Ashley Barker is serving her 4th year at AMSA as the Global Health Chair. She was previously on the Health Policy Committee as well as the Professionalism and Ethics Committee (for two years). Ashley grew up in California and went to school in Mississippi. She graduated from Ole Miss with a B.S. in Biology and minors in Chemistry, Psychology, and Neuroscience. She is a Masters of Public Health with Health Policy specialization candidate at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and will be attending medical school following completion. Ashley is also a Research Associate at a Cardiology device company. Before this job she spent time on the Hill working in heath policy such as issues like PEPFAR. She worked in public health and health policy issues as an undergrad and working in D.C. with also focus on disability policy.. She wants to continue efforts on working on areas of issues such as maternal and child mortality, HIV/AIDS, disabilities, vaccinations, etc.

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, is a well-known health policy leader, practitioner and administrator. He currently serves as the executive director of the American Public Health Association, the nation’s oldest and largest organization of public health professionals. He is also a former Secretary of Health for the state of Maryland.

Dr. Benjamin is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University Of Illinois College Of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine, a Master of the American College of Physicians, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a fellow emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He serves on several nonprofit boards such as Research!America, the Truth Foundation and, the Reagan-Udall Foundation. He is also a member of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, a council that advises the President on how best to assure the security of the nation’s critical infrastructure.

Dr. Flick graduated Magna Cum Laude from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California with a BS in biology where he was heavily involved in high school and university level tutoring. He then moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand where he worked as a high school mathematics teacher at an international baccalaureate school. In the two years prior to starting medical school, he volunteered in seven different countries throughout Asia with international medical aid programs. Dr. Flick attended medical school at UC Irvine after receiving the Army health professions scholarship. He served on the admissions committee for four years including working on the selection committee board. He completed a family medicine residency program in Oahu, HI and served on the residency admissions committee. He is board certified in family medicine and now works as a flight surgeon for the Army.

Dr. Le is an internationally recognized medical educator, physician executive and seasoned entrepreneur. He possesses deep experience in medical communications, health informatics, and medical practice management. Dr. Le earned his medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco. He trained in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital and completed an allergy and immunology fellowship and a masters in health sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Le has authored or edited over 40 textbooks including the First Aid for the Boards series. These books have been used by over 2 million physicians and medical students worldwide. He is also section chief of allergy and immunology in the University of Louisville Department of Medicine where he pursues his interests in asthma and medical education. He is currently Founder and Chief Education Officer of ScholarRx, a global platform for student-powered medical education, and serves on the Board of Trustees for Centre College of Kentucky.

Prof. Levin has been working in the fields of HIV disease for more than three decades. This work has taken her to Brazil, Barbados, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Canada, Switzerland, Ukraine, South Africa, and India. Her focus has been on managing programs to meet the needs of vulnerable and marginalized communities (youth, injection drug users, sex workers, etc) and the health care providers who serve them, as well as to recruit partners outside of the health sector (government, transport, the press, private sector) to address HIV. She works as an independent consultant and is an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine. At Georgetown, Prof. Levin has taught on the following subjects: health policy, HIV diagnosis and testing, health communications and behavior modification, preschool health interventions, harm reduction, clinical problem-solving, community health, service learning, human sexuality, cultural competency, and a course on AIDS advocacy. She is faculty advisor to the Health Justice Track and GMAAN (Georgetown Medical AIDS Advocacy Network). She received her MPH in international public health policy from George Washington University and her BA in biology with an emphasis in molecular genetics from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Dr. Edjah Nduom is a fellowship-trained neurosurgical oncologist and physician-activist. In his academic practice, he operates on brain and spinal tumor patients while investigating novel treatments for brain tumor patients. Dr. Nduom obtained his B.S. in Biomechanical Engineering at Stanford University in 2002 and subsequently obtained his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. Dr Nduom then pursued neurosurgical training in the Department of Neurosurgery at Emory University and was awarded an NIH R25 Research Development Grant during his residency. In 2012, he completed an in-folded Research Fellowship in Neurosurgical Oncology at NIH. Dr Nduom finished his neurosurgical training in 2013 and then pursued an additional Neurosurgical Oncology Fellowship at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, where he was awarded the Jesse H. Jones Fellowship in Cancer Education.

Dr Nduom has held numerous leadership positions over his career. He was the President of the Medical Student Government at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he was also an active member of AMSA and the Student National Medical Association. In 2015, he founded Physicians for Criminal Justice Reform, Inc. a 501c3 non-profit organization focused on eliminating the damaging health consequences that can result from negative interactions with the criminal justice system. He was recently named one of the National Minority Quality Forum’s 40 under 40 Leaders in Minority Health. He is also a member of the Board of Directors for the National Brain Tumor Society and the Society for Neuro-Oncology of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Emily joined CFHI in 2019 as the Program Coordinator of Academic Partnerships and Affiliates. In this role, she supports a wide array of CFHI stakeholders, engaging with academic partners, global partners, and students.

