Thursday, June 13, 2024, 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. – Virtual Live Webinar
Eric Goralnick, MD, MS
Director, Office of Military and Veterans Initiatives, Mass General Brigham
Chair, Committee on Public Health, Massachusetts Medical Society
Associate Professor, Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Eric Goralnick, MD, MS, is focused on improving patient care in two main areas: ensuring equitable access to healthcare for our most vulnerable patients and supporting collaborations between the civilian and military medical communities. He has served
in various operational roles at the departmental, hospital, and system levels within Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Mass General Brigham.
He has co-authored over 90 peer-reviewed articles, and his team’s work has been featured in many international, national, and local media outlets. His team is currently focused on the Save a Life initiative which has developed 35 YouTube educational videos
viewed more than 2,000,000 times in over 500 Ukrainian cities and was featured at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in 2022.
He is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the faculty lead for the Harvard Medical School Civilian Military Collaborative , the emergency medicine lead for the Brigham and Women’s Center For Surgery and Public
Health, the Civilian Military Advisor for the Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation, an Ariadne Labs Associate Faculty Member and a US Navy veteran. He is also currently the Chair of the Disaster Medicine Section at the American
College of Emergency Physicians.
He graduated from the United States Naval Academy, Tel Aviv University School of Medicine, Yale Emergency Medicine Residency, and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He recently completed the George W. Bush Institute Stand To Veteran Scholar
program and is fiercely committed to supporting veterans and military families.
Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH
Adjunct Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
Author, From Horror to Hope: Recognizing and Preventing the Health Impacts of War
Barry S. Levy, MD, MPH, has written and spoken extensively on the health impacts of war. He wrote the book From Horror to Hope: Recognizing and Preventing the Health Impacts of War. He co-edited two editions of War and Public Health and 19 other books
on the public health impacts of climate change, occupational and environmental hazards, and social injustice. He has authored and co-authored more than 250 journal articles and book chapters, including recent articles on the war in Ukraine and the
environmental impacts of war. He has written and spoken for major media outlets. Dr. Levy is an Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a past president of the American Public Health Association and a recipient
of its most prestigious award, the Sedgwick Memorial Medal.
Ira Helfand, MD
Past President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
Ira Helfand, MD is a member of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapon, ICAN, the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, and Immediate Past President of the International Physicians for the Prevention
of Nuclear War, the founding partner of ICAN and itself the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. He is also co-Founder and Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate, and a member of the Steering Committee of
the Back from the Brink campaign. In 2023 he received the Gandhi King Ikeda Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse college.
He has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, the British Medical Journal and the World Medical Journal on the medial consequences of nuclear war and has lectured about nuclear war in Russia, China, Japan, Korea, India, Pakistan,
Israel, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, and across Europe and North America. He spoke at the 2013 and 2014 International Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons and chaired the session on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons
at the UN Open Ended Working Group in 2016 that lead to the negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons the following year. Dr. Helfand was educated at Harvard College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and recently retired
as staff physician at Family Care Medical Center. He lives with his wife, Deborah Smith, a medical oncologist, in Leeds, MA, USA, and has two grown sons and two grandchildren.
Sean Kivlehan, MD, MPH
Director, Lavine Family Humanitarian Studies Initiative, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Sean Kivlehan, MD, MPH, is the director of the Lavine Family Humanitarian Studies Initiative and the Emergency Health Systems Program at Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He is an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he also
directs the Global Emergency Medicine Fellowship. He is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. His teams work through partnerships around the world to ensure that all people have timely access
to quality emergency care.
Julie Levison, MD, MPhil, MPH
Physician Investigator, Divisions of General Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and the Mongan Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Levison is a board-certified infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School where she is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and co-directs the Community Research Program at MGH Chelsea HealthCare Center.
Her research focuses on understanding and addressing disparities in outcomes for infectious diseases with specific focus on HIV/AIDS in Latinx communities. As a research assistant in 1998 to Dr. Jonathan Mann, the first director of the Global Program
on AIDS at the World Health Organization (WHO), she was inspired to work with others to continue his legacy in the field of health and human rights. Dr. Levison trained in the care of asylum seekers at the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human
Right at Boston Medical Center and collaborated with other physicians providing affidavits documenting the sequelae of torture in hunger striking detainees in the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She has spoken nationally and internationally
on physician responsibility in the care of survivors of torture and is a recipient of the Arnold Gold Foundation Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award from Harvard Medical School.
Sofia E. Matta, MD, FAPA, FASAM
Instructor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Senior Director of Medical Services, Home Base, a Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital Program
Dr. Sofia Matta received her medical degree from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, NY. She completed her residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Payne Whitney Clinic. Dr. Matta is a Diplomate in Psychiatry, Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry,
Brain Injury Medicine, and Addiction Medicine. She is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. She became a medical acupuncturist prior to working for the Department of Defense/Defense
Health Agency with the US Army and US Navy. Dr. Matta received the Commander’s Award for Civilian Service from the Department of the Army. She obtained her board certification in Brain Injury Medicine while working at the National Intrepid Center
of Excellence, Intrepid Spirit Center at Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton. She then served as the Consult Chief of Consultation Liaison Psychiatry at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. While there, she was awarded the Spark-Seed-Spread Innovation
Investment and Accelerator Program Innovation from the VHA Innovators Network for the VA Mental Health Mobilization, Engagement, Navigation and Delivery (VA MEND) Proactive Consult Model. She has presented research from the VA on the social determinants
of mental health in Veterans including age, race and ethnicity, income, and homelessness.
