Staff Bios: P-Z
- John Palen
- Nancy Pielemeier
- Nadwa Rafeh
- Nirmala Ravishankar
- Michael P. Rodriguez
- Katie Senauer
- Jim Setzer
- Ibrahim Shehata
- Kimberly Switlick Prose
- Amy Taye
- Jordan Tuchman
- Taylor Williamson
- Hailu Nega Zelelew
Dr. John Palen is a senior Human Resources for Health (HRH) advisor at Abt Associates. He has over 20 years of experience in the clinical and public health areas of HIV/AIDS and other infectious and non-infectious diseases as a clinician, epidemiologist, and health services researcher and policy advisor. Previously, Dr. Palen served as the senior technical advisor for health systems strengthening (HSS) and HRH at the U.S. State Department/Office of Global AIDS Coordinator/PEPFAR where he provided guidance and coordination of HRH and HSS activities across PEPFAR agencies and countries in the areas of: policy and program development; monitoring and evaluation. During his tenure, he was a member of the WHO guidelines panel on transformative medical and nursing education, a board member of the Global Health Workforce Alliance, and represented the PEPFAR at high-level meetings at the WHO and UN. Dr. Palen also served as the senior technical advisor for HIV/AIDS care and support in the USAID Office of HIV/AIDS. He provided guidance to PEPFAR countries, USAID HQ and missions, and other US-funded development partners HIV/AIDS clinical care and support within PEPFAR and non-PEPFAR countries. Dr. Palen was previously an associate professor of health policy and global health at the George Washington University School of Public Health. Dr. Palen is trained as a physician assistant and has a MPH and PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
john_palen@abtassoc.com
Dr. Nancy Pielemeier is an international health policy and program planner and implementer with 25 years of experience, including over 10 years of residential experience in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She was project director of the three-year $45 million USAID-funded ZdravReform Program, which provided technical assistance in health finance and service delivery reform in the former Soviet republics. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Pielemeier directed the five-year $65 million USAID-funded Partnerships for Health Reform (PHR) project, providing direction to a staff of more than 120 professionals carrying out technical assistance, training, applied research, and information dissemination on health reform in over 30 countries worldwide. Subsequently, Dr. Pielemeier directed the follow-on $98 million Partners for Health Reformplus project from 2000 to 2005, expanding health systems strengthening interventions to include improvements in health financing, organization and quality of health services, health information systems, and health governance in over 35 countries. Since 2005, as Vice President and Practice Manager for the International Health Division at Abt Associates, Dr. Pielemeier oversees a portfolio of health systems projects throughout the developing world, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Through her years of experience, Dr. Pielemeier has developed unique skills and expertise in dealing with health organizations and systems development. She received her master’s and doctoral degrees in public health from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She speaks Portuguese.
nancy_pielemeier@abtassoc.com
Dr. Nadwa Rafeh has more than 15 years of experience in the area of health policy and health sector reform. Dr. Rafeh serves as Health Systems 20/20 chief of party in Egypt and has served as Abt’s lead technical advisor on quality improvement and accreditation. Previously, Dr. Rafeh was a consultant at the World Bank where she organized and implemented training and educational activities for the Middle East and North Africa region. As deputy chief of party for the USAID Cost Recovery for Health Project in Cairo, Egypt, she worked on institutionalizing cost recovery management and administrative systems in public facilities. Dr. Rafeh holds a PhD in health services organization and policy from the University of Michigan and a MPH in health services administration from American University of Beirut. Dr. Rafeh is fluent in English and Arabic.
Nadwa_Rafeh@abtassoc.com
Dr. Ravishankar works on National Health Accounts, health resource tracking, monitoring and evaluation, and governance. She most recently was a research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, where she was lead author of the “Financing Global Health 2009” report and its companion article in the Lancet. Dr. Ravishankar has extensive evaluation experience including developing an evaluation framework for the African Health Initiative launched by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, undertaking an evaluation of the Seguro Popular de Salud, a publicly-funded health insurance program in Mexico, and coordinating an independent evaluation of Avahan, a HIV-prevention program in India funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In the area of governance, she published “The Costs of Ruling: Anti-Incumbency in Indian Elections” in the Economic and Political Weekly and “A ‘Politically Robust Experimental Design for Public Policy Evaluation, with Application to the Mexican Universal Health Insurance Program in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Dr. Ravishankar holds a PhD from Harvard University in political science, a M.Sc. in comparative politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA in history and philosophy from Brandeis University.
