Advisory Committees.

Dean’s Advisory Board

Beverly A. Brown, PhD
Former Director of Development, Industry, Boston University

Beverly A. Brown, PhD has spent over 40 years in health care, starting in research and development of diagnostics and therapeutics and then transitioned into business development. In recent years, her involvement in nonprofit work has increased. As a parent, she began her nonprofit career in small “hands on” organizations that revolved around the activities of her children. In the past 10 + years, her nonprofit work has been in healthcare, child services, and higher education at Boston University. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards largely in roles focused on governance and fundraising. She is particularly interested in governance issues as the effectiveness of nonprofit boards is correlated to the effectiveness and sustainability of the nonprofits themselves.

Charles L. Donahue, Jr., Par SPH ’12
Former President and Co-Founder, HealthCare Value Management

Charles L. Donahue, Jr., is the former president and co-founder of HealthCare Value Management in Norwood, Massachusetts, which he helped build into New England’s largest network of health care providers used by self-funded preferred provider organization (PPO) plans. After a rich 40-year career in health care system planning and management, he joined Boston University School of Public Health’s Dean’s Advisory Board and will help the Dean and senior school leaders evaluate strategy, provide advice on financial matters, and aid in securing philanthropic support during the School’s development campaign.

Mr. Donahue began his career with an interest in international health as a Peace Corps Volunteer with a tuberculosis control program in Malaysia. He accumulated an encyclopedic list of contacts as his career ascended through the Massachusetts Health Research Institute, where he organized a framework for planning perinatal health services; through the BU Center for Health Planning, where he was the Director of Health Plan Development; and the Health Planning Unit of the Public Health Service of the HHS, where he oversaw the health planning agencies in three states.

While working at those agencies, Mr. Donahue became interested in ways that science-based policy changes—grounded primarily on solid epidemiological techniques—could improve maternal and child health. As a researcher, he co-authored multiple studies, published notably in the Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, and The New England Journal of Medicine.

Mr. Donahue eventually became the executive director of the Health Planning Council for Greater Boston, returning to the organization that gave him his professional start. It also brought him back to one of his key interests, tackling the myriad challenges inherent in health care planning for a diverse urban area.

“I have always had a great interest in the City of Boston and working in its neighborhoods, as well as learning about the health care in the neighborhoods and advising people who live there. And I am very interested to see the role the School of Public Health plays in that,” Mr. Donahue said.

Mr. Donahue earned a Master of Arts in sociology from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Arts in classics from Brown University.

Mr. Donahue and his spouse, Nancy T. Donahue, reside in Westwood, Massachusetts. They have one daughter, Caroline, a 2012 graduate of Boston University School of Public Health.

Bryan Murphy Eustis, SPH ’04
Founder and Executive Director, BME Strategies

Bryan Murphy-Eustis is the Founder and Executive Director BME Strategies, a consulting firm he founded in 2004 that works with non-profits, governments, and community organizations across the globe to help build and strengthen capacity, develop interventions, and prepare for and respond to public health emergencies.

Bryan also serves as the Vice President of Programs at the Max Foundation, a global nonprofit that improves access to cancer treatment in 75 countries. The organization collaborates with pharmaceutical partners, physicians, and patient advocacy groups to increase care in mainly low and middle-income countries.

He has spent two decades supporting both public and private health care organizations in an effort to strengthen their strategy, operational and programmatic systems, and emergency preparedness and planning capabilities in local, state, and international health organizations.

Bryan also has extensive experience building and leading high-impact mission-driven teams, most recently as Commercialization Lead for Medical Technologies at Global Good at Intellectual Ventures. Previously, he served as Executive Director of Partners in Health Liberia and Chief Operating Officer of Ebola Responses at Partners in Health, where he led clinical and operational teams that rapidly initiated and scaled services to 20 treatment facilities across two countries.

He received his master’s in public health from Boston University and his Master of Business Administration from Oxford University.

Bryan currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.

Susan S. Garfield, DrPH, SPH ’11
EY Chief Public Health Officer, Americas and Global Client Service Partner, Ernst & Young

Dr. Garfield brings together the latest thinking on public health, industry trends, incentive systems, technology innovations and opportunities, stakeholder engagement, and change to drive health system transformation. She leads EY’s Public Health practice and helps companies drive towards greater health equity, resilience, and overcoming the social determinants of health. She also leads one of EY’s largest Life Sciences accounts, helping on strategy, commercial operations, and leveraging data and analytics to drive growth.  She is leveraging her background in Public Health and Infectious disease to lead EY’s Covid-19 response with governments, employers, and public health/NGOs. Her recent work has focused on commercial transformations, behavior economics’ impact to driving change in healthcare, patient centric strategies, cross-sector collaborations, innovative pricing models, digital strategy, and patient service excellence. 

Dr. Garfield has published numerous articles, chapters and several books on public health, health disparities, commercial strategy, healthcare payment issues, and women’s health; and regularly speaks at conferences and symposiums. She has worked across all major markets, helping clients to navigate complex healthcare systems. Named one of the PharmaVoice 100 top influencers in 2019. 

Dr. Garfield holds a Doctorate of Public Health from Boston University, a Master of Science Health in  Policy and Management from Harvard University, a Master of Science in Population and Development from London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania.  Dr. Garfield sits on the boards of Boston University, School of Public Health and Temple Shir Tikva.

John P. Howe, III, MD, MED ’69
Former President and CEO, Project HOPE

John P. Howe III, MD, is the former president and CEO of Project HOPE, an international health education and humanitarian assistance foundation which operates more than 70 programs in 35 countries on five continents. He held this position for 14 years, from 2001 to 2015.

