Preventing Disasters and Minimizing Their Consequences

Home

About the conference

Registration

Working groups

Agenda

Speakers - Biographies

Tahir Andrabi is associate professor of economics at Pomona College. His areas of interest include the rise of private and religious schools in rural Pakistan and issues of school choice, and industrial subcontracting in developing countries. During a recent sabbatical, he founded the ALIF project to develop learning initiatives through creative uses of the media. He has consulted to the World Bank and served on the tax and microeconomics committee of an economic advisory board of the government of Pakistan. He holds a PhD in economics from MIT.

John Balbus is senior scientist and program director at the Washington, DC office of Environmental Defense. He has training and experience in clinical medicine with expertise in epidemiology, toxicology and risk sciences. He has published studies of climate change and health, waterborne infectious diseases, the toxic effects of chemicals and regulatory approaches to protecting vulnerable populations. Previously, he was director of the Center for Risk Science and Public Health at George Washington University where he had joint appointments in both the School of Public Health and Health Services and the School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Balbus has an MPH from Johns Hopkins and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mihir Bhatt is honorary director of the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, a multi-disciplinary effort, which incorporates best practices of governments and NGOs, donors and affected communities. He has been deeply involved in Gujarat, a western state that is repeatedly subjected to earthquakes, floods, cyclones, and drought. His and the Institute’s work focuses on helping the poor to create mechanisms and institutions to create a comprehensive approach to preparedness and recovery. Mr. Bhatt has a master degree in urban studies from MIT, and was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2004.

Barry R. Bloom is dean of the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health and Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health. Bloom is widely recognized as a scientist in the area of infectious diseases, vaccines and international health. During his career, he has advised a number of national and international organizations, including the WHO. He is currently a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Technology in Foreign Assistance, the Ellison Medical Foundation Scientific Advisory Board, the Earth Institute External Advisory Board at Columbia University, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Wellcome Trust Center for Human Genetics in Oxford, UK. Dean Bloom received an honorary ScD from Amherst College, an AM from Harvard, and his PhD from Rockefeller University.

Joseph Brain (conference co-chair) is Drinker Professor of Environmental Physiology, Harvard School of Public Health, where he also served as chair of the School's Department of Environmental Health for __ years. Prof. Brain’s research emphasizes the response to inhaled gases, particulates and microbes. His studies extend from the deposition of inhaled particles in the respiratory tract to their clearance by respiratory defense mechanisms. His special interest is in the role of lung macrophages and drug delivery to and through the lungs. Many of the current research projects of the department have Prof. Brain’s stamp on them. Currently, he directs the School’s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health. Prof. Brain has two master’s of science degrees and a doctor of science in environmental health from Harvard.

Salvano Briceno, MD (conference keynote speaker at dinner, April 27) has been director of the secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Relief since June 2001 Over several decades he has focused on the management of environmental and sustainable development programs at the U.N., the World Conservation Union and the government of Venezuela. Prior to joining the ISDR secretariat, Mr. Briceno was the coordinator of the BIOTRADE and CHG Emission Initiatives of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva. He served as deputy executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification secretariat. He was also associated with environmental and disaster preparedness efforts in the Caribbean. He served in a number of roles in the government of Venezuela. Mr. Briceno has an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School and a doctorate in administrative law from the University of Paris II.

Adrian Fernandez-Bremauntz, MS, PhD, is president of the national Institute of Ecology for the government of Mexico. Appointed in 2005, Dr. Fernandez-Bremauntz has previously consulted to the World Health Organization and the U.N. Environment Program. Previously, he served as the general director of research on urban, regional and global pollution for the Mexican Ministry for the Environment and, prior to this, served as director for environmental management and information. In 1993 he received the Robert McNamara Award from the World Bank for his post-doctorate research at the Harvard School of Public Health. He has a master’s of science degree in environmental technology and a doctorate in environmental science from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London.

