T. Peter Kingham, MD, FACS is an Asst. Attending surgeon in the Division of Hepatopancreatobillary Surgery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He completed the surgical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2010. During his residency at New York University he spent two years performing cancer research at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He has participated in missions to Malawi, Nigeria, Mexico, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Tanzania, and was a Yale/Johnson & Johnson international health scholar for surgery. Dr. Kingham is an active member of the Association for Academic Surgery's Global Health Committee and has been a faculty member on the AAS' Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course in West Africa. Dr. Kingham has an M.D. from SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine and a B.A. from Yale University.
Founder & Director
Adam L. Kushner, MD, MPH, FACS is a general surgeon who practices exclusively in developing countries. He is a Lecturer in the Department of Surgery at Columbia University and an Associate in the Department of International Health and faculty member of the Center for Refugees and Disaster Response at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has worked as a general surgeon and educator in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Liberia, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Sudan; led landmine assessment missions to Azerbaijan and Kosovo; conducted human rights assessments in Iraq; taught trauma care and landmine injury management in Colombia, Ecuador and Nicaragua; and worked as a health specialist following the 2005 tsunami in Indonesia. Since 2003 he has participated in US military training exercises as a subject matter expert for human rights and humanitarian assistance issues. Dr. Kushner completed his general surgery residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center - San Antonio, has an M.D. from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins, and a B.A. from Cornell University.
Ann Colley is Executive Director and Vice President of The Moore Charitable Foundation, established by Louis Bacon in 1994, which has as its mission environmental conservation with an emphasis on land and water conservation. The Foundation is considered a leading voice for responsible conservation on local and national fronts and has 90 conservation grantees ini its portfolio. Ann is on The Land Trust Alliance National Council and Waterkeeper Alliance Board of Trustees. She is on the Board of Directors of Surgeons OverSeas (SOS). The What is Missing? Foundation, Riverkeeper and Group for the East End. She serves on YouthAIDS Leadership Council as well as Conservation International's Chairman Council. Ann lives in New York and has two sons, Dan, 24 and Davis, 11.
D. Brooke Harlow D. Brooke Harlow is Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Development, Marketing and Communications at the Managed Funds Association. Ms. Harlow is responsible for the strategy and implementation of the Association’s business development and marketing initiatives as well as the Association’s communications and media outreach to policy makers, fund manager members, investors and the broader global alternative investment community. Ms. Harlow works directly with MFA’s President and CEO on the Association’s business development, marketing, investor and communications priorities and initiatives.
Ms. Harlow joined MFA from Highbridge Capital Management where she served as Managing Director of Communications and Public Affairs. In that capacity, Ms. Harlow was responsible for the corporate communications, marketing, branding, events and public affairs operations at the firm and served as its spokesperson.
Prior to joining Highbridge, Ms. Harlow was a Vice President of Investment Bank Marketing and Communications at J.P.Morgan Chase where she managed media relations for the global credit, emerging markets and private equity businesses at the bank, served as head of marketing and communications for Latin America and as a member of the Latin American Investment Bank management committee. Ms. Harlow also worked closely with members of the bank’s Operating Committee and managed crisis communications for the investment bank.
Before joining the bank, Ms. Harlow was a senior associate in the public affairs practice at Burson-Marsteller in Washington, D.C., and worked at CNN serving as a field producer in the Washington, D.C. and Mexico City bureaus.
Ms. Harlow graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in American Studies and was selected as a Rotary Scholar. Ms. Harlow is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Board Member of the Boys Club of New York City and an advisor to the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University.
