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Byllye Y.
Avery, founder of the National Black Women's Health Project (NBWHP),
has been a health care activist for over 25 years focusing on women's
needs. Established in 1981, NBWHP is the nation's preeminent organization
dedicated to improving the health status of Black women worldwide.
Prior to her entry into the health care arena, Avery taught special
education to emotionally disturbed students and consulted on learning
disabilities in public schools and universities throughout the southeastern
United States. Avery also co-founded both the Gainesville Women's
Health Center and Birthplace, an alternative birthing center, in Gainesville,
Fla. Her latest project is the Avery Institute for Social Change. |
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Dr. Mary Travis
Bassett, is Deputy Commissioner for the Division of Health Promotion
and Disease Prevention at the New York City Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). She oversees and directs the District Public
Health Program and the bureaus of Chronic Disease and Tobacco Control,
School Health, Day Care, Minority Health, and Family Health. Dr. Bassett
is responsible for decreasing disparities of at-risk communities and
populations. Prior ro joining DOHMH, Bassett was Associate Director
of the Health Equity unit of the Rockefeller Foundation, where she
focused primarily on AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. She served as Director
of the Harlem Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention,
where she worked to decrease excess mortality in Harlem. Dr. Bassett
held several positions at the Univeristy of Zimbabwe in the Department
of Community Medicine and served as a consultant to UNICEF and the
World Bank. |
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Dr. Cristina
Beato
is the principal advisor and assistant to Health and Human Services
Secretary Tommy Thompson on health policy and medical and scientific
matters, and supervises the related programs and activities within
the Department of Health and Human Services. She assists in the direction
of the eight Public Health Service agencies of the Department, provides
leadership and maintains relationships with other governmental agencies
and private organizations concerned with health. Dr. Beato has dedicated
her professional life to improving the health and well being of individuals,
families and communities. Dr. Beato is a Cuban émigré
and magna cum laude graduate of the University of New Mexico. As an
undergraduate and medical school student, Dr. Beato did physiological
research for the Department of the Navy. She performed her internship
and residency at UNM School of Medicine becoming both the youngest
woman to graduate from the UNM School of Medicine and the youngest
woman Chief Resident in Family, Community and Emergency Medicine.
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Joan Jacobs
Brumberg is the Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and Professor
at Cornell University where she has been teaching history, human
development, and women's studies for twenty years. Fasting Girls,
her 1988 book about the history of anorexia nervosa, won the John
Hope Franklin Prize, the Berkshire Book Prize, the Eileen Basker
Prize, and the Watson Davis Prize. She has also published The
Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls (Vintage,
1997). Her sensitive research and writing about American women and
girls have been recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Society
of American Historians, and The MacDowell Colony. From 1985 to 1988,
she was Director of Cornell's Women's Studies Program.
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Dr. Helene
Gayle '76, a native of Buffalo, New York, is board certified
in Pediatrics. After completing her residency in Pediatric Medicine
at the Children’s Hospital National Medical Center in Washington,
DC, she entered the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a training program
in epidemiology at the Center for Disease Control (CDC). She has
served as the AIDS Coordinator and Chief of the HIV/AIDS Division
for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as a
health consultant to international agencies, including the World
Health Organization and the United Nations AIDS Program, and has
worked extensively in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. She is a former
director of the Centers for Disease Control is currently Director
of HIV, Tuberculosis & Reproductive Health at the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation.
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Carolyn Hannan
was appointed as Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women
in December, 2001. A Swedish national, she was formerly the Senior
Policy Advisor on Gender Equality in the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (1992-1998) and the Chair of the OECD/DAC Working
Party on Gender Equality (1995-1997). During the 1990s Ms Hannan was
also part of a national gender mainstreaming advisory group in Sweden.
More recently, Ms Hannan worked for two years as the Principal Officer
for Gender Mainstreaming in the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender
Issues at the United Nations in New York. In this context she provided
advice and support and monitored progress in gender mainstreaming
throughout the United Nations. |
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Ping-chen
Hsiung is a historian who studies gender and medicine in China.
The associate director of the Institute for Modern History at Academia
Sinica, Taiwan, she is a founder of the Research Center for Medicine
and Culture at the University of Medicine at National Taiwan University.
An activist in children's health and aging in Taiwan, she has published
many articles on Chinese cultural and social history, including studies
on gender, family and childhood. She earned a master's degree in public
health at Harvard University and was a scholar in residence at the
Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. She has been the key
speaker at many global conferences on women's health issues, including
a recent discussion on "The Right to Family Planning, Contraception
and Abortion in Ten World Religions." |
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Gina Kolata
is a science and medicine reporter for The New York Times
and has written over 1,000 articles for the paper in the past 11 years.
