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Marlene Tromp, Ph.D., President, University of Vermont

Dr. Marlene Tromp is the 28th president of the University of Vermont, Vermont’s flagship land-grant research university. Prior to her arrival at UVM, Dr. Tromp served as president of Boise State University for six years, Executive Vice Chancellor and Campus Provost at UC Santa Cruz, and Dean and Vice Provost at Arizona State University. She has worked in partnership with the faculty to increase academic excellence and the research profile, improve student graduation, grow research funding, and increase philanthropic giving. She is committed to elevating UVM’s pathbreaking research, partnering across the state and across the globe, increasing access for students, and integrating the university deeply with the local economy.

Harry Chen, M.D., VT Commissioner of Health 2011-2017. Physician Educator, Seed Global Health – Uganda.

Dr. Harry Chen recently returned from Uganda, where he trained doctors as an Emergency Medicine Educator for Seed Global Health. In 2022-2023, he was Interim Commissioner for Vermont’s Department for Children and Families. During the pandemic, Dr. Chen served as Medical Advisor to Vermont’s response to Covid-19 and chaired Vermont’s Covid Vaccine Advisory Board. As Senior Advisor to the CDC Foundation, he supported HHS Region 3’s Covid response. In 2018-2020, he was Executive Director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing at the University of Vermont and the University’s Senior Public Health Officer. He spent a year in Uganda (2017-2018) where he co-led the country’s first Emergency Medicine residency as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer. Dr. Chen was Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health from 2011 through early 2017. He served on the CDC’s Board of Scientific Counselors and chaired its Food Safety Working Group. He served on the Board of Directors of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. An emergency physician at Rutland Regional Medical Center for over 25 years, he also served as Medical Director of the Emergency Department. He is on the clinical faculty at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Dr. Chen served three terms in the Vermont State Legislature, starting in 2002. He served on the University of Vermont Board of Trustees, including as Vice Chair.

Allison Friedman, MS, Former Associate Director for Communication, CDC Division of Population Health.

Allison Friedman has more than 20 years of experience leading strategic communications at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has directed award-winning national campaigns, built cross-sector partnerships, and guided public health messaging during CDC’s Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19 responses.

Most recently, she served as Associate Director for Communication in CDC’s Division of Population Health—an office eliminated in April 2025 as part of federal cuts—which advanced community-based research, health data, and chronic disease prevention programs with a strong focus on social determinants of health. In this role, she oversaw all internal and external communications, including digital, social, media, web, and partner engagement.

Earlier in her CDC career, Allison led communication initiatives in the Division of Global Migration & Quarantine and the Division of STD Prevention. Prior to CDC, she worked at the National Academy of Medicine in health communication and behavior change. She holds a Master of Science in Health and Social Behavior from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from McGill University.

Gregg Gonsalves, Ph.D.

Gregg Gonsalves is an Associate Professor in the Department of the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale School of Public Health and an Associate Professor (Adjunct) at Yale Law School. At Yale, he also co-directs the Global Health Justice Partnership, an initiative of YSPH and YLS, working at the intersections of health and human rights and social justice. For close to 35 years, he has been an AIDS activist, working first with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in Boston and New York, then co-founding the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC). He has also worked with Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa in Cape Town. He is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.

Susan Polan, Ph.D., Associate Director for Public Affairs and Advocacy at the American Public Health Association, former Director of Government Relations for Trust for America’s Health.

Susan L. Polan, Ph.D., is  the Associate Executive Director for Public Affairs and Advocacy with the American Public Health Association. She oversees the Association’s departments of government relations, affiliate affairs, communications, membership services and component affairs. She is responsible for organizing the annual Policy Action Institute. The Campaign for the Public’s Health along with Alliance for the Public’s Health are under her leadership as is APHA’s current work in support of public health through the legal system and courts. Polan has more than 30 years of experience in public health, government relations and associations at the Trust for America’s Health, an American Association for Advancement of Science Congressional Science and Technology Fellow and professional staff member for the Senate HELP Committee. Polan also served as director of federal government relations at the American Cancer Society where she was the chief lobbyist and as president of Partnership for Prevention. Polan earned her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She later earned an MA in psychology from San Diego State University and a doctorate in social ecology from the University of California, Irvine. She was recently honored as the alumni of the year by the John C. Wen School of Population and Public Health at the University of California, Irvine.

Arrianna Marie Planey, M.A., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Geographer and Health Services Researcher.

Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill. She is also a Faculty Fellow in the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. Trained as a health/medical geographer, Dr. Planey has an overarching interest in health and healthcare equity. Her work has addressed a range of outcomes, including but not limited to, health systems restructuring (specifically, hospital closures and mergers) and implications for care access and utilization, the intersection of travel burdens and cancer care-related financial toxicity among cancer survivors, and birth outcomes.

Her research and teaching foci include the application of spatial statistical and epidemiologic methods to study health(care) policies, healthcare access and utilization, and underlying, population-level health inequities. Her goal is to identify points of intervention at structural- and system-levels. At the core of her research agenda is equity in access and outcomes, with attention to the intersections of race, class, gender, and disability status. Her research has been published in Social Science and Medicine, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Health Affairs, Health Services Research, and Milbank Quarterly.

Moderator: Jan K. Carney, M.D., M.P.H., Vermont Commissioner of Health, 1989-2003; Associate Dean for Public Health & Health Policy; Professor and Chief, Division of Public Health & Director of Graduate Public Health Programs, Larner College of Medicine at UVM

Dr. Jan K. Carney serves as associate dean for Public Health and Health Policy and is a professor of medicine at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Middlebury College, a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Carney is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Preventive Medicine.

Dr. Carney has held the position of Vermont’s Commissioner of Health under three gubernatorial administrations, advocating for advancements in children’s health insurance, anti-smoking initiatives for youth, and enhancements in cancer screening practices. In 2003, she was recognized as a Local Legend by the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine and the American Medical Women’s Association. In 2018, she received the “Public Health Champion” Award from the Vermont Public Health Association and was recently honored with the UVM President’s Distinguished University Citizenship and Service Award for her innovative teaching, exemplary leadership, and commitment to the UVM community.

Dr. Carney is actively engaged in public health practice, research, education, and service. She is a Master of the American College of Physicians (MACP) and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP). Additionally, she has authored numerous scientific papers and three books: Public Health in Action: Practicing in the Real World, Controversies in Public Health and Health Policy, and A History of Public Health: From Past to Present (February 2022).

The Honorable Nils Daulaire, M.D., M.P.H., Five decades experience in global health ranging from service delivery to the highest levels of policy-making.

Dr. Daulaire, a Vermont native, started his medical career serving displaced and underserved communities in Bangladesh following their war of independence. His work in maternal and child health and primary health care then took him to West Africa and Nepal, where he pioneered community-based treatment of childhood illnesses. He served the Clinton administration as senior policy advisor for global health and population at USAID, and subsequently led the Global Health Council, an international NGO representing health services and research organizations, for a decade. He was named by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Representative to the World Health Organization and U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health for Global Affairs. Since then he has served as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Arctic University of Norway. He has worked in over 50 countries and continues to have his home in South Royalton, Vermont.

Salmaan Keshavjee M.D., Ph.D., Sc.M., Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Field of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School, Director of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Global Health Delivery, physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Trained as a medical doctor and anthropologist, Dr. Keshavjee’s research has focused on health care delivery (particularly in the area of tuberculosis treatment and elimination), and the anthropology of health policy. He is the author of Blind Spot: How neoliberalism infiltrated global health, which emanated from his doctoral thesis research in post-Soviet Tajikistan. He has worked extensively with the Boston-based non-profit Partners In Health (PIH) on the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Over the last 25 years, Dr. Keshavjee has conducted clinical and implementation research on MDR-TB in Russia, both in the prison and civilian sectors. In addition to his work in Russia, Dr. Keshavjee was Deputy-Director for the Partners In Health’s health programs in Lesotho (2006-2008), launching one of the first community-based treatment programs for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis/HIV co-infection in sub-Saharan Africa. More recently, he has been working with Advance Access & Delivery, a non-governmental organization for which he is a co-founder and clinical advisor for projects in India and South Africa. He is currently engaged with tuberculosis treatment projects in the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia.

Jimmy Kolker, U.S. Ambassador [retired]; Health Diplomat

Jimmy Kolker serves part time as Senior Advisor to the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State.
Ambassador Kolker had a 30 year diplomatic career, serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Uganda (2002-2005) and to Burkina Faso (1999-2002).

His last fulltime post was Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Amb Kolker represented the United States at World Health Organization; was directly involved in the U.S. response to Ebola and Zika; and helped develop the Global Health Security Agenda.

