James Tielsch, MHS, PhD

Dr. Tielsch's research interests focus on two major areas: the epidemiology and control of blinding ocular disease in the United States and in developing countries and the epidemiology and control of micronutrient malnutrition among young children in developing countries with special emphasis on vitamin A, iron, and zinc. His current research activities in the epidemiology of ocular disease include the Baltimore Eye Survey Follow-up Study, the Aravind Comprehensive Eye Survey (south India), the Baltimore Pediatric Eye Survey, and a number of other smaller studies.

His interests cover the full range of studies involving epidemiologic methods in ophthalmology including basic descriptive epidemiologic studies of prevalence and incidence, etiologic research on risk factors for ocular disease, clinical trials of new treatments or community-based control strategies, screening, and health services research on inputs and outcomes of clinical management strategies on a population basis.

Professor Tielsch's current research activities in micronutrient malnutrition include studies of the role of intestinal helminth infections on iron deficiency anemia and malnutrition in Zanzibar; the impact of iron and zinc supplementation on morbidity, growth, and motor and cognitive development of preschool age children in Zanzibar and Nepal; the impact of newborn vitamin A supplementation on early infant mortality and morbidity in south India; and the role of zinc and iron supplementation in reducing morbidity and mortality in Nepal. Other studies include community-based trials of newborn washing and umbilical cord care on neonatal mortality and morbidity in Nepal.

Peter J. Winch, MD, MPH

Peter Winch is a physician and specialist in formative and qualitative research and in the design and evaluation of community-based behavior change interventions. He has been a faculty member in the Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health since 1988. He currently is involved in field trials of interventions to reduce neonatal mortality in Bangladesh and India, as well as studies on community participation in trachoma prevention in Tanzania, financial access to care for sick children in Mali, and effectiveness studies of the large-scale introduction of Zinc tablets as a standard treatment for children with diarrhea in Ethiopia. He has played a major role in the development of a new framework for the household and community component of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses approach, and played a key role in organizing a workshop in Baltimore in January 2001 for PVOs and NGOs to discuss this framework. He has participated in formative/qualitative research, design and evaluation of community-based behavior change interventions in USAID-funded projects on malaria prevention in Tanzania and schistosomiasis control in Egypt, and other projects on dengue hemorrhagic fever prevention in Mexico, Honduras, Puerto Rico and Brazil. He has provided technical input on measurement and analysis of indicators for USAID-funded child survival projects implemented by Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) in Guinea/Conakry, Mozambique and Mali. He has conducted several important project evaluations. He served as Team Leader for the Mid-Term Evaluation of the Groupe Pivot/Save the Children Youth Health Project, Bamako, Mali in December 2000, a project that addressed maternal and child health and AIDS prevention. He has extensive experience in training in qualitative research methods including design of qualitative research studies, computer-aided analysis of qualitative data and write-up of results from qualitative studies. He holds MD and MPH degrees.

Gary L. Darmstadt, MD, MS, FAAD, FAAPD

Gary Darmstadt is associate professor and director of the International Center for Advancing Neonatal Health in the Department of International Health in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. He also serves as senior research advisor for the Saving Newborn Lives initiative of Save the Children, U.S.

Dr. Darmstadt is a pediatric infectious disease and dermatology specialist with a focus on the care of the neonate. He is involved in several large-scale, community-based intervention trials of improved newborn care in developing countries. His research is aimed primarily at defining the evidence base for essential newborn care; developing improved strategies and interventions for prevention, detection, and management of serious neonatal infections; and understanding and promoting newborn care practices and management of illness, particularly infections, birth asphyxia, and prematurity in the home and community, as well as in health facilities in developing countries.

Randall M. Packard, PhD

Randall M. Packard is the William H. Welsh Professor of the History of Medicine and Director of the Institute of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School. Dr. Packard is a specialist on the social history of health and disease in Africa and in the history of international health. He is the author of several books and edited collections, including White Plague Black Labor: Tuberculosis and the Political Economy of Health and Disease in South Africa.

David H. Peters, MD, MPH, DrPH, FACPM

David H. Peters has worked as a primary care physician in northern Canada, conducted operational research on health systems in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and worked as a senior health specialist for the World Bank in Africa and South Asia. While living in New Delhi, India, he led a group of research organizations to study the question of what type of health system India should have. He is currently an assistant professor and deputy director for Academic Programs in the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Carl Taylor, MD, DrPH

Carl Taylor has dedicated his life to improving the health care of people throughout the world, building on the principle of equity. Dr. Taylor defined the concept of health equity as "…providing health benefits according to measurable need rather than on the basis of political or economic status… concentrating on those with the greatest problems." This clear vision has enabled Dr. Taylor to find new ways of helping developing countries improve the health of their citizens.

