Scholars

Eamon Penney serves as a Project Lead with Partners In Health, where his work focuses on supporting health departments in the U.S. to implement data-driven, equity-first agendas as they rebuild following the emergency phase of the pandemic. Previously, he held a number of roles with MSF (Doctors Without Borders) including coordinating logistics in South Sudan, supporting the Board of Directors in New York, and most recently, leading advocacy and COVID-19 response efforts in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Eamon earned his master’s degree in Public Health from Columbia University where he focused on epidemiological methods in complex humanitarian emergencies. He earned his Bachelor of Science from the University of Vermont in Community and International Development. Eamon currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts but returns frequently to his home state of Vermont.\

Genevieve is the Associate Director of Programs for the International Trachoma Initiative, an organization of Task Force for Global Health. Genevieve provides program support and technical assistance to Francophone and Latin American countries implementing the SAFE Strategy to prevent trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness. She also coordinates the Réseau Africain Francophone des Experts de Trachome (RAFET), a Francophone network for trachoma experts that shares progress in research, challenges with implementation, and best practices for eliminating trachoma. Before joining ITI, Genevieve worked as a surveillance epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she supported a variety of projects including research on WASH in health care facilities in Mali and Cameroon. Prior to CDC she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the West region of Cameroon. Her previous work experience also includes studying bed net efficacy within the Entomology branch at CDC, tracking the expansion of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the Peruvian Amazon, and researching West Nile Virus transmission in Atlanta. Genevieve holds a Master of Public Health in Global Environmental Health from Emory University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from the University of New Hampshire.

Keelia Sulak is a data analyst who is passionate about improving the world through data. Originally from Chicago, Illinois and now in Portland, Oregon, Keelia has a unique background that has brought her from boardrooms in New York City to organic farm fields in rural North America. After graduating school early with distinction she worked with ProWorld Volunteers in Belize, where she lived in a Mayan village and worked with community businesses. Once returning home, her business background led her to a position as a data analyst. There she had the rare opportunity to work alongside the Director of North American Analytics, which allowed her to gain a vast amount of knowledge and experience. She later transitioned to a position in project management working with schools and food pantries across the Midwest. For many years she worked with locations such as The Greater Chicago Food Depository and Chicago Public Schools with a mission to not only provide food for kids, but work toward equal access to organic and nutritious food for all. Keelia now works at Heifer International where she has found a home and is able to merge two of her greatest passions, data analysis and nonprofit work. Since joining the organization, she has helped expand the team’s analytics offerings and develop efficient methods of monitoring campaigns to help ensure fundraising goals are met. She looks forward to working with the team at Heifer International for many years to come.

Rhian Gastineau is from the United States of America but was born and raised in Zambia and Kenya. She has over twenty-five years of experience in the International Humanitarian Field in complex emergencies, post conflict countries and in disease specific projects. In her twenty-one years at Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF), she has held several positions, ranging from Project Coordinator, Liaison Officer, Deputy Head of Mission, and currently, Head of Mission/Country Director. As Country Director Rhian is responsible for all MSF activities in the country. She works with the country management team to set strategies for the country as well as for the medical activities in the project locations. Supporting the Ministry of Health in different countries, Rhian has conducted exploratory missions that resulted in projects for specificially Sleeping Sickness, Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB), and maternal/child health, among others. In Sierra Leone, along with the medical coordinator, she established the first decentralized diagnosis and treatment center for MDR-TB in the country, in support of the National TB Program Strategy. Rhian holds a Bachelor of Arts in History/Political Science from Point Loma Nazarene University as well as a Master of Science in International Relations from University of Bristol. Her passion is providing healthcare to populations who do not have access to quality healthcare in under-resourced settings, and to those suffering from neglected diseases.

Sachin Desai has dedicated much of his career to the care of mothers and their children. His recent interest focuses on the development of effective interventions for outbreaks that build up national health systems. Most of his practical training and experience have been in field settings of resource-limited settings. Understanding the barriers faced by vulnerable and marginalized communities was one of the principal reasons he chose to work with Médecins Sans Frontières upon completing his pediatric training at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan. He has lived and worked in these settings to better understand how health systems operate and learn lessons of what can succeed in various contexts. As a pediatrician managing HIV in Swaziland, his team was better equipped to improve adherence and treatment success when changing their structure to a family-based HIV clinic with nutritional supplementation and strengthened ties to centralized TB care. Bundling interventions to maximize positive outcomes was a big step forward in guiding his future interest in implementation strategy on a population-based level. Following a Pediatric Infectious Disease Fellowship at Yale University, Sachin has reflected on the evolution of his core values over the past ten years, of his perceptions and expectations of what can be competing, but equally important objectives . Balancing immediate, individual benefit versus sustainable population-based impact needs to be carefully considered when defining successful end-goals.