As part of its education and training function, the Division welcomes Global Health Leadership Fellows, who work for two years on projects that advance the Division’s mission. As part of the program, Fellows also complete degree or certificate programs in global health.
Global Health Leadership Fellows
Modern-day slavery. Post-conflict zone health system collapse. What can physicians do to address these and other global health problems?
The Division of Global Health and Human Rights has been offering a two-year global health fellowship for residency-trained physicians since July of 2006. Applications are welcomed from physicians all specialties and 1 to 2 are admitted annually. The fellowship focus is to develop global health leaders in a particular area of concentration. The two-year training program includes a customized combination of field work, clinical participation at MGH, and didactics such as advanced degrees in public health or public policy, tropical medicine, and research mentorship.
Chief Thomas Burke, MD, notes, “We wish to see our physicians have significant impact in global health, whether through practicing medicine, or advocating for health systems change in resource-poor settings. These fellows are training to become leaders in their chosen career path of a specific global health discipline.” The current fellows are listed below:
Melody Eckardt, MD, MPH
Melody Eckardt has been a fellow in the Division of Global Health and Human Rights since 2009. She is also faculty at Boston Medical Center where she is an attending physician in obstetrics and gynecology and is the care provider in charge of development for the Women’s Refugee Center at Boston Medical Center. She has her MPH from Harvard School of Public Health and her Medical Degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her interests internationally include refugee health, maternal ultrasound in resource poor settings, and antenatal and emergency obstetrical care to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality in the developing world. Dr. Eckardt has previously worked in Nepal, Southern Sudan, India, Pakistan and Romania. She was also an ob/gyn in a group practice for 7 years at South Shore Hospital.
Maya Fehling, MD
Maya Fehling has been a fellow in the Division of Global Health and Human Rights since June 2010. Trained in pediatrics, Dr. Fehling studied in Germany and worked in Switzerland and France. She is particularly interested in child health in developing countries, with a focus on emergency and newborn care and nutrition. Dr. Fehling has worked for several NGOs, including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) in countries like Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, Cape Verde and Uganda. Dr. Fehling has contributed to Division efforts in Uganda and Southern Sudan.
Keri Cohn, MD
Dr. Keri Cohn has been a fellow in the Division of Global Health and Human Rights since 2010. After completing her residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Cohn worked with Médecins Sans Frontières as the chief expatriate physician in the northern rebel region of the Cote d’Ivoire. She received her Diploma of Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and then completed a 5 year intensive fellowship combining Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston. She is an instructor at Harvard Medical School and was awarded the 2010 Pediatric Infectious Disease Society Burtis Burr Breese Award for her tuberculosis research in Haitian migrant children living in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Cohn has been involved with the Division's work in Liberia and Uganda, and helped shape the Initiative to End Child Malnutrition.
Past Global Health Leadership Fellows
Wendy Macias Konstantopolous, MD, MPH
Wendy Macias Konstantopolous is an emergency physician at MGH. Dr. Macias Konstantopoulos was a Global Health Leadership Fellow from 2007-2009, during which time she completed an MPH at Harvard School of Public Health, represented the Division at the UN's 2008 Global Forum Against Human Trafficking and undertook research for the Division's Initiative to End Slavery. She is currently faculty at the Division, assisting in the design of Phase Two of the Division's trafficking work. Dr. Macias Konstantopoulos has also worked with the International Organization on Migration Counter-Trafficking Unit in Indonesia.
Brett Nelson, MD, MPH, DTM&H
Brett Nelson was a pediatric Global Health Leadership Fellow at the Division from 2008-2009. In his capacity as fellow, he led efforts in developing pediatric and newborn care and training in Monrovia, Liberia. Dr. Nelson's training includes MD and MPH degrees from Johns Hopkins, with MPH concentrations in humanitarian assistance and human rights, and advanced diploma training in tropical medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Nelson has been involved in pediatric care, academic research and consultancy in a dozen conflict-affected areas while working for a variety of international organizations.
Mark Bisanzo, MD
Mark Bisanzo completed his residency at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency (HAEMR) in 2006. He spent the following three years as faulty at the University of Connecticut. During his 2009/2010 fellowship, he worked with Nyakibale Hospital and the Global Emergency Care Collaborative (GECC) on the construction of one of the first district hospital emergency care centers on the African continent. A major focus of his work was training a cadre of Ugandan nurses in order to provide the human resource capacity to run the new center in a high quality and sustainable fashion.
Jacob Chapman, MD, MPH
Jacob Chapman completed his residency at the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency (HAEMR) in June 2008. He is an emergency physician at MGH. He received his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health in June 2009. His previous international work has focused on capacity-building and development. He has worked with Partners in Health on a number of projects in Chiapas, Mexico. Most recently, he completed a health needs assessment in Liberia, in conjunction with the Liberian Ministry of Health, and he has also worked on the Maternal and Infant Health Initiative in Zambia. Currently, Jacob's focus is to help develop a world-leading emergency care training program, by and for, Caribbean health care providers.
OTHER GLOBAL HEALTH TRAINING
In addition to Global Health Leadership Fellows, the Division works with medical residents, medical students and undergraduate students at Harvard and elsewhere that have an interest in global health. For example, during the past year, several medical residents participated in Division projects in Southern Sudan. The Division also hosted a summer undergraduate intern in 2010.
