32nd Annual Conference, "Mutual Understanding amid Global Economic Challenges"

Blair Gifford is an associate professor of international health management in the Business School and the School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Denver.  He is also managing director of the master of business administration /sustainability program and the founder of the Center for Global Health.  Dr. Gifford was a visiting professor at Yale’s School of Public Health during the 2008-09 academic year and continues to lecture for Yale in its global health initiative to internationalize health management education.  Currently, Dr. Gifford is a Fulbright New Century Scholar for 2009-10.  His research efforts include  a comparative study of the impacts of medical tourism in India, Mexico, Brazil, and other countries, a soon to be published book on sustainable business strategies for small and medium size businesses, a large research project to enhance sustainable development infrastructure in Haiti, and an analysis of changing expectations for health care among the middle class in China.  Previously, Dr. Gifford worked at Northwestern University, the American Hospital Association, and IBM.  He has a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago and did his undergraduate work in economics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Krishna Guha is chief U.S. economics editor and deputy Washington bureau chief for the Financial Times where he covers the U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury and leads FT’s coverage of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.  Mr. Guha’s beat includes U.S. economics, financial markets, and business.   Previously, Mr. Guha served as editorial leader writer at the Financial Times in London where he covered economics and economic policy, as well as politics in the United Kingdom, in the United States, and in Asia.  Mr. Guha spent 2003 and 2004 on leave from the Financial Times as a Fulbright scholar at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  Prior to that, he served as a Lex columnist commenting on the financial markets, and then as political correspondent, covering the Blair government, domestic policy, and the Iraq crisis.  Between 1997 and 2000, Mr. Guha served as the Financial Times’s Bombay correspondent.  Educated at Cambridge, he is a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and has held several visiting fellowships in Japan.

Listen to Krishna Guha's Address as an iTunes Podcast

Kristina M. Johnson is under secretary for energy of the U.S. Department of Energy.  Prior to this appointment, Dr. Johnson was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins University.  She received her bachelor’s, master’s (with distinction) and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University.  After a NATO post-doctoral fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin, she joined the University of Colorado-Boulder’s faculty in 1985 as assistant professor and was promoted to full professor in 1994.  From 1994 to1999, Dr. Johnson directed the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center for Optoelectronics Computing Systems at the University of Colorado and Colorado State University.  She then served as dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University from 1999 to 2007.  Dr. Johnson was named an NSF presidential young investigator in 1985 and was awarded a Fulbright grant to Scotland in 1991.  She has been recognized by the Dennis Gabor Prize for creativity and innovation in modern optics (1993); State of Colorado and North Carolina Technology Transfer Awards (1997, 2001); induction into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame (2003); the Society of Women Engineers Lifetime Achievement Award (2004); and in May of 2008, the John Fritz Medal, widely considered the highest award in the engineering profession.  Previous recipients of the Fritz Medal include Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and Orville Wright.  Dr. Johnson holds 129 U.S. and international patents and patents pending.  A fellow of the Optical Society of America, of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, of SPIE (originally known as the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers), Dr. Johnson was a director of SPIE and of the International Society for Optical Engineering.   She has served on the Board of Directors of Mineral Technologies Inc., Boston Scientific Corporation, AES Corporation, and Nortel Networks.   She has helped found several companies, including ColorLink, Inc, SouthEast Techinventures, and Unyos.

Vanessa B. Kerry graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and cum laude from Harvard Medical School. In 2004, she took leave from Harvard to work on her father’s presidential campaign, traveling the country and meeting with constituents coast to coast. After the campaign, Dr. Kerry studied in the United Kingdom under a Fulbright fellowship and in 2005 graduated from a joint program at the London Schools of Economics and of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with a master’s degree in health policy, planning and financing. In medical school, she worked for the Vaccine Fund and Partners in Health and wrote her master’s thesis on the collaboration between the governments of the United States and Rwanda for the procurement of drugs to counter HIV. In addition, she wrote on the impact of trade on affordable drug access for developing countries, as well as on the role of governance and international forces on health in these countries. Currently in her final year of medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Dr. Kerry is interested in both global and domestic health and in international relations’ impact on medicine in poorer countries. She is concerned with the need to bridge political gaps which prevent many from receiving basic care both at home and abroad.

As a Fulbright fellow in Barbados in 2005, Staci Lewis conducted field studies and ex situ experiments on the body size plasticity of the coral-eating fireworm, Hermodice carunculata.  Afterwards, she worked for the island’s only aquarium, OceanPark Barbados, as director of education and environmental programs.  Upon returning to the United States, Ms. Lewis moved to Washington, D.C., to pursue work in marine policy.  She received a master’s degree in environmental science and policy from George Mason University.  Her research thesis topic was the use of molecular and histological techniques to determine the role of the coral-eating fireworm in the etiology of coral reef disease.  Ms. Lewis was a Knauss Sea Grant Marine Policy Fellow for Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, the previous National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrator.  She served as the NOAA liaison to then President-Elect Obama’s Transition Team.  Afterwards, she was a climate policy specialist for Jane Lubchenco, the current NOAA Administrator and the under secretary for oceans and atmosphere.  Ms. Lewis’s portfolio focused on climate policy issues, intradepartmental climate and energy activities coordination, and interagency climate partnerships.  She joined the Consortium for Ocean Leadership as policy analyst in August 2009. 

