Dean’s Global Health Lecture Series: Priorities and Opportunities in Global Health Research - Perspectives from the Fogarty International Center

The mission of the Fogarty International Center is dedicated to advancing the mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by supporting and facilitating global health research conducted by U.S. and international investigators, building partnerships between health research institutions in the U.S. and abroad, and training the next generation of scientists to address global health needs.

Panelist bios:

Peter Kilmarx, an expert in global health and infectious disease research, policy, and programs, is the Deputy Director of the John E. Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health, a preeminent center for global health research and capacity building. He previously served as the Country Director in Zimbabwe and in Botswana for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and as Chief of CDC’s Sexual Transmission Research Section in Thailand. Other CDC leadership positions included Senior Advisor to the Director for Health Reform and Chief of Epidemiology Branch, both in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention.  Dr. Kilmarx served in leadership roles in the CDC’s Ebola response efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sierra Leone, and Guinea. After earning his MD degree in the Dartmouth-Brown Combined Program, he completed his internal medicine residency and infectious disease clinical fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, maintaining board certification in both specialties. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and serves on the editorial board of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Dr. Kilmarx served for more than 20 years in the U.S. Public Health Service, rising to the rank of Rear Admiral (Assistant Surgeon General). He has received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award granted to a Corps officer in recognition of an exceedingly high level of achievement by an officer who possesses a genuine sense of public service and who has made exceptional contributions to the mission of the Corps. His international career began as a Peace Corps volunteer in the DRC (then Zaire), where he helped develop fisheries that are still productive today.

Kathleen Michels is a neuroscientist and currently a Program Officer in the Division of International Training and Research (DITR) of the Fogarty International Center (FIC) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1998. FIC supports a range of international research and research training programs to advance global health. Dr. Michels and her team were awarded the NIH Director’s award for partnering across NIH to develop and manage pioneering catalytic programs for global brain and neuro-health research and research capacity building for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). She also coordinates the FIC trans-NIH portfolio of global health research and research training programs for non-communicable diseases and disorders and related topics.  These programs, with a growing presence in every region of the world, have had a catalytic and capacity-building role in addressing the causes, context, and interventions for disease and disorders in LMICs.   Some of the other trans-NIH initiatives she has developed include the Stigma and Global Health research program and international research training programs focused on clinical, prevention, and implementation science research.