Nirmala_ravishankar@abtassoc.com
Michael Rodriguez is responsible for providing strategic leadership, technical guidance, and quality assurance to health information systems (HIS) strengthening activities. Over the last 18 years, Mr. Rodriguez has been supporting initiatives in data and information use; monitoring, evaluation, and research on information and communications technologies; and HIS strengthening. He previously served as the deputy director of a global contract to provide technical support to low- and middle-income countries in strengthening their national HIS. His responsibilities included training more than 65 technical consultants to use a standardized framework, principles, and tools to assist countries in strengthening their HIS; and developing and implementing a standardized curriculum to train more than 40 teams from ministries of health and statistics in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He has worked in collaboration with global health partners, as well as with numerous health ministries and statistics offices in low- and middle-income countries. Mr. Rodriguez has provided training and technical assistance on topics ranging from patient tracking and routine data quality audits for HIV/AIDS to developing health systems strengthening components for Global Fund applications to planning and implementing clinical information systems at antiretroviral therapy sites. He also has experience with the United States public health service, having been engaged to lead numerous health information technology strategic planning efforts with federal, state, and local health agencies benefiting underserved and uninsured populations. Mr. Rodriguez is fluent in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Hebrew with a basic understanding of Cantonese. He received an MA in Political Science from Columbia University and a BA in International Relations and Economic Development in the Middle East from the University of California, Berkeley.
michael_rodriguez@abtassoc.com
Katie Senauer is a senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting with over 8 years of experience in international public health managing health sector activities related to health systems development, monitoring and evaluating interventions, conducting health assessments, and providing specialized technical capacity in the areas of maternal and child health and pharmaceutical management for projects supported by USAID and the National Institutes of Health. For the Health Systems 20/20 project Ms. Senauer is working with ministries of health to identify and address bottlenecks and gaps in health system processes. In Mozambique she is supporting the Ministry of Women and Social Welfare to address human resource constraints and strengthen institutional capacity to increase availability of qualified personnel. She is also working on building capacity for the selection, use, and understanding of standard, proven costing methodologies for health services. This activity includes the design and launch of a web-based costing diagnostic tool. Previously, Ms. Senauer worked as a health analyst in the Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research at the Research Triangle Institute and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gabon as a community health educator. Ms. Senauer holds a master of public health degree with a concentration in management from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She speaks French and basic Portuguese.
ksenauer@deloitte.com
Jim Setzer is an epidemiologist/health systems planner with 20 years experience in promoting the availability and use of quality data and information to improve health services delivery and strengthen their foundations in health policy. He has worked to develop health information and surveillance systems in a number of countries including Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, Ghana, Kenya, and Niger. Mr. Setzer has extensive experience in the collection and use of health data and information to improve program design, implementation and evaluation, and has played a role in data analysis and interpretation for policy review and reform. He has worked in various developing countries using survey and analytic methods in the design, and management and evaluation of child survival and primary health service delivery programs as well as infectious disease surveillance systems. Mr. Setzer collaborated extensively with multi- and bi- bilateral donors, PVOs and NGOs, governments, and private foundations. Mr. Setzer has a mater’s degree in public health from Tulane University. He speaks conversational French, and limited Tshiluba, Lingala, KiKongo.
jim_setzer@abtassoc.com
Ibrahim Shehata is a senior manager in the Health and Social Protection practice of Deloitte Consulting. He has more than 17 years of experience in health financing and the financial management of health care organizations, domestically and internationally. Mr. Shehata’s understanding of how health systems function is derived from his work with developing countries’ health authorities and providers, as well as with U.S.-based health provider institutions. He spent nearly 4 years as chief of party on a USAID health-sector reform project in Bulgaria where he guided project activities with the ministry of health, ministry of finance, and the Parliamentary Health Commission. Prior to that endeavor, he was the technical manager for the National Health Accounts’ global activities in USAID’s Partnerships for Health Reform and Partners for Health Reformplus projects. He played a key role in the launch of the regional networks in East and Southern Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, and West Africa regions. Prior to his experiences in international health development, Mr. Shehata was a special officer for system integration at a multi-hospital integrated system in western Pennsylvania and was a financial manager at the University of Missouri Hospital and Clinics. He has a master’s degree in health-services management from the University of Missouri and an MBA from Central Missouri State University. He is fluent in Arabic.
