Advancing Healthy Populations: The Pfizer Guide to Careers in Public Health

About the Authors

Myron Allukian Jr., DDS, MPH
Myron Allukian joined the Boston Department of Health and Hospitals in 1970 and has been there ever since. Perhaps his greatest achievement, following a long and contentious process, was to fluoridate Boston's water supply. In 2000 he was appointed director of oral health for the renamed Boston Public Health Commission. He is an associate clinical professor of oral health policy and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, an assistant clinical professor at Boston University's Goldman School of Dental Medicine, and an adjunct professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Dental School, he became aware of public health dentistry when he served in the Third Marine Division at Da Nang, Vietnam, and tended to children in nearby villages. (back to top)

Elizabeth B. Andrews, MPH, PhD
Dr. Andrews is vice-president of RTI Health Solutions, where she directs the Epidemiology and Clinical Research Division. She consults with pharmaceutical companies on medication risk management programs and directs studies to address questions of drug safety and appropriate utilization. Prior to joining RTI, Dr. Andrews worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a research epidemiologist. She worked previously for the North Carolina State Health Department, where she ran the school health and prenatal care programs. Dr. Andrews earned her MPH and PhD degrees from the School of Public Health of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (back to top)

Bobbie Berkowitz, PhD, RN, FAAN
Dr. Bobbie Berkowitz is professor and chair of the Department of Psychosocial and Community Health at the University of Washington School of Nursing and is currently director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Turning Point National Program Office. Prior to her current positions, Dr. Berkowitz served in leadership roles at the Washington State Department of Health and the Seattle/Kings County Department of Public Health. She has served on many Washington State and national advisory panels, and holds BS and MS degrees in nursing from the University of Washington and a PhD in nursing from Case Western Reserve University. (back to top)

Jo Ivey Boufford, MD
Dr. Boufford just stepped down as dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. She is professor of health policy and public service at the Wagner School and clinical professor of pediatrics at New York University Medical School. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Boufford served as principal deputy assistant secretary for health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In the first half of 1997, she served as acting assistant secretary, and was also the U.S. representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization. From 1985 to 1989, Dr. Boufford served as president of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the largest municipal hospital system in the United States. She earned her undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Michigan and is board certified in pediatrics. (back to top)

Sheila Burke, RN, MPA
Sheila Burke is currently undersecretary for American museums and national programs at the Smithsonian Institute. Previously, from 1996 to 2000, she was executive dean and lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1977, she joined the staff of Senator Bob Dole of Kansas as a legislative assistant and worked her way up to become chief of staff to Senator Dole in his role as majority leader of the U.S. Senate. She began her career as a staff nurse and then became director of program and field services for the National Student Nurses Association, where Senator Dole spotted her. (back to top)

Thomas Burke, PhD, MPH
Dr. Burke is professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and has joint appointments in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and in the Department of Oncology at the School of Medicine. In 2001 he was appointed to a newly formed task force, Scientists Working to Address Terrorism (SWAT), with goals to provide a scientific basis for rational action, to accurately advise public agencies and the professions, and to develop short training modules for targeted groups via the Web and DVDs. In 1991 he co-founded and became co-director of the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Burke earned his MPH from the University of Texas and his PhD in epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania. (back to top)

James Curran, MD, MPH
After a long career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, during which he was instrumental in uncovering and combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Dr. James Curran is currently dean and professor of epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research. His last position at the CDC was as director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. He serves on numerous advisory panels and has received numerous national awards. Dr. Curran earned a BS degree from the University of Notre Dame, an MD from the University of Michigan and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. (back to top)

Ronald W. Davis, MD, MPH
Currently director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Dr. Davis was the chief medical officer for the Michigan Department of Public Health for four years and for seven years worked at the CDC in a variety of roles, having started as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer. For four years he was director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the CDC, and is a noted authority on smoking cessation programs. Dr. Davis earned his MD at the University of Chicago. (back to top)

