For nearly thirty years, Ophelia Dahl has worked as an advocate for the health and rights of the poor. In 1983, aged 18, she volunteered for an ophthalmic organization in Haiti’s Central Plateau. It was in Haiti that she met Paul Farmer, and since then they have worked to bring health care to the destitute sick, beginning in the former squatter settlement of Cange. The principle that motivated Ms. Dahl and her colleagues was simple: everyone, whether poor or affluent, deserves to benefit from the same high standard of medical care.

Under Ms. Dahl’s leadership, PIH has forged groundbreaking successes in treating the diseases of the poor and promoting health and human rights in areas of the world that have been ravaged by political conflict, poverty, and international neglect. Providing antiretroviral medications to AIDS-afflicted patients in places like Haiti used to be viewed as utopian and unrealistic by international health experts; today, the effectiveness of PIH’s community-based model has been lauded around the world, prompting an explosion in requests to the organization to share its expertise and to play a greater role in global health advocacy.

A graduate of Wellesley College and a writer herself, Ms. Dahl also serves on the board of her family’s foundation to honor the work of her father, the late writer Roald Dahl, and is engaged in philanthropic works in the United States and her native England.

Charlene A. Galarneau is Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies (WGST) and has taught at Wellesley since 2005. Her research focuses on the ethics of health and health care, and in particular, on theories of justice that attend to gender, race, class, and other social relations. Her forthcoming book, Communities of Health Care Justice (Rutgers University Press, 2016), addresses the moral implications of health care as a community good and offers a concept of community justice useful to extant theories of health care justice as well as to health policy. Other research appears in Health and Human Rights, t​he Hastings Center Report, t​he American Journal of Bioethics, Public Health Ethics, ​the ​Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, and ​t​he Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

At Wellesley, Dr. Galarneau teaches courses in feminist bioethics, gender justice and health policy, women and health, global health, and U.S. public health. She co-directs the WGST Health and Society Minor and has been faculty in the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs (2010-2012). In 2009, Dr. Galarneau was honored with Wellesley’s Anna and Samuel Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2007, with the Outstanding Contribution to the Academy Alumni/ae Award from the Iliff School of Theology.​ She​ received a Ph.D. from Harvard University and holds master degrees from Harvard and the Iliff School of Theology (Denver).

Vanessa Kerry, MD, MSc, is the co-founder and CEO of Seed Global Health, a non-profit that deploys US health professionals to serve as educators and faculty in resource-limited countries to build a pipeline of future in-country providers and educators, strengthen healthcare delivery capacity and provide a new type of global diplomacy. Dr. Kerry helped Seed Global Health establish the Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP), a public-private partnership amongst Seed Global Health, the Peace Corps, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the countries where the program works to implement this model. Since 2013, GHSP has sent over 100 volunteers to Uganda, Malawi and Tanzania and trained over 7,200 doctors, nurses, midwives and students. Seed Global Health provides technical expertise and much needed loan repayment to allow these volunteers to serve.

Her role in founding Seed stems from her research and professional interests in investing in human resources for health and capacity-building to strengthen public sector health systems and communities in resource poor settings. In addition to Seed Global Health, her work has included looking at novel ways for US foreign assistance to fund health efforts, which improve efficiency of aid delivery, develop capacity, and enhance country ownership. Prominent publications include “An International Service Corps for Health: A New Prescription for Diplomacy” in the New England Journal of Medicine, “…One for Doctors Too,” a New York Times opinion piece published in 2010 and most recently, “Global Health Service Partnership: building health professional leadership as a roadmap to sustainable health systems” in The Lancet. She is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Social Entrepreneur.

She graduated from Yale University summa cum laude and Harvard Medical School cum laude, completing her Internal Medicine residency and Critical Care Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. She earned her Master’s in Health Policy, Planning, and Financing from the London Schools of Economics and of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is currently a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and serves as the Associate Director of Partnerships and Global Initiatives at the hospital’s Center for Global Health. Academically, she spearheads the program in Global Public Policy and Social Change in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School where she has focused on links between security and health.

Dr. Tapela is a global health practitioner with an interest in strengthening health systems and service delivery of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) particularly in resource limited areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since September 2011, Dr. Tapela has been based in Rwanda as Director of the NCDs Program at Partners In Health, Rwanda. She also serves as Special Advisor to the Rwanda Director General of Clinical Services on NCDs, and sits on the National NCD Technical Working Group as co-chair of the Cancer Cluster. Her role in these positions includes programmatic management and implementation oversight of NCD (including cancers) services at PIH-supported facilities, as well as contributing to developing national strategy and clinical guidelines to address NCDs.