Emily has experience working in global health, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), service learning, and education. Before CFHI, she worked as an independent consultant and at an international development consulting firm coordinating an extensive portfolio of M&E contracts for the USAID/Kenya and USAID/East Africa missions. She also spent four years living abroad, teaching English as a second language in Spain and leading community development trips for international volunteers in Nicaragua. Emily has a Master’s degree in Global Health from Universitat de Barcelona and a Bachelor’s degree in Public Health from University of Maryland, College Park. She is particularly passionate about amplifying evidence-based best practices in global health and shifting the foreign aid paradigm.

Ken Patterson is the Director of Grassroots Impact for RESULTS. As Director he provides coaching, training, and support to a national network of RESULTS chapters advocating for equitable access to health, education, and economic opportunity in the U.S. and around the globe.

Prior to RESULTS, Ken was an organizational development consultant. He also worked for 5 years in urban economic development in underinvested communities in Cleveland, OH with Shorebank Enterprise Group. He has over 7 years of international development experience working with the Peace Corps in West Africa as a volunteer, regional leader, training consultant, and as the Associate Director for Agriculture & Training Manager.

Ken has a master’s degree in Organizational Change Management from New School University, a master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Minnesota, and a BA in English from Cornell College in IA.

Timothy E. Quill, MD is Distinguished Professor in Palliative Care at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) where his is also Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, Medical Humanities and Nursing.  He was the Founding Director of the URMC Palliative Care Division and a Past President of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He is Acting Director of the URMC Schyve Center for Biomedical Ethics.

Dr. Quill has published and lectured widely about various aspects of the doctor-patient relationship, with special focus on end-of-life decision making, including delivering bad news, nonabandonment, discussing palliative care earlier, and exploring last-resort options.  He is the author of several books on end-of life care and over 150 articles published in major medical journals.  Dr. Quill was the lead physician plaintiff in the New York State legal case challenging the law prohibiting physician-assisted death that was heard in 1997 by the U.S. Supreme Court (Quill v. Vacco).

Dr. Quill received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College (1971), and his M.D. from the University of Rochester (1976).  He completed his Internal Medicine Residency in 1979 and a Fellowship in Medicine/Psychiatry Liaison in 1981, both from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.  Dr. Quill is a Fellow in the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, a Master in the American College of Physicians and an ABMS certified palliative care consultant.

Gary Rose, M.D., is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University.  As a former Chairman of the Admissions Committee of the Regional Campus of the University of Miami School of Medicine, in Boca Raton, and as a longtime member of the Admissions Committee of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine in Boca Raton, Florida, Dr. Rose has evaluated and interviewed hundreds of medical school applicants He recognizes the skills, characteristics, and attitudes expected of a successful med school applicant. He is the author of The Medical School Coach in which he teaches the reader how to develop the qualities and traits that are most desirable and necessary to be accepted into medical school. He is also the Director of the BS/MD Pipeline Program and Director of the Post Baccalaureate Program at The College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University.

Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein is Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement and Professor of the Practice in Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is also the Director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. He is the author of the Public Health Crisis Survival Guide: Leadership and Management in Trying Times​, published by the Oxford University Press. He is also co-author of the recently released book, ​The Opioid Epidemic: What Everyone Needs to Know​.

Previously, Dr. Sharfstein served as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene from January 2011 to December 2014. In this position, he led efforts to align Maryland’s health care system with improved health outcomes, culminating in the adoption of a revised payment model for all hospital care for Maryland residents. He also oversaw the development of a statewide health improvement process with 18 local public-private coalitions and the reshaping of state’s approach to health information exchange, long-term care, and behavioral health.

Anishaa Sivakumar is a senior at the University of Central Florida and the 2019/20 AMSA AIDS Advocacy Network (AAN) Chair. Having been a member of AMSA for the past three years, her interest in healthcare advocacy stemmed from her involvement in the AAN Steering Committee and AMSA’s Advocacy Day experience. As Chair, Anishaa has had the opportunity to collaborate on and lead multiple AIDS-related advocacy efforts, including Harm Reduction in Medical Training and Syringe Access Programs. Aside from her work with AMSA, Anishaa also serves as an MCAT Prep Instructor for Kaplan, Inc. and works in a lab setting studying the molecular basis of Parkinson’s Disease.

Bruce Wartman is the Manager of Educational Development and Instructional Design for DocCom, an online healthcare communication skills training tool, developed by Drexel University College of Medicine.

Bruce began his career in business-to-business advertising before starting his own business in 1995 developing interactive multimedia communications and training materials for corporations such as GlaxoSmithKline. Concurrently, with the start of the digital age in marketing and education, Bruce was invited to develop curriculum in digital imaging and processing for Drexel University’s photography program in 1998. Combining his experience in education management, instruction, and technology, Bruce earned his Master of Science in Education degree in Instructional Design & Technology from Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA.

Bruce joined Drexel University College of Medicine in 2019 to manage and develop DocCom and other online training programs in healthcare that serve students, residents, and practitioners. He also works with faculty and professional staff to enhance online curricular materials for Drexel’s medical students.