Barbara A. DeBuono, MD, MPH
Dr. Barbara A. DeBuono brings to her current post as Senior Medical Director and Group Leader for Pfizer Inc's Public Health Group unique expertise and skills she developed in a wide range of public and private healthcare settings. Under her leadership, the Public Health Group creates and manages pioneering public-private partnership programs and collaborates with public health thought leaders to advance public health research and innovations. Prior to joining Pfizer, she served as the New York State Commissioner of Health, Chief Executive of the New York - Presbyterian Health Network, and held successive appointments as Rhode Island's Director of Health, Director of Disease Control and State Epidemiologist. She has held numerous academic appointments and currently serves as Clinical Professor of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She serves on many health policy boards, among them the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control, the Center for Health Policy Development and the National Advisory Committee for Healthy Steps. Dr. DeBuono earned her undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Rochester and her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is co-editor of Advancing Healthy Populations: The Pfizer Guide to Careers in Public Health. (back to top)

William Foege, MD, MPH
An epidemiologist by training, Dr. Foege earned an MD from the University of Washington and an MPH from Harvard University. Starting in 1965, Dr. Foege's career carried him across the world in the fight against infectious diseases, including the smallpox eradication program in the 1970s. After becoming chief of the CDC Smallpox Eradication Program, Dr. Foege was appointed director of the CDC in 1977, serving until 1983. In 1984, Dr. Foege and several colleagues formed the Task Force for Child Survival, and its success in accelerating childhood immunization led to an expansion of its mandate in 1991 to include addressing other issues that diminish the quality of life for children. Dr. Foege was executive director of the Carter Center from 1987 to 1992, where he remains a fellow and senior health advisor. In 1997, he joined the faculty of Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. In 1999, he became senior medical advisor for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (back to top)

Mindy Fullilove, MD
Dr. Fullilove is professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and a research psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Her research concerns the psychology of place, particularly in poverty-stricken communities, in an effort to understand how diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, asthma, substance abuse and violence relate to the environment. She earned her bachelor's degree in history from Bryn Mawr College, her master's degree in nutrition from Columbia University, and her medical degree from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. (back to top)

Helene Gayle, MD, MPH
Dr. Gayle was detailed by the CDC in 2001 to become director of the HIV/AIDS and TB Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. She is responsible for research, policy and program issues on HIV/AIDS and related issues such as STDs and TB in resource- poor countries. Previously, Dr. Gayle's entire career had been at the CDC in Atlanta, starting as an EIS officer and rising to become director of the National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention. She is a noted authority on HIV/AIDS prevention. Dr. Gayle earned her MD at the University of Pennsylvania and her MPH from The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. (back to top)

Kristine M. Gebbie, RN, DrPH
Dr. Gebbie is associate professor of nursing and director of the Center for Health Policy and Health Services Research at the Columbia University School of Nursing. After 11 years in Oregon as the director of public health, Dr. Gebbie went to Washington State for four years to help set up a new state public health department and then in 1993 became the first director of the National AIDS Policy Office at The White House. She is currently leading the movement towards "uniform credentialing" in the field of public health. Dr. Gebbie earned her nursing degree at St. Olaf's College and her doctorate in public health at UCLA. (back to top)

Lawrence Gostin, JD, LLD
Lawrence Gostin, professor of law at Georgetown University and professor of law and public health at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, is director of the Center for Law & the Public's Health at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities. With the CDC's support, this center was founded in 2000 as a primary national resource on public health law, ethics and policy for public health practitioners, lawyers, legislators, policymakers and others. Earlier in his career, Mr. Gostin was legal director of the National Association for Mental Health in the United Kingdom and taught at Oxford University for 11 years. He then moved to Harvard, where at the request of the HHS Secretary he led two studies spurred by the baffling new AIDS epidemic, one on litigation and the other on model legislation. He received his law degree from Duke University. (back to top)

Fernando A. Guerra, MD, MPH
Dr. Guerra has served since 1987 as director of health for the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District and is a clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center and an adjunct professor of public health at the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine. A trained pediatrician, he served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Vietnam War. Dr. Guerra received his MD from the University of Texas and his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health many years later through a Kellogg Fellowship. (back to top)

Richard (Dick) Jackson, MD, MPH
Since 1994, Dr. Jackson has been the director of the National Center for Environmental Health, one of the seven centers at the CDC in Atlanta. He began his career at the CDC as an EIS officer assigned to the New York State Department of Health, and worked there on infamous outbreaks of Legionnaire's disease, swine flu and Lyme disease. A pediatrician at heart, Dr. Jackson has an ongoing and keen scientific interest in the public health effects of pesticides and other toxic substances, particularly as they may affect children. Dr. Jackson earned his MD from the University of California at San Francisco and his MPH from the University of California at Berkeley. (back to top)

Wayne Lednar, MD, PhD
Dr. Lednar is currently corporate medical director at the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York, where he has served in various capacities since 1988. Previously he spent ten years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps running residency programs in preventive medicine and public health, first at Walter Reed Hospital and then at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington. He earned his MPH from the University of Massachusetts, his PhD in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MD from George Washington University. (back to top)

James LeDuc, PhD
After a career in the armed forces, Dr. LeDuc joined the CDC in 1992 and rose to become director of the Division of Viral and Rickettsial Disease at the National Center for Infectious Diseases in 2000. A highly regarded specialist on viral hemorrhagic fevers, he has devoted much of his time recently to ensuring that the U.S. will have sufficient smallpox vaccine on hand should the need arise. Dr. LeDuc received his PhD in epidemiology from UCLA in 1977 and then worked in some of the farthest reaches of the world for the U.S. Army. (back to top)

JoAnn H. Lewis, MPH
JoAnn H. Lewis currently serves as senior vice-president for reproductive health programs at Family Health International, where she has worked for the past 23 years. Her international health career began as a Peace Corps volunteer and trainer in the late l960s in Trinidad and Niger, West Africa. Her professional experience includes government service as a civil rights specialist with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services) and as a program coordinator with Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. She holds an MPH in international health from The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. (back to top)

JoAnn Manson, MD, MPH, DrPH
Dr. JoAnn Manson, a leading researcher on women's health issues, is professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where she is also co-director of women's health and director of endocrinology. She is board certified in both internal medicine and the subspecialty of endocrinology and metabolism. Her major research interests include preventive medicine and chronic disease epidemiology, particularly risk factors for cardiovascular disease in women. She is principal investigator of several grants from the National Institutes of Health, a member of many professional societies and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of several medical journals. She has received numerous awards and honors. (back to top)

Dale Morse, MD, MS
A native of western New York, Dale Morse has worked at the New York State Department of Health in Albany since 1980 after earning his MD from the University of Rochester and serving as an EIS officer with the CDC. Dr. Morse held numerous positions at the health department through the years, with his longest stint being state epidemiologist for 11 years, and he is currently director of the Office of Science and Public Health. He also holds the rank of professor at Albany Medical College and professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at SUNY Albany, and he serves on a number of national advisory committees and the editorial board of the leading epidemiology journal. Dr. Morse was instrumental in uncovering the West Nile virus epidemic in New York City in 1999. (back to top)

Karen E. Pearson, MS
Karen Pearson, currently the State Health Official for Alaska, is a trained nutritionist. Her public health career began in Jamaica with the Peace Corps and then moved to her native South Dakota where she held a number of executive positions at the state and county levels, including running the WIC program for the State Department of Health. She was recruited by the State of Alaska in 1988 and realized a childhood dream when she moved there to live. She rose through a number of positions in Alaska directly related to nutrition before becoming the chief public health officer for the state. (back to top)

Janet Porter, PhD
Dr. Porter is currently associate dean for executive education at the School of Public Health of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously worked for ten years as the chief operating officer at the Children's Hospital of Columbus, Ohio. At UNC, she brings large projects to the school to develop public health managers and leaders and serves as project director for the Management Academy for Public Health. Dr. Porter earned a master's degree in health administration and a doctorate in health policy, research and administration from Ohio State University and also holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota. (back to top)

James O. Prochaska, PhD
Dr. Prochaska is director of the Cancer Prevention Research Center and professor of psychology at the University of Rhode Island. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Wayne State University. He has served as a consultant to the American Cancer Society, the CDC, managed care organizations, the National Health Service of Great Britain, major corporations and numerous universities and research centers. Dr. Prochaska has won many awards and is best known for his Model of Transtheoretical Behavioral Change. (back to top)

Patricia Raymond, RN
Patricia Raymond has been with the Rhode Island Department of Health since 1997 as a public health nurse for children's preventive services in the Division of Family Health. She previously worked at the Rhode Island Training School, the state's only juvenile correction facility. She earned her nursing degree at Rhode Island College and through her work has become an expert on lead poison prevention and abatement in children. (back to top)

William L. Roper, MD, MPH
William L. Roper is dean of the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is professor of health policy and administration in the School of Public Health and professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine at UNC. Prior to joining UNC in 1997, Dr. Roper was senior vice-president of Prudential Health Care. Before going to Prudential, Dr. Roper was director of the CDC, served on the senior White House staff, and was administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration. He received his MD from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and his MPH from the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. Dr. Roper is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and serves on the Institute of Medicine governing council. (back to top)

Rima Rudd, ScD, MSPH
Rima Rudd is currently a lecturer on health education and director of educational programs in the Department of Health and Social Behavior at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is also principal investigator and co-investigator for two large research projects concerned with health literacy and learning in adults. Dr. Rudd earned her doctorate at The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. (back to top)

C. Mack Sewell, DrPH, MS
Mack Sewell has been the state epidemiologist for New Mexico's Department of Health in Santa Fe since 1989, having returned to his home state in 1984 to work for the state as an epidemiologist. He is also director of the Office of Epidemiology and manages 50 staff members, including five physician epidemiologists, seven PhD's, one veterinary epidemiologist, one EIS officer, four nurses, and five epidemiologists with master's degrees. In 1993 his staff rose to the challenge of combating an epidemic of a new hantavirus. Dr. Sewell earned his doctorate at the University of Texas School of Public Health. (back to top)

George Strait
George Strait has had a distinguished career as an on-air broadcaster, working for 22 years for ABC, the last 15 years as chief medical correspondent. More recently he was a senior vice-president of Dr. Spock Media and he currently runs his own business as a consultant on health and the media. (back to top)

Lawrence S. Sturman, MD, PhD
Dr. Sturman has been director of the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health since 1992, and held a variety of positions there since he joined the laboratory in 1970. The Wadsworth Center is the largest and most comprehensive state public health laboratory in the nation. Previously, he spent two years at the NIH Laboratory of Viral Diseases. Dr. Sturman earned his MD at Northwestern University and his doctorate in virology from Rockefeller University. (back to top)

Hugh Tilson, MD, MPH, DrPH
Dr. Hugh Tilson is clinical professor of epidemiology and health policy at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he serves as senior advisor to the dean. Dr. Tilson is a founding member of the American Academy of Pharmaceutical Physicians, where he is vice-president for policy. He was president of the American Board of Preventive Medicine from 1995 to 1997, is a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology, and served as chair of the clinical steering committee of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association. Dr. Tilson earned his MD from Washington University in St. Louis and his master's degree and doctorate in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health. He is co-editor of this volume. (back to top)

Reed V. Tuckson, MD
Dr. Reed Tuckson is currently senior vice-president of Consumer Health and Medical Care Advancement at the UnitedHealth Group. Prior to joining UnitedHealth, Dr. Tuckson served as senior vice-president, Professional Standards, for the American Medical Association. The former president of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles from 1991 to 1997, Dr. Tuckson also served as senior vice-president for Programs of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation from 1990 to 1991. He was the commissioner of public health for the District of Columbia from 1986 to 1990. A graduate of Howard University and the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. Tuckson was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also studied health care administration and policy at the Wharton School of Business. (back to top)

Thomas W. Valente, PhD
Thomas Valente is currently associate professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California School of Medicine and director of the MPH program. Previously, he was professor in the Department of Population & Family Health Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the health communication program. Dr. Valente received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Mary Washington College, a master's degree in mass communications from San Diego State University and his doctorate in communication from the Annenberg School of Communication of the University of Southern California. (back to top)