BECOMING BETTER ANCESTORS™: Applying the Lessons Learned from Smallpox Eradication
This virtual learning series features Dr. William Foege, the architect of the successful smallpox eradication program, and interviews with key global health leaders in nine dynamic, 20-minute sessions, each focused on one of the lessons learned. The series will not only demonstrate how these lessons can be applied to COVID-19 and other disease areas and disciplines, but how they could influence how we approach large societal problems, including structural racism, gender equity, and criminal justice.
Right now, the lessons from smallpox eradication have never been more relevant as the world struggles to get this latest threat—the COVID-19 pandemic—under control.
9 Lessons for changing the world
Filmed Interviews include:
Filmed Interviews include: Seth Berkley, CEO, Gavi; Girija Brilliant, Co-Founder, SEVA; Larry Brilliant, CEO, Pandefense Advisory; Jim Curran, Dean, Rollins School of Public Health; Anthony S. Fauci, NIAID Director, NIH; Bill Foege, Senior Advisor, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Melinda French Gates, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Helene Gayle, President, Chicago Community Trust; Roger Glass, Director, Fogarty International Center, NIH; Angela Hilmers, Director of Strategic and Technical Initiatives, TEPHINET, The Task Force for Global Health; Don Hopkins, Special Advisor, The Carter Center; Kashef Ijaz, Vice President for Health Programs, The Carter Center; Jim Kim, President (2012- 2019), World Bank; Steve Luby, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute and the Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University; Tshidi Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa; Vas Narasimhan, CEO, Novartis; Manish Patel, Team Lead, Influenza Prevention and Control Team, CDC; Carl Reddy, Director, TEPHINET, The Task Force for Global Health; Mark Rosenberg, former CEO, The Task Force for Global Health; Dave Ross, President and CEO, The Task Force for Global Health; Zainab Salbi, Founder, Women for Women International (Host); Vivian Singletary, Director, Public Health Informatics Institute, The Task Force for Global Health; Steve Stirling, CEO, MAP International; Nana Twum Danso, Sr. Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement; Rochelle Walensky, Director, US CDC.
The Team Behind The Project
Dr. William "Bill" Foege
Dr. Bill Foege has devoted his life’s work to public health. He is an epidemiologist and was instrumental in the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. Dr. Foege served as Director of the Center for Disease Control under both Presidents Carter and Reagan. After serving six years as the head of the CDC, Dr. Foege co-founded The Task Force for Child Survival, now The Task Force for Global Health and joined The Carter Center as its first Executive Director. Dr Foege served as Senior Medical Advisor for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Dr. Foege the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for his work eradicating smallpox, the first human disease ever wiped off the face of our planet.
Dr. Mark Rosenberg
Dr. Mark Rosenberg was instrumental in establishing CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and became its first permanent director. He also served as Assistant Surgeon General. He was president and CEO of The Task Force for Global Health from 2000-2016. Under his leadership, The Task Force grew to be one of the largest nonprofit organizations in the country and is instrumental in providing people in the developing world with greater access to vaccines for influenza, cholera, and other deadly diseases, and medicines for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Dr. Rosenberg was an influential voice in persuading the United Nations to recognize road safety as a public health issue. His leadership is characterized by a commitment to collaboration and compassion in global health. He was the lead author of Real Collaboration: What it Takes for Global Health to Succeed, which describes a model for global health collaboration that has been successfully applied to address health needs affecting the world’s most impoverished people.
Lisa Hayes
Lisa Hayes is a global health strategist and currently directs the Becoming Better Ancestors™ Project at the Center for Global Health Innovation. With nearly two decades of experience in international strategy development, implementation, and partnerships, her expertise has been utilized by UN leaders, government agencies, foundations and community based organizations. Lisa has led award winning programs and organizations focused on improving health outcomes both locally and globally. She has managed and supported partnerships for international health and development, including the UN Global Road Safety Stakeholder Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, and a national partnership in Uruguay to implement a seat belt law. She co-authored the book, “Real Collaboration: What it Takes for Global Health to Succeed.” She is an alumni Fellow of the 11th class of the Liberty Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Brian Tolleson
Brian Tolleson is a Co-founder and Managing Partner at social and community impact firm, Lexicon Strategies, and Founder of Clio and Cannes Lions winning advertainment agency BARK BARK. In addition to his experience in entertainment (Creative Artists Agency, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Viacom), Brian previously served as CEO at The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the acclaimed cultural institution curating the Morehouse College MLK, Jr. Collection. Under his direction The Center used dynamic and empathy-building experiences - exhibitions, education, training, and public engagement events - to connect history to the present and inspire action that preserves civil and human rights.
