International Health presented by NGO Experts
Tuesday, November 9
4:30-6 p.m., Eliot 314
Snacks served
RSVP Required 12 noon Friday, November 5

Join this panel of three NGO experts on international public health for a cogent, informative, and important discussion. Lots of room for Q&A.

Panelists:

Dr. David Pyle
After graduating from MIT with a Ph.D. in political science/international nutrition planning, Dr. Pyle worked as a health, nutrition, family reproductive health consultant for 30 years. Twenty-five of those years were with John Snow, Inc., the worlds largest public heatlh consulting firm whose objective is to reduce maternal and infant mortality in the developing world. David's primary areas of interest and expertise are community-based programming, monitoring, evaluation, and primary health care and nutritional interventions. He held long-term assignments in Indian and Turkey, and consulted in more than 50 countries. During the course of his career, he worked with a number of NGOs, for example, CARE, Save the Children, Concern Worldwide, Aga Khan Founation. Additional, Dr. Pyle consulted for international agencies such as USAID, World Bank, UNICEF, and the Ford Foundation.

Laura Peterson, MA
Founder and Executive Director
Hands to Hearts International (HHI)
In 2004 Laura took a leap of faith, quit her real job, and created HHI in response to the crisis of orphaned children worldwide. Laura has been the clinical director for a non-profit serving children with severe mental health issues, a wilderness therapist for troubled teens, and a faculty member in the College of Public Health at Oregon State University. She created "Wood Chicks," a wilderness empowerment program for women who were victims of domestic violence. Laura has a BA in Psychology from University of Connecticut and earned her MA in Counseling at University of Northern Colorado. Her commitment to the health of women and children globally comes from years of working with troubled youth and eye-opening travel experiences in developing countries. In recognition of her successful creation of HHI Laura received Wisdom University’s 2006 "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Outcomes Award" and the 2007 – 2008 “Making a Difference for Women Award” from Soroptimist International of the Northwest Americas.

Learn more about HHI and see Laura tell why she founded HHI at http://www.handstohearts.org.

Stephen Himley, MPH
Program Development Specialist at Medical Teams International, Portland OR
Stephen’s career began in solid rocket design and manufacturing, based upon a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from UC Davis. With artificial heart technology being developed by joint ventures between aerospace engineering and clinical research centers, he joined Nimbus (now Thoratec; Rancho Cordova CA) as project manager in the design and development of a total artificial heart. He moved over to the clinical side, as project manager in development of mechanical heart assist technologies at the Cleveland Clinic (OH). With clinical and research experience, he joined the heart transplant team at Sacred Heart Medical Center (Spokane WA), as Mechanical Heart Specialist. During this period, he started a medical device development company (DeltaCardio LLC) that was not successful. After volunteering on a short term trip to Haiti and then with an orphan care NGO in South Africa, he decided to become more actively involved in the HIV pandemic, starting an NGO (Two Tunics) to assist with the anti-retroviral therapy roll-out in South Africa. After this volunteer experience, he decided to return to school and pursue a Master in Public Health, which he received from the U of Washington in 2008. During this extended degree part-time MPH program, Stephen used his engineering background to work at a safe drinking water technology company (HaloSource, Bothel WA), designing point-of-use drinking water products for use in developing countries (primarily India), and designing and initiating field evaluation studies in Tanzania. He then joined PATH (Seattle WA) as Technical Officer in a safe drinking water project. In an effort to gain more field experience, Stephen used his prior clinical research experience and moved to South Africa as International Study Coordinator, for Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Bronx NY), managing operational research in drug-resistant tuberculosis. At Medical Teams International since April 2010, Stephen develops international health projects; recently he initiated TB program activities within an HIV home-based care project in Mozambique.