Harvey V. Fineberg (conference keynote speaker, April 26) is the president of the Institute of Medicine. He served as provost of Harvard University from 1997 to 2001, following thirteen years as dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. He has devoted most of his academic career to the fields of health policy and medical decision-making. Dr. Fineberg helped found and served as president of the Society for Medical Decision Making and also served as adviser and consultant to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. At the Institute of Medicine, he has chaired and served on a number of panels dealing with health policy issues, ranging from AIDS to vaccine safety. He has authored books and papers on AIDS prevention, tuberculosis control, assessment of new medical technology, clinical and public health decision making, and understanding risk in society. Dr. Fineberg earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a doctorate from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

David Gergen is Public Service Professor of Public Leadership and director of the Center for Public Leadership. Over the past three decades, he has served as a White House advisor to four presidents: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. In the mid-1980s, he began a career in journalism, becoming editor of U.S. News & World Report. He joined the Kennedy School faculty in January 1999, while remaining editor at large for U.S. News and a frequent television analyst. In the fall of 2000 he published Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton. He sits on many nonprofit boards, including Duke University and City Year, and recently served on the Yale Corporation. He is an honors graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School and holds 14 honorary degrees.

Thomas Holzheu is a senior economist and deputy head of the New York office of Swiss Re’s Economic Research and Consulting unit. He is an expert on North American insurance and reinsurance markets with extensive experience and knowledge of foreign markets. He has researched and published extensively on market developments and economic and regulatory factors affecting insurance markets. He authored several “sigma” studies: Swiss Re’s internationally renowned research series on the insurance industry. In addition, he supports Swiss Re’s strategic planning and internal consulting on new products. He joined Swiss Re Group in 1990, working in Germany, Switzerland and since 1997 in the U.S. He has an M.S. from the Ludwig-Maximillians-University of Munich and a PhD in economics.

Howard Koh (conference co-chair) is the Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health, associate dean for public health practice and director of the Harvard School of Public Health Center for Public Health Preparedness. He is also a principal investigator for the National Cancer Institute-funded initiative on cancer disparities, MASSCONECT. From 1997-2003 he served as the Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health. He was appointed by Presidnet Bill Clinton to the National Cancer Advisory Board, and he is past chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for a Healthy Future, a group that pushed for the state’s tobacco control initiative. Dr. Koh has his medical degree from Yale and is board certified in four fields: internal medicine, hematology, medical oncology and dermatology, and has an MPH from Boston University.

N. Hari Krishna is research disaster mitigation representative for Oxfam America-India, has overseen Oxfam tsunami relief and rehabilitation operation in two districts of Tamilnadu and Pondicherry state, in collaboration with major NGO networks. He serves as a facilitator and resource person for trainings on disaster risk management, and advises the National Committee on Community Based Disaster Preparedness constituted by the government of India. Previously, he worked for Oxfam Great Britain, and has experience with government-sponsored sustainable agriculture projects. Mr. Krishna has an international diploma in humanitarian assistance from the University of Geneva, Center for International Health and Cooperation, and a master’s in communication from Hyderbad Central University, India.

Jennifer Leaning (conference keynote speaker, April 28) is professor of the practice of international health at the Harvard School of Public Health and serves as director of the Program on Humanitarian Crises and Human Rights, François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights and director, Inter-University Initiative on Humanitarian Studies and Field Practice. Dr. Leaning’s interests encompass problems of international human rights, international humanitarian law and crises, and medical ethics in the practical settings disasters and emergencies. Dr. Leaning serves on the boards of Physicians for Human Rights, of which she is a founding member, and the Humane Society of the U.S. Dr. Leaning earned her medical degree from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Alan Moult (keynote speaker, April 28) is senior advisor in business continuity planning (BCP) for the BP Group. He works with and supports the businesses and functions across BP as they develop business continuity plans that are tailored to and consistent with BP Group standards. He oversees BCP readiness and ensures the integrity of the Group Core – the critical processes and assets that are the essence and integrity of the Group and its ability to transact during emergency situations. Prior to this, he was director of business innovation in digital business for BP with responsibility for introducing new technologies that would positively impact BP’s key business processes. Mr. Moult is a licensed civil engineer with a master’s degree in finance and a PhD in fluid mechanics.

David Rejeski is the director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and also directs the Foresight and Governance Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. Mr. Rejeski has authored a number of papers on science, technology, and policy issues in areas ranging from genetics to electronic commerce. He served as executive director of the Environmental Technology Task Force at the White House Council on Environmental Quality during the Clinton administration. Concurrently with this role, he worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology on a variety of issues. Prior to the OSTP, he headed the Future Studies Unit at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Rejeski has a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard and in environmental design from Yale.

Karlene Roberts is a professor at the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California-Berkeley. Her research includes job attitudes, cross-national management and organizational communication. She also contributes to the research methodology literature. Since 1984 she has been investigating the design and management of organizations and systems in which error can result in catastrophic consequences; she studies organizations that fail and those that succeed. Industries include the military, commercial maritime, healthcare, railroads, petroleum production, commercial aviation, banking and community emergency services. One of her specialties is the culture of reliability. Prof Roberts has a doctorate in industrial psychology from UC-Berkeley.