ishehata@deloitte.com
Kimberly Switlick Prose, MPH, is a senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting with 7 years of international development experience. During her career, she has provided advisory services to countries on issues related to health systems development, health insurance and financing mechanisms for the poor, reproductive health policymaking and service delivery, poverty reduction strategies, and organizational development to countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. At Deloitte, Ms. Switlick Prose is working with the government of India to promote, develop, and regulate the health insurance market, with a particular emphasis on financial protection for health services for the poor and micro health insurance. She is also working with India’s state governments to develop social health insurance programs and is working with microinsurance implementers to strengthen their program activities through the design of a Micro Insurance Resource Center. Ms. Switlick Prose also has accomplishments in research within the area of health disparities, determinants of health outcomes, barriers to care, and policy analysis. Projects and publications include studies of youth-focused HIV/AIDS programming, supply and demand of maternal health services, male involvement in reproductive health, and alternative financing mechanisms for health. She has worked at a variety of institutions such as the World Bank, Futures Group: POLICY Project, PATH, and ICDDR, B: Centre for Health and Population Research in Bangladesh. Ms. Switlick Prose received her master’s in public health and international policy from George Washington University.
kswitlickprose@deloitte.com
Amy Taye, MPH, has 4 years experience in international health promotion with expertise in implementing health systems assessments, human resources for health assessments, and HIV/AIDS service provision programs. For Health Systems 20/20 she works with a local Vietnamese organization to conduct health system assessments in the Ninh Binh and Can Tho provinces. Ms. Taye has experience conducting Service Provision Assessments (SPA) in both Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. She is also involved with work on development of a standardized package of human resources for health assessment tools for use by country human resource managers. Ms. Taye received her MPH from the George Washington University. Prior to joining Health Systems 20/20, she wrote and received a grant to work with a local NGO focused on HIV prevention through needle exchange in Chapaevsk, Russia, conducting a social marketing campaign entitled “The Race for AIDS Awareness.” Ms. Taye speaks French and Russian fluently.
amy_taye@abtassoc.com
Jordan Tuchman is a program manager and researcher with more than 7 years of experience managing, implementing, and evaluating health projects in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Prior to joining Health Systems 20/20, Jordan worked with Management Sciences for Health managing a community health project in Peru. He also spent several years with the Center for Global Health & Development at Boston University as the program manager and qualitative research technical advisor for various clinical research projects in India, Vietnam, and China. Jordan is a returned Peace Corps volunteer from Guatemala and speaks fluent Spanish. He holds an MPH from Boston University with a focus on epidemiology and international health.
jordan_tuchman@abtassoc.com
Taylor Williamson has experience in health governance, HIV programming, civil society development, and capacity building. Taylor’s work focuses on strengthening the integration of health governance concepts and approaches into Health Systems 20/20’s ongoing activities. In addition he manages assessments and activities that advance the health governance goals of the project. Before coming to RTI, he worked in Rwanda, developing the skills of civil society to implement HIV programs, advocate for their members, and effectively manage their organizations. Previously, he has worked on a variety of USAID-funded projects throughout East Africa conducting policy relevant research on HIV, reproductive health, and micronutrients. He also has domestic health experience, supporting community health centers through policy briefs, research, and congressional advocacy. Taylor is a graduate of Colorado College, where he studied Biology and African Studies. He received his Masters of Public Health with a concentration in international health from Tulane University. Taylor also speaks French and has some knowledge of Swahili.
taylor_williamson@abtassoc.com
Hailu Nega Zelelew is an economist with 20 years of experience working in a wide range of development activities. He previously served as a civil servant in the Ethiopian government, as a grassroots development practitioner, and technical staff person and manager coordinating the work of an NGO umbrella organization. Mr. Zelelew joined Abt Associates in 2004 as senior health care financing specialist for the USAID-funded Essential Services for Health in Ethiopia project where he led a national team of health financing professionals working on implementation of health care financing reform in Ethiopia. His areas of expertise include designing and implementing health care financing and health sector reform projects; capacity building and technical support to government counterparts; health financing resource tracking using NHA and other tools; evaluation of HIV/AIDS and health projects; costing; policy advocacy; revolving drug funds; and reproductive and overall health pharmaceutical financing. His country experience includes Liberia and Nigeria, in addition to his home country, Ethiopia. Mr. Zelelew obtained his first degree in economics from Addis Ababa University and a master’s degree in development economics from the University of East Anglia, UK.
hailu_zelelew@abtassoc.com
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