Executive Committee

Dr. Elias is president and chief executive officer of PATH, an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization based in Seattle, Washington. As president, Dr. Elias is responsible for PATH’s strategic, programmatic, financial, and management operations. PATH currently works in more than 70 countries in the areas of health technologies, maternal and child health, reproductive health, vaccines and immunization, and emerging and epidemic diseases. PATH’s 2008 budget is $218 million, which is provided by foundations, the U.S. government, other governments, multilateral agencies, corporations, and individuals. Dr. Elias received his MD from Creighton University (1983), completed post-graduate training in internal medicine at the University of California San Francisco (1986), and received an MPH from the University of Washington (1990), where he was a fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program.

Washington State University President Elson Floyd created the office of Economic Development and Extension in July of 2007, appointing John Gardner as Vice President to lead this new effort. Having worked in both universities and business, Dr. Gardner leads the effort which links private, public, and philanthropic partners to better leverage all of WSU’s assets for economic growth and vitality of the state. Gardner is a native of the Kansas City area where he earned degrees in agriculture and agronomy at Kansas State University, and a PhD at the University of Nebraska in plant physiology. His US-AID funded graduate work focused on the sorghum/millet program INTSORMIL directed at Africa and India. Just prior to WSU, Gardner spent six years at the University of Missouri as the Associate Dean/Director for Research and Outreach in the College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources after which he became the Vice President for Research and Economic Development, a position similar to that he currently holds at WSU.

Dr. King Holmes became the first William H. Foege Chair of Global Health at the University of Washington effective Nov. 1, 2006. Dr. Holmes also heads the Infectious Diseases Section at Harborview Medical Center and founded and directs the UW Center for AIDS and STD, a WHO Collaborating Center for AIDS & STD. The Center for AIDS and STD includes two NIH research centers -- the UW/FHCRC Center for AIDS Research, established in 1988, and the UW STI Cooperative Research Center, established in 1991; and several NIH-funded research training programs; Dr. Holmes is also principal investigator for the International Training & Education Center on HIV (I-TECH), a collaboration between UW and University of California San Francisco – one of the largest HIV/AIDS training programs in the world. Dr. Holmes chairs the Scientific Advisory Board for the Accordia Foundation for Global Health and for the Infectious Diseases Institute at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and the STI Working Group for the NIH HIV Prevention Trials Network. He has participated in research on STIs for over 40 years in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific. He has authored over 500 peer-reviewed publications and edited 30 books, monographs, and journal supplements. He has trained and/or mentored over 100 scientists involved in HIV/STI research and care.

Scott Jackson is PATH’s vice president of External Relations and leads PATH’s efforts to increase institutional resources, develop and strengthen relationships with partners and donors, and maximize the visibility of PATH’s work. Mr. Jackson draws on his management, strategic communications, and fundraising experience gained from a number of positions held for complex organizations in the public and private sectors: chief of staff, strategist, fundraiser, marketer, public relations/public affairs specialist, and manager. He joined PATH from World Vision, where he was senior vice president of External Relations, Relational Ministries, and US Programs and provided oversight for several successful fundraising and advocacy campaigns. At World Vision, he served on the executive committee for ONE, the campaign to make poverty history—a global health and poverty advocacy and awareness campaign—originally composed of a coalition of international relief and development organizations including Debt AIDS Trade Africa, Bread for the World, World Vision, and Care. Mr. Jackson serves on a number of boards and committees and holds an MBA from the University of Edinburgh. He is a Rotary scholar and has significant work experience in the United States and abroad.

Curt Malloy is currently President of IDRI (Infectious Disease Research Institute). He holds a bachelors degree in Computer Science and Chemistry from Pacific Lutheran University, a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University, and a Juris Doctor, with an emphasis in intellectual property, from Seattle University. Curt's professional interests include the impact of both infectious diseases and intellectual property law on the developing world. He is fluent in Spanish, having worked nearly two years as a health promoter in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala and as a consultant in occupational epidemiology in Puerto Rico. Curt is an adjunct professor at Seattle University, where he teaches courses in epidemiology and global health.

Julie Overbaugh, PhD is a Member and Associate Program Head at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Her work focuses on various aspects of HIV-1 transmission and pathogenesis, and is noted for its emphasis on translational research. She has worked closely with investigators in Kenya for the past ~15 years, including on a number of studies of mother-to-child and heterosexual transmission of HIV-1. Her interests include supporting research training and development of African laboratory-based scientists, developing infrastructure for research in countries most affected by HIV and transfer of relevant technologies. She has served as the Chair of the NIH grant review panel on the molecular biology of HIV-1, as Editor for Journal of Virology, as organizer of several international meetings, and as a member of the Office of AIDS Research advisory committee.