Georges Robichon joined Fednav, Canada’s largest dry bulk ocean-going ship owning and chartering group in 1984 as secretary and corporate counsel, and was appointed senior vice president and general counsel in 1998 and is a member of the board of directors. He is responsible for the Fednav Group’s corporate, commercial and financing legal requirements, and government relations. As a member of the board of directors of the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation and the chair of its governance committee, he has participated in lengthy negotiations with the government of Canada to commercialize the Canadian section of the St. Lawrence Seaway. He is also a member of the boards of two Norwegian companies, which are developing the OceanSaver Ballast Water Treatment System. Mr. Robichon has also been involved in crafting acceptable ballast water legislation governing the Great Lakes. Prior to Fednav, he represented major Canadian and U.S. companies in transportation and energy. He holds a master’s in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Michael Ryan is the director of the World Health Organization’s Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response. Dr. Ryan has been with the WHO since 1996 when WHO established a unit to respond to emerging and epidemic disease threats. He has led outbreak response teams to the field for diseases such as Ebola, meningitis, cholera, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, and bacillary dysentery. He put in place WHO’s epidemic intelligence, verification and response mechanism and well as the response network (GOARN) that has been utilized in recent outbreaks of SARS and influenza. Dr. Ryan holds both medical degree from University College Galway and a master’s in public health from University College Dublin, followed by specialist training in communicable diseases at the UK Communicable Disease Surveillance Center in London.

James Shine is associate professor of aquatic chemistry in the Department of Environment Health, Harvard School of Public Health. His research interest is in the transport, fate and effects of contaminants in aquatic ecosystems. From a public health perspective, his work encompasses specifying the transport of contaminants released to the environment and understanding the degree of exposure. Distinct biological, chemical and geological processes in natural environments can drastically alter the bioavailability and toxicity of contaminants. Dr. Shine also develops tools to measure the contaminants where they reside in the environment and thereby contribute to the development of strategic control efforts to minimize the adverse impact on both human and ecological health.

Michael St. Louis serves as the chief science officer and the office for public health in the Coordinating Office for Global Health, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His responsibilities include coordination and promotion of the global health research agenda of the CDC; coordination of science policy and ethical practices for global health; and work on strategic and effective approaches to partnerships in global health, especially with regard to integrating programs that target different disease or initiatives the involve engagement across systems or sectors. Previously, Dr. St. Louis worked for the Department of state to set up activities around the president’s emergency plan for AIDS relief; he has also been deployed to New Orleans during Katrina. Dr. St. Louis was founding coordinator of the CDC’s HIV/AIDS initiative, which evolve din to the Global AIDS Program. HE has served as brand chief as chief of epidemiology research and worked in Projet SIDA in Zaire. Dr. St. Louis completed his medical degree at Harvard Medical School.

Tova Solo is senior urban specialist in the World Bank Water and Sanitation, Disaster Management and Urban Development Group. Since 1997, she has contributed to private sector initiatives including research and networking programs that promote the free entry, competition and risk capital in basic service delivery, working with towns, small and micro-business development, and governments to ease regulatory barriers and promote environmentally sustainable projects. She has led projects in natural disaster mitigation, prevention and vulnerability reduction in Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. She has provided project support to municipal development of many types of water and sanitation programs throughout Latin America. Previously, she has consulted to USAID, Cultural Survival, and governments in Latin American countries. She served on the faculty of the University of Cartagena, University Jorge Tadeo Lozano. Ms. Solo holds a master's in architecture in advanced studies from MIT.

Johannes (Han) Kornelis Vrijling (conference key note speaker, April 27), is a professor at Delft University of Technology and advisor to the civil engineering division. Since 2002, he has headed the Department of Hydraulic and Probabilistic Design Engineering. Previously he worked in the engineering office of the Adrian Volker Group, where he worked on the Easternscheldt Storm Surge barrier project. During this time, Prof. Vrijling developed the probabilistic approach to the design of the barrier. After completion of the barrier in 1986, he became deputy head of the hydraulic engineering branch of the civil engineering division of Rijkswaterstaat and eventually he also oversaw research and computer activities of the civil engineering division. Prof. Vrijling has a master’s degree from Delft and a master’s in economics from Erasmus University.