From 2005-2007, he was Deputy Global AIDS Coordinator, leading implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Amb. Kolker was Deputy Chief of Mission at U.S. embassies in Denmark and Botswana and won awards for political reporting at earlier posts in the UK, Sweden, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

After retiring from State, in 2007, Amb. Kolker was Chief of the AIDS Section and Associate Director of Programs at UNICEF’s New York headquarters.

His board and advisory board memberships include MANA Nutrition, Last Mile Health, Augusta Victoria Hospital (East Jerusalem), American Diplomacy Publishers, Building Tomorrow, the G4 Surgery Alliance, Global HOPE (pediatric cancer/sickle cell) and the Firelight Foundation.

The Cambridge Univserity Press textbook Diplomatic Tradecraft, published March 2024, includes his chapter Health and Science Diplomacy.

Amb. Kolker received honorary doctorate degrees from his alma mater Carleton College and from Nova Southeastern University . He holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School and a B.A. magna cum laude from Carleton. He speaks French, Swedish, and Portuguese.

The Honorable Keith Martin MD, PC

Dr. Martin is the founding Executive Director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), based in Washington, DC.

Between 1993-2011, he served as a Member of Parliament in Canada’s House of Commons representing a riding in British Columba. He held shadow ministerial portfolios in foreign affairs, international development, and health and served as Canada’s Parliamentary Secretary for Defense. He is a member of the Queen’s Privy Council. His primary areas of interest are global health, foreign policy, international development, conservation and the environment.

Dr. Martin has been on numerous diplomatic missions to areas in crisis, practiced as a physician on the Mozambique border during that country’s civil war and has travelled widely in Africa. He spent many years volunteering on conservation efforts in South Africa.

He has authored more than 170 published editorial pieces and has appeared frequently as a commentator on television and radio.

Mitchell Wolfe, M.D., M.P.H., Rear Admiral (Retired), USPHS

Dr. Wolfe currently Vice President for Global Engagement and Governance at Ginkgo Biosecurity. He is also a Senior Associate, Global Health Policy Center, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Honorary Professor of Practice at the UCL Global Business School for Health. He is a medical epidemiologist and global health strategist and diplomat, with extensive global public health experience, including 24 years with the Department of Health and Human Services, including 21 years with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most recently as CDC’s Chief Medical Officer from 2019 to 2022. He has also held positions as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs at the HHS/Office of Global Affairs, and CDC Country Director in Vietnam and in Thailand. In these roles, he has been a senior advisor to US government leaders, led the implementation of CDC’s global health strategy, and represented HHS and CDC to the highest levels of foreign governments, multilateral institutions such as the World Health Organization, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations. He has extensive experience at global, regional, and country levels working to combat global infectious disease threats, in pandemic preparedness and response, and addressing non-communicable health issues.  He has been involved in numerous studies and investigations, including as project officer for a large US-based HIV/AIDS cohort study, and was involved in the USG response to anthrax attacks, as well as investigations of lead poisoning, heat-related mortality, syphilis outbreaks, exposures due to forest fires, and foodborne and waterborne diseases.

Dr. Wolfe is a graduate of the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) program. He earned his medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, his Master of Public Health degree from University of California, Berkeley, and his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in English Literature. In 2020, Dr. Wolfe retired from the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service at the rank of Rear Admiral.

Moderator: Burton Wilcke, Ph.D., M.S., Emeritus Associate Professor Biomedical and Health Sciences, UVM; Global Laboratory Systems Consultant, APHL

Burton is an Emeritus Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Health Sciences in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Vermont. Currently he is engaged in Global Health consulting work focusing on leadership training for laboratory directors in developing countries. He has over twenty-five years of public health practice experience at the state and local level in California, Michigan and Vermont. In 2002 he became the Chair of the Department of Medical Laboratory and Radiation Sciences (now Biomedical and Health Sciences) at the University of Vermont (UVM). Prior to joining the faculty at UVM he was the Director of Health Surveillance for the Vermont Department of Health. His experience covers a range of areas spanning infectious diseases, microbiology, public health practice, the health workforce and global health. He has previously served on committees and boards of national health and public health organizations such as the American Public Health Association, the American Society for Microbiology, the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) serving as its President, and the Institute of Medicine. He has also served on the Editorial Board of the Emerging Infectious Diseases and Public Health Reports. He is a Past President of the Vermont Public Health Association.