Biography

After graduating from Williams College (1955) and the University of Rochester School of Medicine (1960), I spent two years as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence(EIS) Officer assigned to the Indian Health Service in Arizona.  In addition to my main responsibility for examining 10,000 school children per year for trachoma (25% were positive), I had the opportunity to investigate other health emergencies as they arose: Plague, Rabies, Measles, Shigella, Food Poisoning, KeratoConjuntivitis (Philadelphia, Talequah Oklahoma, and La Paz Bolivia), and Rotavirus in the Truck Islands in the South Pacific.  In 1966, I was invited to join CDCs new Smallpox Eradication Program.  Our family spent 4 years in Nigeria (1966-1970) and 4 years in Bangladesh (1972-1976) working with national health workers to eradicate smallpox.  In 1977, I spent three months living with nomads in Somalia (the last smallpox epidemic country in the world.)

From 1980 to 1994, I worked with the International Helath Program Office at CDC in its Combatting Childhood Communicable Disease Project (CCCD).  We worked with 12 African countries to improve the health and survival of children under 5 through strengthening their capacity to prevent and treat diseases.  We focused on prevention (immunization, malaria chemoprphylaxis of women); case management of the three priority killers of children (malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhea) and in strengthening their preventive and curative systems.

I have been teaching Global Health at Rollins since 1994.   

HONORS

Dory Storms Award for Contributions to NGO Child Survival Projects (2008)

Williams College Bicentennial Medal  (2006)

APHA: Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in International Health (2003)

Rollins School of Public Health: Professor of Year (1996), Thomas Sellers Award (2002)

CDC: DHHS Distinguished Service Award (1989), William C Watson Award Medal of Excellance (1991)

WHO: Order of the Bifurcated Needle (1976)

Williams College: DSc (HON) (1983)

University of Rochester School of Medicine: Alpha Omega Alpha (1960)