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Senior Management Team

 

Ann Lion

Ann Lion brings more than 30 years of experience as a leader and manager of global, regional, and country-level health programs both internationally and domestically. Prior to Abt, she served as Technical Support Coordinator for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) and as the United States Government (USG) delegate to the Global Fund Board of Directors. At OGAC, Ms. Lion managed a $30 million portfolio of USG Global Fund technical support contracts and grants with UNAIDS, Roll Back Malaria, Stop TB, Green Light Committee, and Management Sciences for Health. Previously Ms. Lion worked as Senior Health Advisor for USAID's Office of Population and Reproductive Health. She managed the Agency's bureau-wide Capacity Project; oversaw the $250 million portfolio focusing on the strengthening and integration of health systems at a global level; and directed project staffing, strategic planning, and linkages with other global efforts including those at WHO and the World Bank. She also managed USAID's YouthNet project, guiding global activities to improve the reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention behaviors of youth. Earlier, as Senior Management Advisor at the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, Ms. Lion spent seven years as the Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean where she led efforts to improve performance of health care providers in a number of LAC countries. Ms. Lion holds a DrPH from the George Washington University School of Public Health and an MSPH from the University of Illinois Medical School.
ann_lion@abtassoc.com

Catherine Connor

Catherine Connor has 29 years of experience in health care, both domestic and international, with 13 years managing and delivering technical assistance in health sector reform and system strengthening. She is currently Deputy Director for the Health Systems 20/20 project, a $125M cooperative agreement that is USAID’s principal project for health system strengthening.  Health Systems 20/20 has a particular focus on offering customized solutions to the challenges countries face in constructing or renewing their health systems.  Connor oversees health financing activities including health insurance, resource tracking, and pay-for-performance. She works with project teams and counterparts to develop technical approaches, work plans, and budgets in Egypt, Ghana, India, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Yemen. She leads selected assignments including a recent health system assessment in Angola, a regional health insurance workshop for 8 Anglophone countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, feasibility study for performance-based financing in Mozambique, and a technical session on health insurance for the East Central Southern African Health Community.  Previously, Ms. Connor was a country manager at PROFIT, a USAID-funded project that tested approaches to expand the commercial sector’s involvement in family planning in developing countries. Her accomplishments include a feasibility study for a self-sustaining rural HMO for a union of coffee cooperatives in El Salvador and negotiating a $2.5 million loan to an American pharmaceutical manufacturer to develop contraceptive technologies. Ms. Connor has an MBA from Boston University and is fluent in Portuguese.
catherine_connor@abtassoc.com

Elias Epstein

Elias Epstein is a senior finance and contracts manager with 12 years experience in international development projects. He most recently served as country programs and task order finance manager for John Snow Inc’s USAID Deliver Project, where he was responsible for the financial and operational performance of a portfolio of field offices and the financial and administrative management of an $85M task order working on avian influenza commodities logistics globally. Previously, he was employed by The Nature Conservancy serving as the finance and grants manager for the Parks in Peril program, a $30M cooperative agreement targeting protected areas across the LAC region. Prior to TNC, he was with the World Wildlife Fund – US serving in various positions ranging from finance and administration manager in Peru to program coordinator for the LAC region based in Washington. He has carried out TDY assignments in most of Latin America as well as in Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, Liberia, and Indonesia. Mr. Epstein holds a master’s in business administration from Loyola University in Maryland and is fluent in Spanish.
elias_epstein@abtassoc.com

Derick Brinkerhoff

Dr. Derick Brinkerhoff has experience in policy analysis, policy implementation and evaluation, decentralization, governance, and management in public-sector agencies and nonprofits. During his 30-year career, his work has focused on policy and management issues in the health sector. Dr. Brinkerhoff works as the governance adviser for RTI’s international programs, including health. He was also a policy adviser to RTI’s Local Governance Project in Iraq. Previously, he worked at Abt Associates, where he prepared an accountability and health system framework for the Partners for Health Reformplus (PHRplus) project. For the Partnerships for Health Reform project, he worked on a policy toolkit for health-systems reform for Latin America and coordinated research on the role of NGOs in health-service delivery and policy advocacy. For 10 years, Dr. Brinkerhoff was research director for the USAID-funded IPC project, where he designed and led a multitrack program investigating policy implementation, public-agency performance, governance reform, anticorruption, and civil-society topics. Among his IPC activities, he participated in developing an HIV/AIDS policy and strategic-management toolkit. He also collaborated with the Policy Project on a workshop about participation in the health-policy process. Previously, he worked at the University of Maryland’s International Development Management Center for 10 years, as a chief of party on a project in Haiti and as associate director for research. Formerly, he was a senior international-management specialist with USAID’s Science and Technology Bureau. Dr. Brinkerhoff has a doctorate in public policy and administration from Harvard University.
dbrinkerhoff@rti.org

Fred Rosensweig

Fred Rosensweig has been a full time TRG employee since 1984. He is a senior consultant with over 25 years of experience in health-focused programs in developing countries. In addition to health, Mr. Rosensweig has significant experience in the areas of water supply and sanitation, environment, and local government. As the technical director for human resources and institutional development under the Environmental Health Project and the Water & Sanitation for Health (WASH) Project from 1981-2004, he gained particular expertise in the planning and analysis of development programs and projects, and the design and implementation of activities to improve institutional performance in host country organizations. His specialties include organizational assessment, design and delivery of institutional capacity-building programs, training systems development, development of institutional structures to improve the delivery of services, and the use of participatory processes to gain increased involvement and commitment of key stakeholders. He has worked extensively in Africa, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Latin America and speaks French and Spanish. Mr. Rosensweig has an MA in English as a second language from the University of California, Los Angeles.
frosensweig@trg-inc.com

Nicole Barcikowski

Nicole Barcikowski serves as director of country programs for Health Systems 20/20 overseeing all activities in the field and ensuring responsiveness to USAID mission and bureau clients. She has over 13 years experience in domestic and international health care. Her international experience includes design, implementation, and delivery of HIV/AIDS and child survival programs. Ms. Barcikowski has lived in both Kenya and Zimbabwe managing health programs for NGOs and has extensive experience throughout Africa, designing and managing Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) programs in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Ethiopia. She serves as a co-chair for the OVC Task Force and the Operation Smile Child Life Council. Ms. Barcikowski has a master’s degree in international development and health from Ohio University and with a background in psychology, psychosocial support, and counseling is a certified Child Life Specialist.
nicole_barcikowski@abtassoc.com

Laurel Hatt

Dr. Laurel Hatt has nine years of experience in international and domestic health research, with expertise in health economics, econometrics, international health systems reform, and statistical analysis of data from large surveys. She is currently conducting a costing study on HIV/AIDS services in Cote d’Ivoire as well as managing the AWARE-Reproductive Health project in West Africa. Dr. Hatt has experience in National Health Accounts analysis, impact evaluations, and qualitative research methods. She came to Abt Associates from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she analyzed demographic and health survey data from Indonesia, Burkina Faso, and Ghana for the Initiative for Maternal Mortality Program Assessment. She also worked on the Zinc Task Force, the Family Health and Child Survival Project, and the Inter-Agency Working Group on Private Participation and Child Health, doing extensive research and data analysis for these projects. Previously, Dr. Hatt consulted for the World Bank, examining health care-seeking behaviors among the rural poor in Indonesia, and their perceptions of health system quality. She received her MPH and PhD in international health from Johns Hopkins. She has conversational language abilities in French, Spanish, and Indonesian.
Laurel_Hatt@abtassoc.com