Sheryl Golub
Sheryl Golub is a builder of transformative learning experiences using her expertise in industrial/organizational psychology, global learning and curriculum development. Before bringing her skills to Marriott International for a performance advisory role, Sheryl founded boutique consulting firm AE Performance Solutions. Under her leadership, the company grew into a trusted vendor to prominent NGOs, Federal governmental agencies, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and led to its successful acquisition. Sheryl has developed logistics and health commodities management programs for in-country staff with USAID; trained humanitarian aid workers on emergency supplies procurement during global conflict; developed database user and sales tools for Celera Genomics in connection with its mapping of the human genome; and led a multi-year FDA curriculum development team for FDA’s drug application approval system.
John Vernon
John Vernon is a producer, writer, and editor with more than 20 years experience helping individuals and organizations tell compelling, meaningful stories. In addition to work with television networks, film production companies, and advertising agencies, he produced and edited a documentary with the cooperation of the US Army about Casualty Notification Officers. John also works with local governments and municipal agencies on crisis management, community engagement, strategic communications, and policy development.
Tobi Oyedele
Tobi Oyedele is a Media Research and Clearances Intern at the Centre for Global Health Innovation. She is a Development Communications Specialist/Researcher and globally certified educator with over two decades of experience in Language Teaching, Advocacy, Marketing, and Human Development. She served as Kogi State Peer Education Coordinator during the Unicef HIV/AIDS Campaign and is currently Senior Consultant at Big’s Odyssey Consults where she is responsible for coaching and training educators, with a particular focus on young people and women. As Project Manager for Google for Education/MKB, she works with a team to introduce the Emerging Trends in Education to educators. She is a firm believer in the positive mindset that if you can dream it, you can be it.
CASE STUDY TEAM
GLOBAL HEALTH DELIVERY PROJECT
AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Julie Rosenberg, MPH, is Associate Director, Better Evidence at Ariadne Labs, a program working to help current and future health care providers access the latest clinical knowledge at the front lines of care delivery through digital tools. With the Director, she has led the scale-up strategy, research and program operations, leveraging in-kind donations and funding to maximize the impact of the program on patient outcomes. Julie is also Deputy Director of the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard where she supports health care providers by studying what works in health care delivery and sharing those lessons through courseware and training. Julie has helped lead the development of over 45+ open-access teaching cases published through Harvard Business Publishing and supported the development of an online community of practice engaging 25,000+ global health providers for over a decade. Previously, Julie worked in clinical research at Emory University School of Medicine and in community-based nonprofit organizations in Latin America and the US. Julie is currently pursuing her DrPh in public health leadership. She has an MPH in epidemiology and global health from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and a BA in anthropology from Harvard College.
Iman Ahmad served as a research assistant for The Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University and an author of the Smallpox Eradication Case Study. Previously Iman assisted on a project led by Bridge to Health, Medical and Dental in limited-resourced settings. She is passionate about global health equity and social justice. Iman earned her HBSc in Global Health and Environmental Health from the University of Toronto and is currently completing an MSPH at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in International Health Systems.
Dr. Rebecca Weintraub is the Founding Director of the Global Health Delivery Project at Harvard University and co-leads the Global Health Delivery Intensive. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital.She launched the Better Evidence Program at Ariadne Labs to design, test, and scale strategies to equip the current and future health workforce with the latest evidence to improve health outcomes.In the midst of the pandemic, Dr. Weintraub expanded her portfolio to support public health decision makers to deliver COVID-19 vaccines. She advises public health departments, employers, HHS, and Ministries of Health. Her work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, Health Affairs, and Harvard Business Review and cited by the New York Times, BBC, Netflix, and NPR.She was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and is a Health Innovator fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Dr. Weintraub graduated from Yale University, Stanford School of Medicine, and completed her medical training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
About The Task Force for Global Health
The Task Force for Global Health, based in Atlanta and founded nearly 40 years ago to advance health equity, works with partners in more than 150 countries to eliminate diseases, ensure access to vaccines and essential medicines, and strengthen health systems to protect populations. For more information, visit www.taskforce.org.
About Lexicon Strategies
Lexicon Strategies is a leading community and social impact consulting firm committed to the principle, 'We find the right thing. And we do it right.'
Our experts solve the toughest community challenges, transforming them into opportunities and delivering lasting impact for businesses, organizations & governments. www.lexiconstrategies.com