STAFF, VISITORS & ADVISORS
Chief: Thomas Burke, MD, FACEP
Thomas F. Burke, MD is the Chief of the Division of Global Health and Human Rights at the Massachusetts General Hospital as well as a practicing emergency physician. He was the founding Director of the MGH Center for Global Health. Prior to the MGH, Dr. Burke was Associate Clinical Director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a senior faculty member for the hospital's Division of International Health and Humanitarian Programs and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Burke currently holds a senior faculty position at Harvard Medical School.
During his seven years in the U.S. Army Dr. Burke had several overseas deployments and served as the doctor for the FBI Hostage Rescue Team at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho. In 1995 Dr Burke helped establish a health system for 28,000 refugees in Guantanamo Bay Cuba and later that same year, as the Bosnian crisis escalated, he directed the emergency department in the U.S. Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Dr Burke successfully started 3 companies and ran an NGO that developed medical education systems in Eastern Europe. He is widely published and serves on several boards, including Americans for UNFPA, I-Scale, and the National Youth Leadership.
Associate Director, Policy and Research: Roy Ahn, MPH, ScD
Roy Ahn was most recently senior administrative manager of the MGH Center for Global Health. Prior to MGH, he was Research Fellow of Harvard’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. He has published various case studies on philanthropy in Harvard Kennedy School’s Case Program, the largest program of its kind in the world. He has consulted to major private philanthropic foundations, and served on an advisory committee of the City of Boston's Office of New Bostonians. Roy's background is in public health policy research and consulting, including stints at the Lewin Group and Research Triangle Institute. Roy oversees the division's research activities.
Faculty and Medical Director, Initiative to End Slavery: Wendy Macias Konstantopoulos, MD, MPH
Wendy Macias Konstantopoulos is an emergency physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Instructor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. An MPH graduate from Harvard, Dr. Macias Konstantopoulos was instrumental in the development of anti-trafficking work as a core program of the Division. She has lectured regionally and nationally at various forums on the individual and public health consequences of human trafficking and slavery. Dr. Macias Konstantopoulos has worked with the International Organization on Migration Counter-Trafficking Unit in Indonesia and represented MGH at the United Nation's 2008 Global Forum Against Human Trafficking. In addition, she completed a Global Health Fellowship at the MGH Center for Global Health and a certificate studies program on Humanitarian Emergencies at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. She is a member of the Physicians for Human Rights’ Asylum Network.
Senior Global Health Fellow: Elaine Alpert, MD, MPH
Elaine Alpert is an experienced primary care physician, public health professor, policy consultant and advocate for vulnerable populations. She is an expert on family violence and sexual assault, and was lead author of a comprehensive domestic violence curriculum for physicians and other health care providers entitled The Massachusetts Medical Society Seminar Series on Domestic Violence. Prior to joining the Division, Elaine was an associate professor of public health and medicine at Boston University. Elaine is part of the Division's Initiative to End Slavery research team and is currently a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
Research Assistant: Genna Purcell
Genna Purcell recently graduated from Yale University with a degree in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She spent last summer on a research fellowship in Cambodia, where she interned for an organization that works to combat sex trafficking of women and girls. Her senior essay on human trafficking in Cambodia received an honorable mention for Yale's Lily Rosen Prize in Women's Health. Genna provides research and administrative assistance for the Division.
Senior Advisors
The Division of Global Health and Human Rights benefits from the collective expertise of a panel of senior advisors, who provide strategic guidance to the leadership of the Division:
MGH Senior Advisors
Alasdair Conn, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine, MGH
Jim Cusack, MD, Department of Surgery, MGH
Walter “Sunny” Dzik, MD, Department of Pathology, MGH
Greg Fricchione, MD, Department of Psychiatry, MGH
Dave Henderson, MD, Department of Psychiatry, MGH
Rocio Hurtado, MD, Department of Medicine, MGH
Kristian Olson, MD, MPH, DTMH, Department of Medicine, MGH
Ann Prestipino, MPH, Surgical and Anesthesia Services and Clinical Business Development, MGH
Owen Surman, MD, Department of Psychiatry, MGH
Lynda Tyer Viola, RNC, PhD, MGH Institute of Health Professions
External Senior Advisors
Shawn J. Bohen, MBA, Year Up, Inc.
J. Stephen Bohan, MD, Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
David Dodson, MBA, MDC, Inc.
Sean Flannery (Senior Economic Advisor)
Joe Fuller, MBA, Monitor Group
Kris Joshi, PhD, Oracle
Sanjeev Khagram, PhD, Harvard Business School
Jason Lew, MD
William Marks, MD
Anita McGahan, PhD (Senior Economist), University of Toronto
Kaia Miller, MBA, Aslan Global
Kypros Nicolaides, MD, Kings College London
Judith Palfrey, MD, Children’s Hospital-Boston
Mary Simmerling, PhD, Weill Cornell Medical College
Susan Vitka, PhD
Howard Zucker, MD, JD
