Contributors

• Becky McKibben hails from sunny California. She graduated from Pomona College in 2008, majoring in Biochemistry. While in LA, she got her first glimpses of global health through her work in HIV/AIDS with various community organizations. This prompted her to spend a summer in south India, working with an obstetrician/gynecologist and getting exposed to rural health issues. After graduating, she spent a year in Ghana on a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, where she gained her Masters in Public Health. Her thesis research focused on HIV mother to child transmission, specifically the breastfeeding practices and support services available to HIV-positive mothers. She continues her public health work in Baltimore, with the B’more for Healthy Babies program. Her interests continue to center on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. She can be contacted at rmckibb2@jhmi.edu.

• Becca Greene is a second year medical student at Johns Hopkins.  She grew up in the Boston suburbs and graduated from Georgetown University, where she studied Spanish, French, and Biology.  She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Madagascar until a coup d’état forced her to return to the United States, where she worked at a healthcare startup company in Boston before beginning medical school.  Becca’s interests include infectious diseases, pediatrics, human rights, and especially the intersection of all three with global health.  She can be reached at rgreene@jhmi.edu.

• Nick Cuneo is a second-year medical student at Johns Hopkins.  Born and raised in in the Boston area, Nick graduated from Duke University in 2008 with degrees in biology and evolutionary anthropology.  While at Duke, Nick served as an HIV testing counselor and ran a weekly HIV VCT clinic in downtown Durham, NC.  After graduating, Nick moved on to Thomassique, Haiti, where he served as a global health fellow at St. Joseph’s Clinic.  In Thomassique, Nick’s primary focus was on establishing local programs to combat food insecurity and malnutrition.  Following his time in Haiti, Nick traveled to South Africa on a Fulbright research grant, with which he studied social mechanisms for promoting food security in the province of Mpumalanga as a Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand.  Nick’s global health interests include food and water security, malnutrition, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, as well as the intersection of development, heath, and human rights.

• Hailing from the beautiful shores of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Mariam Fofana is currently in her third year of medical school as an MD/PhD student and a founding member of the Global Health Interest Group at Johns Hopkins. Although she was once headed for a career as a biologist, she saw the light and spent three years after graduating from college conducting cost-effectiveness research on HIV interventions in South Africa, working with an HIV clinical trial team in Abidjan, and roaming the globe. Now fully converted to the gospel of global health, she intends to complete her PhD in infectious disease epidemiology. While “here at Hopkins” she also hopes to continue exploring her growing interest in health and human rights.

• Vikash (Vik) Gupta is a third year medical student at Johns Hopkins and can be contacted at vikash@jhmi.edu. He is a previous graduate of the University of Maryland College Park, and hold a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Prior to joining Hopkins, Vik was a business strategy and IT consultant for Citrix Systems, serving as an advisor for enterprise level technology deployments. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Vik’s interests include community inspired development and understanding what lessons can be learned from studying localities both here and abroad.

• Alex Harding graduated from Yale University in 2008 with a degree in History. While in college, Alex founded a non-profit organization called Agua Muisne (www.WaterEcuador.org) that works in Ecuador to provide impoverished communities with affordable access to safe drinking water. After completing his undergraduate coursework, Alex lived in Ecuador for one year while he worked at developing a local base for Agua Muisne’s efforts. He continues to serve as president of Agua Muisne, but his ultimate goal is for Agua Muisne to be run almost entirely by Ecuadorians. Alex is interested in the implementation of public health initiatives on the ground level. He can be reached at alexander.s.harding@gmail.com.

• Born in Bombay, India, now a happy native of Tennessee, Lakshmi Krishnan is a medical student and a founding member of the Global Health Interest Group at Johns Hopkins. She graduated from Wake Forest with degrees in English and German, and lived in the U.K. for three years, doing doctoral work in Victorian literature. Her interests include infectious diseases, human rights activism, and the intersection of medicine and the humanities. One day, she hopes to work for Médecins Sans Frontières, and live to tell the tale. She can be reached at lakshmi.krishnan@jhmi.edu.

• Jason Liebowitz is a third-year medical student at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  He graduated from Johns Hopkins University majoring in Public Health Studies and History of Science, Medicine, & Technology.  His interests are in disabilities, geriatrics, and healthcare policy, and he looks forward to lively discussions and interesting posts on the Global Health Interest Group blog.

• A native of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, Kelly Sloane is now a medical student in Charm City at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied Classics and History.  Her circuitous path to medicine had several stops – research on the healing cults of the Greek god of medicine Asklepios, volunteering with the UPenn Hospice Program, working in a healthcare clinic in rural Ghana, and running PCRs and Western blots in a Rad Onc lab. Kelly’s interests include geriatrics, ancient medicine, infectious diseases, medication adherence and global health, of course. Her particular passion in global health is population aging.

• Carl G. Streed Jr. is a third year medical student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Carl came to medicine after a convoluted and tortuous journey through biological chemistry at the University of Chicago, neighborhood anthropology at the Chicago Field Museum, and a stint as a bouncer at a bar in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. During much of his time in Chicago, Carl worked with the Chicago Department of Public Health, the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and the Howard Brown Health Center to address the HIV epidemic in Chicago. He is pursuing a career in infectious disease medicine and public policy.

• Sarah Wallace is a medical student and a founding member of the Global Health Interest Group at Johns Hopkins. Originally from Virginia Beach, VA, she graduated from Duke in 2008 with a degree in Public Policy, a certificate in Global Health, and a minor in Slavic Studies. She caught the global health research bug in college, studying bioethics in Chernobyl, health systems strengthening, and international abortion policy. After college she bought a warm coat and moved to Boston, where she looked into global nutritional risk factors for cardiovascular disease in her job as a junior research fellow at Harvard SPH. Sarah’s global health interests lie in policy, nutrition, chronic disease, and mental health. She is passionate about promoting interdisciplinary solutions to global health problems. She can be contacted at swallace@jhmi.edu.