Dr. Matta is an Instructor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has held academic appointments at New York Medical College, Tulane University School of Medicine, Hofstra-North Shore LIJ Medical School, and Tufts University School of Medicine. She
has presented at National and International Conferences in Brain Injury Medicine, PTSD, and Proactive Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. Her areas of interest are Military and Veteran healthcare, PTSD, brain injury, pain, and the interface between medicine,
psychiatry and neurology, as well as social determinants of mental health, multi-morbidity, and co-occurring substance use disorders.
Michelle Niescierenko, MD, MPH
Grousbeck-Fazzalari Chair in Global Health, Boston Children's Hospital
Director, Boston Children's Hospital Global Health Program
Attending Physician, Division of Emergency Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics & Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Niescierenko is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Public Health physician and founding Chair of the Global Health Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. The Boston Children's Global Health Program is partnership-based, working to improve child health
through research, program implementation and education globally. She has experience in pediatric care, public health and health systems building with host country governments in more than 30 countries, on 5 continents as well as with the WHO, the
World Bank, US CDC, USAID and various global non-governmental organizations. Her career focus is on building sustainable systems in fragile economic, humanitarian and conflict settings. In Liberia she provided pediatric humanitarian aid in the immediate
post-conflict setting brought local hospitals together with US academic institutions which extended to 16 years of partnership. During the 2014-2017 Ebola outbreak she led the Liberian public hospital response utilizing rapid deployment of local healthcare
workers to provide training reaching 23 hospitals and >5,000 health workers. Post-Ebola she led the collaboration to launch Liberia’s first pediatric residency now with 25 pediatricians trained. Dr. Niescierenko has provided pediatric advanced life
support training to Palestinian hospitals in the West Bank/Gaza, assessed hospitals in northern Iraq after the liberation of Mosul, implemented neonatal care protocols on 5 major islands in Indonesia, provided technical assistance to 17 universities
across 5 West African countries utilizing performance-based financing to train more than 2,000 future health sciences professionals. Using lessons learned from Ebola she supported the Boston Children’s ER COVID-19 response while implementing a novel
program with the Boston Public School Nurses for safe return to school. She led a BCH based team who conducted the assessment of covid in humanitarian settings for the WHO’s COVID-19 Task Team. Current work focuses on developing comprehensive emergency
care for the more than 100 million people in Bihar state, training Ukrainian health workers in pediatric trauma care and scaling a novel partnership to provide pediatric care to American Indians of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota Tribes in South and
North Dakota.
John Roberts, MD, MPH, FACEP
Senior Health Advisor, Emergency Response Unit, International Medical Corps
Dr. John Roberts is an emergency physician and public health practitioner specializing in humanitarian assistance and disaster response, with deep experience in emergency response and disaster medicine. Dr. Roberts joined International Medical Corps as
a Medical Advisor in 2020, served as the Interim Lead for US Programs and Emergency Response in 2021, and is currently the Senior Health Advisor for the Emergency Response Unit. He was a leader in International Medical Corps’ successful efforts to
be classified by the World Health Organization as an Emergency Medical Team Type 1, Fixed and Mobile; led International Medical Corps’ COVID-19 response in the US in 2020, deploying to responses in California and Texas; and led the Haiti earthquake
response in 2021. In 2022, Dr. Roberts deployed to Moldova, Poland and Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion to conduct assessments and provide strategic guidance as the war progressed. Before joining International Medical Corps,
Dr. Roberts led medical teams responding to Cyclone Idai in Mozambique and the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece, among other emergencies. He has training in urban humanitarian emergencies, disaster response and humanitarian assistance from Harvard
University, Disaster Medical Coordination International Society and McGill University, and in medical Spanish from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua. Dr. Roberts graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, LAC+USC Emergency
Medicine Residency, Carolinas Medical Center Fellowship in Disaster Medicine and the University of South Florida School of Public Health in International Humanitarian Assistance.
Tamara Worlton, MD, FACS, FASMBS
MIS/Bariatric Surgeon
Associate Professor of Surgery
Fulbright Scholar Alumni Ambassador
Captain Tamara Worlton, MD, FACS, FASMBS, graduated from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) with an MD in 2003 and completed her General Surgery residency at National Naval Medical Center in 2008. She then completed her Minimally
Invasive and Bariatric Surgery Fellowship at Cleveland Clinic in 2010. She is an Associate Professor of Surgery at USU and currently serves as the Director of Global Surgery. Captain Worlton has three combat and three humanitarian assistance disaster
response (HADR) deployments. Her research endeavors are focused on the IMPACT Study which is investigating military and civilian trauma system integration in the global setting to enhance trauma capacity.