Gene Stone A graduate of Stanford and Harvard, Gene Stone is a former Peace Corps volunteer, screenwriter, television producer, and journalist as well as a book, magazine, and newspaper editor for such companies as the Los Angeles Times, California, Esquire, Harcourt Brace, and Simon & Schuster. He has also ghostwritten more than thirty books (many of which were national bestsellers) for a diverse lot of people, including theoretical physicist Steven Hawking, Yahoo! Chief Solutions Officer Tim Sanders, CNN Executive Vice-president Gail Evans. His most recent ghostwritten projects were The Engine 2 Diet, the national bestseller written with vegan firefighter Rip Esselstyn, and Start Something That Matters, written with TOMS shoes founder Blake Mycoskie (a #1 New York Times bestseller). Gene has also written many titles under his own name, including The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick, which has been translated into more than twenty languages; the #1 New York Times bestseller Forks Over Knives; the #1 Washington Post bestseller The Bush Survival Bible; and The Watch, the definitive book on the wristwatch.
Anthony "Tony" Rossabi is Senior Vice President, Global Carrier Solutions, Tata Communications, part of the $65B Tata Group. Mr. Rossabi is responsible for leading global carrier solutions and business development initiatives for Tata Communications. Prior to joining Tata Communications in June 2006, Mr. Rossabi was Executive Director of International Business Development for Level3 Communications. He was responsible for managing the international group, supervising bilateral negotiations for data and voice services with PTTs and developing marketing and exchange strategies. With over a decade of telecommunications experience, Mr. Rossabi has previously held a number of senior management positions. He was Director of International Business Development, Voice and Data Product Development for BellSouth Long Distance from 2001 until 2003. Before 2001, Mr. Rossabi served as Vice President, International Business Development and Global Network Purchasing for Telnext Communications, Inc., where he established a fiber and satellite network that spanned Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Prior to this position, Mr. Rossabi was the Director of Network Purchasing for Justice Telecom Corporation in California. Mr. Rossabi holds two Masters Degrees; one in Public Administration from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University; and a second in Business Administration from The Johnson School of Management at Cornell University. Prior to entering Telecommunications, Mr. Rossabi worked as an Assistant District Attorney in New York City at the Kings County District Attorney’s office.
Advisory Board
Thaim B. Kamara, MBChB, FWACS is Hospital Care Manager and Head of the Department of Surgery at Connaught Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone; Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Surgery, College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences, University of Sierra Leone; a Fellow of the West African College of Surgeons; and a Commissioner for the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. Dr. Kamara trained in general surgery and urology at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. Prior to that he worked as a Medical Officer in Freetown, Kambia, and Port Loko, Sierra Leone after studying medicine in Egypt. Dr. Kamara was born in Mambolo in northern Sierra Leone where he received his primary and secondary education.
Mark A. Hardy, MD, FACS is Auchincloss Professor of Surgery, was Vice Chairman and Residency Program Director of the Department of Surgery, and is Director Emeritus of the Transplant Centre, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and NY Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. He was President of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons in 1994 and served as Councillor of the Transplantation Society (International) twice for three 3 year terms. He now serves as Director of the NY Islet Resource Centre. He was an Editor of Transplantation and has published more than 330 articles on subjects varying from surgical techniques to basic immunology. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of numerous surgical and scientific societies including American Surgical Association, Society of Clinical Surgery and American Association of Immunology. He has been awarded Honorary Fellowship in the Polish Surgical Society and Honorary Doctorates at Hallym University in Korea and at Warsaw University in Poland. He has served as a visiting Professor in some 50 institutions and delivered over 15 eponymous lectures worldwide.
His professional scientific career has revolved around transplantation and transplantation biology, with a major interest in the immune responses in induction of tolerance including alteration of donor immunogenicity and of antigen presentation. His most recent focus has been on cellular transplantation with emphasis on islet transplantation. His clinical interests have been in transplantation and vascular surgery. He is a former Director of Vascular Surgery and Transplantation at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and former Director and Founder of Transplantation at NY Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is the Founding Director and former President of the New York Organ Donor Network and former Director and member of the Board of Directors of UNOS. He has received a number of prizes for his work, including the NIH Scholar Award early in his career. He is the editor of one of the first books on Xenotransplantation and another on Organ Replacement in Diabetes Mellitus. In addition to his work in transplantation, in the earlier part of his career he made several contributions to the development of prosthetic vascular grafts and the development and studies of biologic function of thymic hormones, both experimentally and clinically. He continues to focus on issues in surgical education, international health care and education, and is the Director of the nationally acclaimed Annual NY Surgery Board Review Course. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Hallym-Columbia International Surgical Education Fund which he helped to create to support international exchanges of faculty between developing and developed countries.
