Alumni Accomplishments
Amina Evangelista Swanepoel, MPH, ‘08, the director of Roots of Health, a reproductive health NGO she founded in the Philippines in 2009 with her mother, won a two-year fellowship to participate in VVLead, a training program established by Vital Voices in partnership with the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. The fellowship supports emerging and established women leaders working to promote the full participation of girls and women in their societies and economies.
Beth Charpentier, MPH ’13, has accepted a new position working with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Liberia as the Health Consortium Program Manager for the Montserrado Ebola Prevention and Response project. In this role, Ms. Charpentier will help manage the Ebola response efforts of an IRC-led, multi-NGO consortium that is funded by the U.S. government's Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance.
Bergen Cooper, MPH ‘13, senior policy research associate at The Center for Health and Gender Equity in Washington, DC, published an article, “Brief sexuality communication—a behavioural intervention to advance sexually transmitted infection/HIV prevention: a systematic review” in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. The article examined whether counseling provided in primary care settings could help prevent STI and HIV infection.
Craig Spencer, MD, MPH ’13, recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine a first person essay describing his experience being diagnosed with Ebola after returning from Guinea, where he had cared for Ebola patients. Dr. Spencer explores how fear, politics, and a media frenzy undermined the United States’ response to the Ebola crisis. “When we look back on this epidemic,” he writes, “I hope we'll recognize that fear caused our initial hesitance to respond—and caused us to respond poorly when we finally did.” Dr. Spencer recently returned to West Africa to treat Ebola patients.
Are you a PopFam alum with a recent accomplishment you would like to share in the Family News? Please submit recent articles, appearances in the news, honors and achievements, grants, promotions, new jobs, etc., as they happen, to Jennifer Heitel. Please include the year you graduated.