Appendix C

Staff and Consultant Biographies

STAFF

Hoda Soltani, Ph.D., M.P.H., is this study’s director and a program officer with the Board on Global Health. She received her Ph.D. in nutritional biology from the University of California, Davis. She completed her research at the Western Human Nutrition Research Center, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where she examined the interrelationships of nutrition, physiological stress, and cardiometabolic outcomes in overweight women. She also received her M.P.H. from the University of Toronto in 2011 and her B.Sc. in human ecology from the University of Western Ontario in 2009. Professionally, she has more than a decade of experience working as a scientist and a project manager in a myriad of diverse settings, including academia, industry, clinical care, and public health organizations.

Emilie Ryan-Castillo is a senior program assistant with the Board on Global Health, working on the influenza consensus studies. She has a B.S. in public health from American University. In the past, she was a program assistant at FHI 360 and worked on diabetes prevention and childhood obesity research projects. In this role, she helped execute several large meetings bringing together the top researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research. Recently, she served as a Rural Community Health Volunteer in the Peace Corps Benin, where she worked on improving maternal health, vaccination rates, and community outreach at a local clinic in the Borgou Department.

Elizabeth Ashby, M.S., is a research associate with the Board on Global Health. She holds a master’s degree in environmental science from George Mason University, with a focus on risk factors for zoonotic disease transmission. Previously, she has conducted research in collaboration with the PREDICT project for global disease surveillance to assess risk factors for zoonotic disease transmission in Kenya. She has also worked with a private consulting company to apply social marketing interventions and innovative technologies to pressing global health issues. Her primary interests include applying a One Health lens to analyze challenges related to emerging pandemic threats.

Hannah K. Collins is an independent consultant for SGNL Solutions and supports the work of the National Academies as a research associate, advising on and editing reports, authoring committee meeting proceedings, and conducting supplemental research. She also works as a science writer for SGNL Solutions, authoring and editing academic workshop proceedings. She graduated from St. Lawrence University with a B.S in neuroscience and is working toward her M.S. in neuroscience at the City University of London where she is interested in public health and neurodegenerative disease research.

Patricia A. Cuff, M.S., M.P.H., is a senior program officer with the Board on Global Health where she directs the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education—a position she has held since 2012. Ms. Cuff is also leading the U.S. Food and Drug Administration–funded study looking at mutual recognition agreements in the regulation of medicines, and a special COVID-related project with select academies in Africa. Ms. Cuff worked for 11 years on the African Science Academy Development Initiative where she was the country liaison to the Uganda National Academy of Sciences. She has directed and co-directed multiple studies at the National Academies including clinical trials during the 2014–2015 Ebola outbreak, options for overseas placement of U.S. health professionals, and enhancing the behavioral and social science content of medical school curricula. Ms. Cuff joined the National Academies staff to work on the report Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century. Before coming to Washington, DC, she worked at St. Luke’s—Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City in the field of HIV nutrition as a counselor, researcher, and lecturer on topics of adult and pediatric HIV. She received her M.S. in nutrition and her M.P.H. in population and family health from Columbia University, and performed her undergraduate studies at the University of Connecticut.

Julie A. Pavlin, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., is the senior director of the Board on Global Health and is board certified in preventive medicine and public health. She is a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army with previous assignments including the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Bangkok, Thailand; the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. After she retired from active duty, she served as the deputy director, Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center. She concentrated most of her time with the U.S. Department of Defense in the design of real-time disease surveillance systems and was a co-founder of the International Society for Disease Surveillance.

CONSULTANT

Maartje Wouters, Ph.D., M.S., is a freelance medical and a science writer. She obtained an M.Sc. in human pathobiology and toxicology from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in cancer immunology from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Subsequently, she completed postdoctoral training in cancer immunotherapy at BC Cancer in Victoria, BC. The focus of her research was therapeutic targets in the immune environment of ovarian cancer. With more than 8 years of experience in preclinical research in immunology and oncology, Dr. Wouters now works as a medical and science writer developing protocols, reports, and other documentation for academia, industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations.