asia Regional Health Consultant for Save the Children.
Through my experience in PHC over the last 23 years, I have come to realize that malnutrition undermines a great many child survival efforts, diluting their effects. Not only is health affected by this "silent emergency," but so is education. That is when I decided to concentrate on combating malnutrition. The Positive Deviance/Hearth methodology was the first intervention that I found to successfully achieve behavior change.
Education
- · MPH, Health Education, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, 1984
- · BA, International Relations, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, 1980
- · Fluent in Indonesian, working knowledge of Lao and Thai
- · Basic, conversational skills in French (a work in progress)
Expertise
- · Facilitator of Training of Trainers (TOT) for Hearth (12)
- · Wrote Hearth Program Managers Field Guide (CORE)
- · Nutrition Working group member of CORE
- · Detailed Implementation Planning (DIP)
- · Strategic Planning
- · Designed National level Health Strategy, Maldives for UNICEF
- · Nutrition Trainings
- · Community Health Worker
- · Health Information Systems
- · Team leader for midterm and final Child Survival programs
- · Team member on UNDP evaluation
- · Wrote Manuals for Field Managers for NGOs on DIP, Management and HIS
- · Wrote Manuals for CORE on Hearth and Community-Based Impact Orientation
- · Proposal Developer
- · Evaluation reports
- · Design project and agency-wide systems
- · Wrote field manuals for implementation
- · Facilitate workshops