Mary Wilson’s research interests include tuberculosis, ecology of infections and emergence of microbial threats, travel medicine and vaccines. Board certified in internal medicine and infectious disease, she was chief of infectious disease at Mt. Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Mass., for more than 20 years. Currently, she is associate clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate professor of population and international health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Wilson is the author of A World Guide to Infections: Disease, Distribution Diagnosis and many more recent works. She has her medical degree from the University of Wisconsin.

James Lee Witt (conference keynote speaker, April 27) is chairman and CEO of James Lee Witt Associates, a part of GlobalOptions Group, Inc., providing public safety and crisis management consulting services to state and local governments, educational institutions, the international community and corporations. In 2003, Mr. Witt assumed the role of CEO of the International Code Council (ICC), a 50,000 member association dedicated to building safety, which develops codes used in construction of residential and commercial buildings, including homes and schools. He is the former director of FEMA in the Clinton administration, where he served from 1993-2001. During this time, the FEMA role was elevated to cabinet status. Mr. Witt coordinated federal disaster relief including the activities of 28 federal agencies sand departments, the American Red Cross and other voluntary agencies. Previously, he served as county judge for Yell County, Arkansas and was honored for his achievements by the National Association of Counties.

Barbara DeBuono is senior medical director/group leader, U.S. Public Health for Pfizer Global Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer Inc. She has responsibility for creating and managing public-private partnership programs in public health innovation, education and research. In 2005 she was assigned to the WHO southeast Asia regional office in New Delhi to review public health aspects of tsunami relief and recovery operations. She has her medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health.

Douglas Dockery is professor of environmental epidemiology and the chair of the Department of Environmental Health at HSPH. For decades he has led studies of the health effects of air pollution exposures, identifying combustion-related particles as linked to increased ill health and premature death even at low concentrations seen in developed countries today. Prof. Dockery has an MS from MIT and an ScD from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Michael Huguenin is the executive director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. He co-founded Industrial Economics, Inc, an economics and environmental consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. He has conducted analyses of energy, environmental and natural resource policies including the benefits/costs of major U.S. environmental statutes. He led the economic damage assessment of the Exxon Valdez oil spill for the U.S. NOAA and Department of Justice.

James Hutchin is an executive in residence at Temple University’s Fox Graduate School of Business. He leads an initiative there to promote and develop sustainable, market-friendly solutions in support of conservation objectives. He teachers both risk management and consulting at the business school. Mr. Hutchins is also president and founder of Alba Advisors, LLC, concerning insurance-related ventures. He has a master’s degree from the American Graduate School of International Management.

Megan Murray is assistant professor of epidemiology and a clinical professor at Harvard medical School. Her research is focused on the genomics of various tuberculosis strains and modeling to understand the transmission of emerging infectious disease. She has her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and an MPH and DPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.

John Odermatt is Citigroup’s corporate director for continuity of business with responsibility for the development and implementation of global continuity of business policy. In 2002, New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg named Mr. Odermatt commissioner of the New York City Office of Emergency Management. Prior to this, he had various roles within the NYC Housing Authority Police Department and became the executive officer of the NYC Police Department’s Intelligence Division. Later, he was named first deputy director of the NYC Office of Emergency Management. Mr. Odermatt holds a master’s in management from New York University.

Rima Rudd is a health educator whose work centers on the design and evaluation of public health programs for social change. Her special interests are pedagogy, health and literacy links and participatory and collaborative strategies for learning and for change. She focuses her efforts on health literacy in the adult education, medical and health sectors. Rudd is a senior research fellow of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy and is a principal investigator on a number of related studies. She earned an ScD at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and Hygiene.

David Senn is a lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health. His research interests include understanding levels of arsenic and mercury contamination of lakes and oceans. He has a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering form MIT.

Tim Wilkins is the environmental manager at INTERTANKO, an association of independent tanker owners. He coordinates and manages the environmental agenda, liaisons with environmental organizations and governments, and the U.N. Environment Program, representing members’ interests from Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. Mr. Wilkins has a master’s degree in marine resource management from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

Eiji Yano is professor and chairman of the Department of Hygiene and Public Health at Teikyo University School of Medicine and is director of the Teikyo University Research Center for the Teikyo-Harvard Program office. In addition, he is a visiting professor to West China University Medical Center, to Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, and to the Krasnoyrsk State Medical Academy in Russia. Dr. Yano has a doctoral degree from the University of Tokyo and an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health.