Kolata is also the author of four books, The Baby Doctors: Probing
the Limits of Fetal Medicine, Sex in America (with Edward
Laumann, John Gagnon, and Robert Michaels), Clone: The Road to
Dolly and the Path Ahead, and the forthcoming Ultimate Fitness:
The Quest for Truth about Exercise and Health. She also has won
numerous awards for her writing. |
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Dr. Marianne
J. Legato, M.D., is an internationally known academic
physician, author, lecturer and specialist in women's health. She
is Professor of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University College
of Physicians & Surgeons and the Founder and Director of the
Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University.
Dr. Legato founded the Partnership in 1997, and it is the first
collaboration between academic medicine and the private sector focussed
solely on gender-specific medicine: the science of how normal human
biology differs between men and women and of how the diagnosis and
treatment of disease differs as a function of gender. In 1992, Dr.
Legato won the American Heart Association’s Blakeslee Award
for the best book written for the lay public on cardiovascular disease
with her publication of The Female Heart: The Truth About Women
and Heart Disease.
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In May of 2001,
Cindi Leive was named the Editor-in-Chief of Glamour, the most
celebrated women’s magazine in America today. As Editor-in-Chief,
Ms. Leive is charged with leading her editorial team to deliver aggressive
and thorough reporting on all aspects of a woman’s diverse and
demanding life –health, fashion, beauty, relationships, family,
work and more. With Ms. Leive’s editorial vision comprised of
engaging writing, rigorous investigation, provocative analysis and
lively design, Glamour challenges and encourages readers to be and
do their best—and gives American women the most current, comprehensive,
and useful advice, information, and tools they need to achieve their
goals. |
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Dr. Afaf I.
Meleis, a nurse and medical sociologist, is currently the Margaret
Bond Simon Dean of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School
of Nursing. She has held several academic and administrative positions
at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as at the
University of Kuwait. Dr. Meleis’ main teaching areas are: theoretical
nursing, coping and living with transitions and international health.
Her scholarship is focused on theory and knowledge development, immigrant
and international health, and women’s role integration and health.
She is the author of more than 150 articles, 40 chapters, numerous
monographs, proceedings, and books. Among the books is Theoretical
Nursing: Development and Progress (1985, 1991, 1997). Currently,
Dr. Meleis serves as the council general of the International Council
on Women’s Health Issues and is an active member in the American
Academy of Nursing (AAN). |
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Ellen More
is a professor of history and medical humanities at the Institute
for the Medical Humanities, the University of Texas Medical Branch,
Galveston. She is the author of Restoring the Balance: Women Physicians
and the Profession of Medicine, 1850-1995 (Harvard, 1999). She
is also currently guest curator for an exhibit on women in American
medicine to open at the National Library of Medicine in April, 2003.
In 2000-2001, she held a Bunting-Schlesinger Library Fellowship at
the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study of Harvard University.
The previous year, she was a visiting scholar at Northeastern University's
Women's Studies Program. In 1996 she was invited to serve as one of
the visiting faculty for the Hiram College Summer Institute on Literature,
Medicine and the Health Care Professions. In 1995 she was named the
first Articles Editor for Medical Humanities Review. |
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Judy Norsigian,
co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves and Our Bodies, Ourselves
for the New Century, speaks and writes frequently on a wide range
of women's health concerns. She has appeared on numerous national
television and radio programs, including OPRAH, DONAHUE, the TODAY
SHOW, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.
She served on the Board of the National Women's Health Network for
14 years and continues to remain active in this national membership
organization. Her interests include reproductive health concerns,
the media and women's health, genetics, tobacco and women, women and
health care reform, and midwifery advocacy. |
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Soledad O'Brien
has been co-anchor of "Weekend Today," NBC's top-rated weekend
morning news program, since July, 1999. In addition to her responsibilities
at "Weekend Today," O'Brien has produced health and science
stories for "Nightly News." She also serves as anchor for
MSNBC's "Morning Blend," a two-hour news talk show on Saturday
and Sunday mornings. She also won an Emmy for her co-hosting of the
Discovery Channel's, "The Know Zone." |
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Dr. Vivian
W. Pinn is the first full-time Director of the Office of Research
on Women's Health (ORWH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
an appointment she has held since November 1991. In February 1994,
she was also named as Associate Director for Research on Women's Health,
NIH. Dr. Pinn came to NIH from Howard University College of Medicine
in Washington, D.C., where she had been Professor and Chair of the
Department of Pathology since 1982, and has previously held appointments
at Tufts University and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pinn has long
been active in efforts to improve the health and career opportunities
for women and minorities. |
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Judith Reichman,
MD '66 balances the demands of a thriving Los Angeles practice
in gynecology, infertility, and menopause with requests for her straight
forward analysis of complex medical matters on television, in print,
and at speaking engagements. She is the author of a book on health
care for women after forty, I’m Too Young To Get Old as
well as two other books, I'm Not in the Mood: What Every Woman
Should know About Improving Her Libido and Relax This Won't
Hurt: Painless Answers to Women's Most Pressing Health Questions.
