Pacific Lutheran University

As the name suggests, the two-day event will highlight the work of non-governmental organizations currently searching for global solutions to control disease in developing nations. These organizations, many from the Pacific Northwest, are stepping up to meet a need where governments cannot or have not.

Stephen Lewis, the former United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, will deliver the keynote address, “Time to Deliver: Winning the Battle Against Poverty and Disease in the Developing World,” on Thursday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center.

Lewis is currently the chair of the board of the Stephen Lewis Foundation in Canada, which works to ease the pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa at the grassroots level, and he is a professor in global health in the Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He is a senior advisor to the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York and co-director of AIDS-Free World.

Symposium presentations and seminars move to campus Feb. 22. Representatives of NGOs and area leaders in science and business will discuss their involvement in finding and delivering solutions – from active on-site intervention to benchmark research and the formulation of public policy.

Among those set to speak is epidemiologist William Foege’57, senior fellow on health policy at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His talk, at 11:15 a.m. in Chris Knutzen Hall, is titled “From Smallpox to HIV/AIDS: The Changing Face of Global Health.”

Foege is widely recognized as a leader in the successful eradication of smallpox in the 1970s. He has championed many issues, but child survival and development, injury prevention, population, preventive medicine and public health leadership are of special interest, particularly in the developing world.

Others slated to present on Feb. 22 include:

• Brad Berg, a full-time pediatrician in Mount Vernon, Wash., and co-founder of the nonprofit Fight for the Children
• Steve Deem, an environmental health engineer for the Washington State Department of Health
• Zoey Dering ’93, nurse and commissioned officer with the U.S. Public Health Service
• Joe DiCarlo, director of emergency relief at Medical Teams International
• Brent Hample ’86, chief executive officer of India Partners
• Veronica Esteban Hernandez, representative from PROSA (Promotores de Salud en Defensa de la Vida del Pueblo), providing healthcare in remote areas of Oaxaca, Mexico
• Scott Jackson, vice president of the external relations team at the international nonprofit PATH
• Carol Koller, with 27 years of fund raising and development leadership experience, she is presently with Medical Teams International
• Lindsay Leeder, family nurse practitioner, Krista Colleague and former Jesuit Volunteer Corps member
• Connie McCloud, who has worked for the Puyallup Tribe and Puyallup Tribal Health Authority for more than 35 years
• Joyce Millen, anthropology professor at Willamette University and a medical anthropologist
• Kathryn Morgan, executive director of Fight for the Children
• Tom Paulsen ’81, science and medical reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
• Anne Peterson, public health physician
• U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, a Democratic from Washington’s 9th District
• Michelle Williams, epidemiology professor at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine

More information about the speakers is available here.

Currently, the Wang Center is hosting a film series about global health. The remaining films include “A Closer Walk” on Tuesday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. in Ingram 100, and highlights from the six-hour "Rx for Survival" series on Wednesday, Feb. 20 at 8 p.m. in The Cave.

This is the third in a series of symposia sponsored by the Wang Center and PLU. It follows “China: Bridges for a New Century” in 2003, and “Pathways to Peace: Norway’s Approach to Democracy and Development” in 2005.

For more information contact wangcntr@plu.edu or call 253-535-7577.

University Communications staff writer Megan Haley compiled this report. Comments, questions, ideas? Please contact her at ext. 8691 or at haleymk@plu.edu.