Dr. Tapela has worked in health facilities in South Africa, Lesotho, Haiti, Rwanda and her home country of Botswana, where she has served as Consultant Clinician, Acting Head of Department of Medicine, and Coordinator of Internal Medicine Post-Graduate Residency Training Program at the University of Botswana School of Medicine.

Dr. Tapela is a graduate of Wellesley College (BA '02), Harvard Medical School (MD, ’06), Harvard School of Public Health (MD, ’10), and the Hiatt Residency in Internal Medicine and Global Health Equity at Brigham & Womens’ Hospital. She is an Associate Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Catherine Bertini is Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Ms. Bertini is also a distinguished fellow at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. For two years she was a senior fellow at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  She previously served as United Nations Under Secretary-General for Management (2003-2005), as Executive Director of the UN World Food Program (1992-2002), and as Assistant Secretary for Food and Consumer Services at USDA (1989-92).

Ms. Bertini is the 2003 World Food Prize Laureate. She was awarded the Borlaug CAST Communication Award in 2011, the Gene White Lifetime Achievement Award for Child Nutrition in 2007, and 12 honorary doctorates from universities in four countries. She was decorated by the Republic of Italy with its Order of Merit. The Republic of Ireland has honored her with its Certificate of Irish Heritage.

Ms. Bertini was appointed by President Bush and reappointed by President Obama to the Board of International Food and Agricultural Development. She serves as a member of the board of directors of the Tupperware Brands Corporation, she was a member of the Hilton Foundation Humanitarian Prize, a member of the board of the Stuart Family Foundation, and on the board of trustees of the Cortland Regional Medical Center. In 2012, she served as a member of the Accountability Review Board on Benghazi.

Robert Paarlberg does most of his research and consulting in the area of international food and agricultural policy, especially in Africa and the developing world. This topic connects him both to his own family history (his father grew up on a farm in Indiana) and to an important current issues in international development: How to help farmers in Africa—most of whom are women—increase their productivity to better feed their families and escape poverty. In the past decade he has worked in more than a dozen countries in Africa, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and the United States Agency for International Development. His 2008 book from Harvard University Press (Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa) has a foreword by two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Jimmy Carter and Norman Borlaug. His current research examines the impact of international trade on agricultural land use.

Rajul Pandya-Lorch, a Kenyan citizen of Indian origin, is head of IFPRI's 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment Initiative, a global initiative that seeks to identify solutions for meeting world food needs while reducing poverty and protecting the environment. She concurrently serves as Chief of Staff in the Director General's Office.

In recognition of her achievements, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) presented Rajul and David Spielman with its 2010 Quality of Communication Award for their work on Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development. She has also received the American Agricultural Economics Association’s 2002 award for Distinguished Policy Contribution, along with Per Pinstrup-Andersen and Mark Rosegrant. Rajul earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Wellesley College and a master's degree in public and international affairs from Princeton University.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen is Professor Emeritus, Cornell University. He is past Chairman of the Science Council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and Past President of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA). He has a B.S. from the Danish Agricultural University, a M.S. and Ph.D from Oklahoma State University and honorary doctoral degrees from universities in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Switzerland, and India. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Agricultural Economics Association. He served 10 years as the International Food Policy Research Institute's Director General and seven years as department head; seven years as an economist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Colombia; and six years as a distinguished professor at Wageningen University.

Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen is the 2001 World Food Prize Laureate and the recipient of several awards for his research and communication of research results. His research is focused on economic analyses of food and nutrition policy, with the current emphasis being analyses to seek ways to improve health and nutrition through changes in food systems.

Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen's publications include more than 400 books, refereed journal articles, papers and book chapters.

Madeleine K. Albright is Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. She was the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. Dr. Albright received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Obama on May 29, 2012.

In 1997, Dr. Albright was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. As Secretary of State, Dr. Albright reinforced America’s alliances, advocated for democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade, business, labor, and environmental standards abroad. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was a member of the President’s Cabinet. From 1989 to 1992, she served as President of the Center for National Policy. Previously, she was a member of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council and White House staff and served as Chief Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Edmund S. Muskie.

Dr. Albright is a Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She chairs both the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and the Pew Global Attitudes Project and serves as president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation. She serves on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board, a group tasked with providing the Secretary of Defense with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning matters of defense policy. Dr. Albright also serves on the Boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Aspen Institute and the Center for American Progress. In 2009, Dr. Albright was asked by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to Chair a Group of Experts focused on developing NATO’s New Strategic Concept.