She practices at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and is
an associate clinical professor at the University of California at
Los Angeles. |
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Jeffrey D.
Sachs is the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
on July 1, 2002. He is the former Director of the Center for International
Development and the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade
at Harvard University. In January 2002 he was appointed by U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan as his Special Advisor on the Millennium Development
Goals. Sachs serves as an economic advisor to several governments
in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union, Africa
and Asia. Sachs was recently profiled by Newsweek magazine
as one of its "Who's Next 2003," an editor's list of people
they believe will help shape the world. |
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Dr. Nafis
Sadik has consistently called attention to the importance of
addressing the needs of women directly in making and carrying out
development policy. From April 1987 to December 2000, Dr. Sadik
served as Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA), with the rank of Under Secretary General. When she was
appointed to UNFPA as Executive Director in 1987, she became the
first woman to head one of the United Nations' major voluntarily-funded
programs. Immediately following her retirement from UNFPA in 2000,
Dr. Sadik was appointed as Special Adviser to the United Nations
Secretary-General, where she continues to work on gender, population
and development issues.
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Dr. Isaac
Schiff, Chief of the Vincent Obstetrics and Gynecology Service
at the Massachusetts General Hospital, is one of the world's leading
experts on menopause. His earlier studies of the menopausal process
have resulted in therapies routinely used in managing its symptoms.
He is the Joe Vincent Meigs Professor of Gynecology at Harvard Medical
School. Dr. Schiff is Chief of the third largest Service at the Massachusetts
General Hospital second only to Medicine and Surgery. Under Dr.
Schiff's leadership, the Vincent Service has generated world-class
research that is shedding new understanding on the genetics of normal
and premature menopause. |
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Judith R.
Shapiro (moderator) is president of Barnard College and a cultural
anthropologist who has written about gender differentiation, social
theory and missionization, based on field research in South America.
A member of the Advisory Committee of Save the Children (Every Mother/Every
Child) and a Director of the Fund for the City of New York, Dr. Shapiro
has led Barnard since 1994, following eight years as Provost of Bryn
Mawr College. Her opinion articles and commentary on higher education
and women's education have appeared in the print and electronic media.
She earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University and taught at the University
of Chicago before joining the Bryn Mawr faculty. |
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Lynn Sherr
(moderator) has been an ABC News correspondent for 20/20 since
1986. She has covered a wide range of stories, specializing in women's
issues and social changes, as well as investigative reports. Her past
reports on 20/20 include the increase in HIV among older women
and a full one-hour report on Audrey Santos, a young girl in Worcester,
Mass., whose life in a coma has inspired a series of unexplained religious
phenomena. In an unusually personal report, Sherr interviewed baseball
players Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis about their battles with
colon cancer and revealed that she too was a recent survivor of the
disease. She has also done a ground-breaking one-hour story on anorexia
and a clinic in Canada that has had particular success in treating
the condition. |
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Faye Wattleton
is the president of The Center for the Advancement of Women, a research,
education, and advocacy organization, created in 1995, for the advancement
of women. From 1978 to 1992, Ms. Wattleton played a major role in
defining the national debate over reproductive rights and health,
and in shaping family planning policies and programs around the
world. During her tenure as president of Planned Parenthood Federation
of America the organization grew to become the nation’s seventh
largest charity. Business Week named her one of the best managers
of non-profit organizations in America.
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Dr. Susan
F. Wood serves as Director of the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) Office of Women's Health (OWH), having joined FDA in 2000. The
mission of the OWH is to serve as a champion for women’s health,
both inside and outside the Agency. The OWH provides leadership and
science-driven policy direction in support of the regulatory, scientific
and public health mission of the FDA. Major initiatives of the FDA
OWH include development and funding of key research on products regulated
by FDA, implementation of award-winning outreach initiatives, engagement
in key policy decisions and regulations, and development of tools
to track inclusion of women in clinical studies. |
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Elizabeth
Wurtzel is the author of the bestselling books Prozac Nation:
Young and Depressed in America and Bitch: In Praise of Difficult
Women. She is also a Harvard graduate whose work has appeared
in such publications as The New Yorker, New York, The Guardian,
and The Oxford American. She lives in New York City. |
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