Founder and managing partner of The Jiao Group, Rodrick T. Miller is an experienced policy analyst, with business development, project management, and team building interests.  The Jiao Group is a management consulting firm specializing in economic development strategies, public private partnerships, and market penetration approaches.  Previously, Mr. Miller served as vice president of international economic development for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) where he actively increased international competitiveness for the region and was involved in projects totaling more than $2 billion in investment over the last five years.  Before GPEC, he held several positions in the public and private sectors with the City of Glendale, Infrastructure Management Group, Ernst & Young, CEMEX, and the U.S. Department of State.  He holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in international business from St. Augustine’s College.  He received a graduate diploma in international management from Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico as a Fulbright fellow.  Mr. Miller was also a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Aspen Institute International Career Advancement Program Fellow.

Marwan Muasher, a Jordanian national, joined the World Bank as senior vice president of external affairs on March 16, 2007, from his most recent position at the Senate of Jordan.  His career has spanned the areas of development, diplomacy, civil society, and communications.  Mr. Muasher began his career as a journalist for the Jordan Times, then served from 1985 to 1990 at the Ministry of Planning in charge of development strategies and later as press advisor to the prime minister. He subsequently served as director for the Jordan Information Bureau in Washington, building understanding and support in Congress, the press, and civil society.  In 1995, Mr. Muasher opened Jordan’s first embassy in Israel and in 1996 became minister of information and the government’s spokesman.  From 1997 to 2002, he served in Washington again as ambassador, negotiating the first free trade agreement between the United States and an Arab nation. He then returned to Jordan to serve as foreign minister, where he was deeply involved in the peace process.  In 2004 he became deputy prime minister responsible for reform and government performance and led the effort to produce a ten-year development strategy that included major recommendations on economic, financial services and fiscal reforms, employment, and education and training.  Mr. Muasher holds a doctoral degree in computer engineering from Purdue University. From 2002 to 2004, he served as honorary co-chairman of the Fulbright Commission in Jordan.

The Eni professor of international economics at The Johns Hopkins University, SAIS-Bologna, and (non-resident) senior fellow of the East-West Center, Michael G. Plummer is editor-in-chief of the “Journal of Asian Economics” and director of the American Committee for Asian Economic Studies (ACAES).  Previously, he has held teaching, research, and management positions at Brandeis University and the East-West Center.  He has also been a Fulbright chair in economics (Viterbo, Italy) and Pew fellow in international affairs (Harvard University)He has been a visiting professor or scholar at a number of institutions throughout the world, including Kobe University (Japan), Sciences Po (France), University of Auckland (New Zealand), Diplomatic Academy (Vienna), the University of Bologna (Italy), the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore), Doshisha University (Japan), Bocconi University (Italy), and the Harvard Institute of International Development (USA).  He serves on the editorial boards of the “Asian Economic Journal,” “,”World Development and the “ASEAN Economic Bulletin”. He received his doctorate in economics from Michigan State University.   Prof.  Plummer’s main academic interests relate to international trade, international finance, and economic integration, especially in the Asian context.  He has written, co-authored, edited, or co-edited 18 books in these areas, and approximately 100 articles and book chapters.

An associate professor of pharmacology at Howard University College of Medicine, Sonya K. Sobrian heads a developmental behavioral pharmacology laboratory that trains both undergraduate and graduate students. She also teaches medical, dental, pharmacy, and physician assistant professional students. Her current research involves the lifelong consequences of prenatal exposure to cocaine and nicotine. As a 1987 Fulbright scholar at the Immunological Research Institute in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, she re-designed the experimental facilities at the institute and conducted research on the psycho-neuroimmunology of prenatal stress. During this sabbatical year, she also examined the educational and health care systems of several Eastern European countries, with special emphasis on women’s issues. Dr. Sobrian was also a visiting scientist at the University of Sienna, Institute of General Biology, Sienna, Italy. In 1994-95, Dr. Sobrian was an American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives. From 1999 to 2000, she directed the Behavioral Neuroscience Program at the National Science Foundation. She is currently president of the Fulbright Association’s National Capital Area Chapter. She is a member of the Chorale of the Friday Morning Music Club, the oldest musical service organization in Washington, D.C., and of Hexagon, an organization that performs political, satirical reviews to support various charities in the metropolitan area.