Dr. Taylor has made tremendous contributions to the field of international health. He was one of the founders and first director of the Department of International Health at JHSPH in 1961, the first department of its kind at any school of public health. Over the course of 30 years, he worked in India, first as director of Memorial Hospital, a Presbyterian Mission, and then as head of a preventive social medicine department at Christian Medical College in Ludhiana. Dr. Taylor served as UNICEF director for China from 1984 through 1987, and as primary WHO consultant in preparing documents for Alma Ata, a World Conference in 1978 on Primary Health Care for the first time.

Born in India, the son of medical missionaries for the Reformed Presbyterian mission in the Himalayas, Dr. Taylor says he inherited his profession. His own training in medicine and later a DrPH, both at Harvard, carried on the tradition of involving his family in this work. His late wife, Mary, professor emeritus in education at Towson University, as well as their children, participated in Taylor’s work, while the family lived in China and India.

Through his extensive field experience and professional expertise, Dr. Taylor is promoting exploration of innovative and sustainable solutions to health care needs in the developing world. Partnerships are needed bringing together officials, communities, and experts in a "flexible and varying balance depending on local circumstances." Telling communities how to solve their problems without consulting local communities has led to unsustainable development programs in the past. Expertise is needed, but the programs must be adapted to the local situation and owned by the local community. This approach is described in a Johns Hopkins Press book, Just and Lasting Change: When Communities Own Their Futures. Together with his son, Daniel Taylor-Ide, Dr. Taylor has tested this method in communities in India, Nepal, Tibet, and Peru through the international, non-profit organization, Future Generations.

Hugh Waters, PhD, MS

Hugh Waters is a health economist and assistant professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches international health reform. Dr. Waters’ areas of expertise are: (1) health insurance and health financing reforms; (2) evaluation of the effects of health financing mechanisms on access to healthcare and equity; and (3) costing health care interventions. He holds a PhD in public health economics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, and a MS in international economics from Georgetown University.

Keith P. West, Jr., DrPH, MPH, RD

Keith West is the George G. Graham Professor of Infant and Child Nutrition in the department of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. West has worked in international health for three decades, concentrating on the epidemiology and prevention of malnutrition in the developing world, including micronutrient deficiencies and their health consequences among children and women. He has lived and worked extensively in South and Southeast Asia—especially in Indonesia, Nepal, and Bangladesh—to define the extent, severity, and consequences of vitamin A deficiency and the impact of its control on child and maternal health and survival. This work has guided the development and evaluation of global prevention programs and policies. Supported by grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he is presently directing a large research project on maternal and child micronutrient deficiency prevention in northern Bangladesh. He is an instructor for two courses on international nutrition and food and nutrition policy at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and he is on the Steering Committee of the International Vitamin A Consultative Group. Dr. West has published more than 130 scientific articles and reviews and, with Alfred Sommer, coauthored a book, Vitamin A Deficiency: Health, Survival, and Vision, which was published by the Oxford University Press.

Corinne Whitaker, PhD

Corinne Whitaker is the senior program officer for Africa for the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC), which provides technical and financial assistance to non-governmental organizations and individuals for education, services, and community and policy advocacy addressing women's and adolescents' sexual and reproductive rights and health in Asia, Africa, Latin America and countries in post-socialist transition. She is responsible for the development and management of IWHC's Africa program, which she has directed for the past six years.

Dr. Whitaker holds a PhD in international public health from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She has conducted extensive quantitative and qualitative field research and has written on the issues of women's health and economic empowerment in Africa. She worked and lived in the Iringa and Coastal regions of Tanzania for four years and in Togo for a year. She has also worked for over five years in Nigeria and Cameroon, as well as in Mozambique and Mexico. She speaks French, Swahili, and Spanish. She is an associate in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and serves on the editorial committee for SEEDS, a publication focusing on the economic roles and needs of low-income women around the world.

Although her interest in women's health and development linkages was solidified through research in Africa, her work now focuses on supporting creative initiatives to operationalize the gender- and rights-based foundations of the Cairo and Beijing agreements and facilitating the effective participation of women from the region in national, regional, and international policy and program dialogues which impact their health and well-being.

Howard Choi

Howard is a second-year MHS student in the International Health Department, Global Disease Epidemiology & Control concentration.  He just returned from an internship in Lima, Peru, working on MDR-TB control in Peruvian slums.  He also completed a CIDA internship (i.e. "Canadian Peace Corps") at the Guatemalan Presidential Human Rights Commission in Guatemala City in 2006.

Michelle Mergler

Michelle is a second year MHS student in the International Health Department: Global Disease Epidemiology & Control. This past summer she completed an internship doing health disparities research with the New York City Department of Health focusing on influenza. In the fall she traveled to Zambia with Catholic Relief Services for a monitoring and evaluation internship with their HIV/AIDS program. Her MHS essay focuses on task shifting of nurses’ responsibilities to community health workers to help alleviate the human resource crisis in Zambia. She has also worked on the WHO’s global burden of disease project looking at pertussis morbidity and mortality.