Dr. Guy Palmer is Regents Professor of Pathology and Infectious Diseases and Director of the Washington State University School for Global Animal Health. Dr. Palmer’s research focus is on improving control of animal diseases with direct impact on human health and well-being. For his research at the interface of animal disease and human public health, Dr. Palmer was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine and is a current member of the Global Health Group. Dr. Palmer serves as a member of the founding Board of Directors of the Washington State Academy of Sciences and of the Executive Committee of the Washington Vaccine Alliance. He is the Chair of the NIH study section on host interaction with bacterial infections and presently serves as an adviser to the Gates Foundation on vaccine development to prevent African sleeping sickness, the Wellcome Trust, and to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Within Washington State University he chairs the Graduate program in Microbiology and Pathology, and directs the Infectious Diseases and Microbial Immunology Post-doctoral Training Program.

Craig Rubens, MD, PhD
Founder and Executive Director of GAPPS

Craig Rubens is co-founder and Executive Director of the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS), a new interdisciplinary initiative of Seattle Children's established to unravel the mysteries surrounding preterm birth and stillbirth. Rubens is also a Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, an Adjunct Professor of Microbiology and a Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist. He is a graduate of the University of Washington, School of Medicine and received a PhD from the Department of Basic and Clinical Immunology and Microbiology, Medical University of South Carolina.

Dr. Stuart is the Founder, President and Director of Seattle Biomedical Research Institute (SBRI), a non-profit organization focused on discovering new solutions for malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, as well as lesser known but equally deadly diseases such as African sleeping sickness, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis. He is also Professor of Global Health and Microbiology at the University of Washington. While Dr. Stuart leads SBRI, which has more than 250 people at its headquarters in Seattle and field sites in Tanzania, he also has an active research program. An expert on the molecular and cell biology of the pathogens that cause African sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and Chagas disease, Dr. Stuart is recognized for his groundbreaking studies of RNA editing, a novel process unique to these pathogens that provides targets for drug development. He led the formation of an international genome consortium that sequenced and compared genomes of the parasites that cause the three related diseases, which laid the foundation for rapid scientific advances. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is on the board of the Washington Biomedical and Biotechnology Association.

Judith N. Wasserheit MD, MPH is currently Professor of Medicine and Global Health and Vice Chair of the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health & Community Medicine. She is also an Affiliate Investigator the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She was formerly the Director of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, a global clinical trials platform linking 28 sites on four continents in evaluating preventive HIV vaccines. She has had extensive experience in sexually transmitted disease (STD) research, policy development and program implementation both in the United States and in developing countries. Her previous research has included one of the first laparoscopic studies of pelvic inflammatory disease etiology conducted in the US, the first population-based study of the prevalence and etiologic spectrum of STDs among rural women in the Indian Subcontinent, and research on the interrelationships between STDs and contraceptive practices in other parts of the developing world, including Indonesia, and Egypt. She has also worked in Columbia, Thailand and Zambia. Her development of the concept of epidemiological synergy between HIV infection and other STDs has had a major influence on HIV prevention policy and programs around the world.

Dr. Tadataka (Tachi) Yamada, president of the foundation’s Global Health Program, leads the foundation’s efforts to help develop and deliver low-cost, life-saving health tools for the developing world. He oversees Global Health’s grantmaking, which focuses on four major activities: discovery, development, delivery, and advocacy.Before joining the foundation, Yamada served as chairman of research and development and was a member of the board of directors at GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to that, he was chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and physician-in-chief at the University of Michigan Medical Center. Yamada is a past president of the American Gastroenterological Association and the Association of American Physicians, a master of the American College of Physicians, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science in the United States and the Academy of Medical Sciences in the United Kingdom.

Lisa Cohen is the Director of the Washington Global Health Alliance, a coalition of the state’s leading global health organizations. Ms. Cohen’s career includes 25 years in journalism as a newsroom manager for Seattle television affiliates KOMO, KING, KIRO and KCPQ, and as a documentary and special projects producer for CBS “60 Minutes” and “The Early Show”. She served as interim Executive Director for Seattle CityClub and as Communication Advisor for Governor Christine Gregoire during the 2004 election. She is an adjunct journalism professor at the University of Washington, where she earned degrees in Broadcast Journalism and International Communications. Lisa has served on boards and advisory committees for Seattle CityClub, PATH’s Leadership Committee, Springboard Alliance, Children’s Hospital and the Governor’s Horse Park Authority.