Taylor Corbett is Founder and President of Datalogy Labs and a data anthropologist with experience in data analysis and visualization. He has worked with a broad range of international and non-governmental organizations including UNICEF, UNFPA, BRAC, and the Grassroots Business Fund to improve data practices and disseminate findings. Taylor also led projects in partnership with UN agencies and governments in Africa and Asia to improve data utilization for disaster planning, polio eradication, policymaking and public engagement. He graduated with honors, summa cum laude, from Occidental College with degrees in both Diplomacy and World Affairs and Economics.
Directors and International Surgical Fellows
Director of Education and Training
Benedict C. Nwomeh, MD, MPH is the SOS Director of Education and Training. Dr. Nwomeh is a Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and attending pediatric surgeon at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH, USA. He received medical training at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Nigeria, where he graduated with MBBS (Honors). Also, he holds a MPH from The Ohio State University. He received postgraduate training in Nigeria, UK, and US, completing a pediatric surgery fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Nwomeh is a fellow of several colleges including the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, American College of Surgeons, American Academy of Pediatrics, and West African College of Surgeons. At Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, where he is attending pediatric surgeon, Dr. Nwomeh is the Director of Surgical Education and Director for the Pediatric Surgery Fellowship Training Program. Also he serves as Medical Director of the International Scholarship Program, Surgical Director of the Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Associate Director for the general surgery residency program, and Associate Academic Program Director at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. He serves on several Editorial Boards and advisory panels, including the NIH/NLM Literature Selection Technical Review Committee. Dr. Nwomeh has published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, editorials, and book chapters, and has co-edited several books, including Pediatric Surgery: A Comprehensive Textbook for Africa (2011).
Director of Surgical Research
Reinou S. Groen, MD, MIH, PhD is an OBGYN resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Prior to her training she worked for two years as an SOS International Surgical Fellow and developed the SOSAS survey for low and middle-income countries. She oversaw the use of the survey in Sierra Leone and Rwanda and received a PhD in surgical epidemiology from the University of Amsterdam. Dr. Groen was born in the Netherlands, received her MD from Groningen University and trained as a Tropical Doctor with one year of a general surgery residency and one year of emergency obstetrics. She subsequently worked for Médecines sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo providing emergency obstetric care, improving the care of pregnant women and training local staff. She also has a Masters of International Health from the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam.
International Surgical Fellow
Shailvi Gupta, MD, MPH is a general surgery resident at the University of California San Francisco, East Bay. She was a Global Health Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she received her MPH. Shailvi will spend an additional year of research at Johns Hopkins working on trauma system development in low-income countries. Shailvi was awarded the 2014 Association of Academic Surgery (AAS) Global Surgery Research Fellowship to lead the SOSAS project in Nepal. She received her MD from Dartmouth Medical School and a BA from New York University.
International Surgical Fellow
Evan G. Wong, MD, MPH is a general surgery resident at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and plans to pursue a trauma fellowship after his training. He has an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and while there was involved with SOSAS projects in Sierra Leone and Nepal; dissemination of the Médecins Sans Frontières surgical data; assisted with hospital management training in Afghanistan; and was a teaching assistant for the “Surgical care needs in low and middle income countries” course. He has been involved in improving surgical care in developing countries through the Canadian Network for International Surgery and the Centre for Global Surgery at the McGill University Health Centre. Heobtained his MD degree from McGill University. He is also an avid hockey player and passionate Montreal Canadiens fan, and recently completed his PADI Open Water Diver certification.
