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Advancing Science for Global Health
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People in the news - October 2009

September - October, 2009  |  Volume 8, Issue 5

Four new staff join Fogarty


Three program officers and a program analyst have joined Fogarty in recent weeks.

Photo: headshot of Dr. Rob Lyerla
Dr. Rob Lyerla

Dr. Rob Lyerla, formerly a CDC epidemiologist with a background in HIV/AIDS surveillance, is now the program officer for Europe. He has field experience in Denmark, France, Moldova, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Photo: headshot of Dr. Myat Htoo Razak
Dr. Myat Htoo Razak

Dr. Myat Htoo Razak will work on project development and the Fogarty International Clinical Scholars/Fellows program. He received his medical degree in Burma and a master's in public health and a doctorate in epidemiology from UCLA.

Photo: headshot of Dr. Yvonne Njage
Dr. Yvonne Njage

Dr. Yvonne Njage, an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow, will manage the new Millennium Promise Awards program for research training in chronic diseases. She has an M.D. from Harvard and has worked in Kenya, Botswana, Zambia and India.

Photo: headshot of Farah Bader
Farah Bader

Farah Bader is providing analytic support for Fogarty grants awarded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. She holds a master's in public health from Johns Hopkins University and has worked on problems of Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

Center-backed investigator wins Heinz Award


Dr. Kirk Smith, a co-investigator on the Fogarty-sponsored international environmental and occupation health research training program, is one of 10 winners of the $100,000 Heinz Award for his work on pollution in the developing world. The award, named after the late Sen. John Heinz, cited the University of California, Berkeley, professor for his work on the danger of the global practice of cooking indoors with wood, coal or other biomass.

(See the article Acoustic fan could ease pollution from Global Health Matters March - April 2009 for more information about this global cooking practices research.)

Photo: headshot of Dr. Kirk Smith
Dr. Kirk Smith


Photo: headshot of Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr
Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr

Grantee elected to Institute of Medicine


A long-time Fogarty grantee, Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, founder of Columbia University's Center for Infectious Disease Epidemiologic Research, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine, one of the highest honors in medicine. She serves on the scientific advisory committee of the Center's AIDS International Training and Research Program and was an investigator in the Fogarty-funded Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa.

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