Before Project HOPE, Dr. Howe held the Distinguished Chair in Health Policy at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and had served as the Center’s chief executive for fifteen years, providing leadership to the University’s Medical School, Dental School, Nursing School, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, School of Allied Health Sciences, and Doctor of Pharmacy programs. Dr. Howe is board certified in both internal medicine and cardiovascular disease and was a tenured professor in the University’s Department of Medicine.

Dr. Howe earned a Doctor of Medicine from Boston University School of Medicine in 1969 and a bachelor’s degree from Amherst. He served two years in the Army Medical Corps and later completed the Health Systems Management Program at Harvard Business School. Dr. Howe is the former chair of the Harvard College Board of Overseers Committee to Visit the Medical School and School of Dental Medicine.

Dr. Howe and his spouse, Tyrrell E. Flawn, reside in Austin, TX.

Ansir Junaid
Founder, Chairman & CEO, Junaid Group
ajunaid@thejunaidgroup.com

Ansir Junaid is Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Junaid Group, a privately held group of global companies serving a diverse array of industries and geographies that he has founded, acquired or invested in over the past 3 decades. The breadth and success of the Junaid Group is illustrative of Junaid’s combined expertise in global manufacturing, supply chain, real estate, technology and mergers & acquisitions.

He serves on several boards, including University Hospitals of Cleveland, The RAND Corporation, Cuyahoga Community College Foundation, The City Club of Cleveland, and the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission. He is also a collaborator with several international think tanks and nonprofit organizations such as The Citizens Foundation and the Hunar Foundation.

He and his wife, Sufia Junaid, share a deep commitment towards philanthropy. From this passion, they created the Junaid Family Foundation. His philanthropic contributions have been acknowledged through several organizations, including inclusion on Crain’s Cleveland’s 2020 list of Notable Immigrant Leaders and the 2020 Foreign Minister’s Honors List by the Pakistan Foreign Ministry.

He received his Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems & Marketing from Cleveland State University.

Bob Knox Jr., SAR ’10, SPH ’12,
Product Manager, Glooko

Bob Knox is a Product Manager at Glooko, a software company that seeks to improve health outcomes of people with chronic conditions through its personalized, intelligent, connected care platforms. He previously worked with American Well, one of the top telemedicine and digital health companies in the world.

Prior to joining American Well, Bob was a product manager at DCT. With DCT, Bob managed design and development of new products that use digital signals to detect cognitive impairment. Prior to joining DCT, Bob was a Senior Analyst at Opera Solutions where he designed and deployed machine learning platforms focused on revenue capture and operational improvement in hospital systems across the country.

He also has experience as a health policy analyst with the New England Journal of Medicine and has worked closely with non-profit organizations like the American Diabetes Association in the U.S. and abroad.

Bob earned his B.S. in Health Science and M.P.H. in Health Management and Policy from Boston University.

Joel earned a Bachelor of Science in math and physics from the University of Michigan in 1965 and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School

Mr. Lamstein and his spouse, Sarah Lamstein, reside in Newton Center, Massachusetts. They have three children.

Elizabeth A. Olek, DO, SPH ’02
Senior Vice President, Clinical Development, Kronos

Liz serves as Kronos Bio’s senior vice president of Clinical Development, with responsibility for the planning, conduct and analysis of Kronos Bio’s clinical trials. She joined Kronos Bio in 2022 from Loxo Oncology at Lilly, where she served as Executive Director and led the clinical development program for one of Loxo Oncology’s hematology drug candidates. She was part of the team that was responsible for the development and approval of a thyroid and lung cancer medicine, selpercatinib.

Prior to Loxo Oncology at Lilly, Liz worked at Puma Biotechnology, leading a clinical program in breast cancer. Before that, she consulted for several early-stage biotechnology companies, including Lumena Pharmaceuticals, aTyr Pharma and Receptos, advancing key clinical programs.

Dr. Olek also served as the senior vice president of clinical development and chief medical officer of Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc. where she joined from Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation having served as global brand medical director and principal medical science expert in the Infectious Disease, Transplant, and Immunology Group. Prior to joining Novartis Pharmaceuticals in 2004, she was director of clinical research at InterMune Inc. from 2002-2004, and director of clinical research at Genetics Institute/Wyeth Research from 1998-2002. In her roles, Dr. Olek was responsible for clinical research and advancement of various infectious disease drug candidates.

Dr. Olek earned a Doctor of Osteopathy from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, a master’s in public health in epidemiology and biostatistics from Boston University School of Public Health in 2002, and a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of the Sciences Philadelphia. She trained in Infectious Diseases at the Boston Medical Center and Finland Laboratory, spending several years in HIV/ID practice before joining the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Olek resides in San Francisco, California.

Cheryl L. Scott, MD, MPH, MED ’82
County Public Health Officer
San Benito County

Cheryl Scott, MD, is the county public health officer in the County of San Benito. Prior to this role, she served as a Medical Consultant at the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, working in areas of women’s health and HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Scott’s wide-ranging interests led to early work examining reproductive outcomes of women affected by the Three Mile Island meltdown, managing complications among HIV-infected patients enrolled in early clinical trials in Roosevelt Island NYC, and providing care to homeless shelter residents in Harlem. Shortly after she began an assignment with the National Health Service Corps in St. Croix, USVI, Hurricane Hugo devastated the territory. After delivering primary healthcare and post-disaster recovery services, Dr. Scott joined CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service and the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (USPHS) in 1993. During her twenty-years as a USPHS Medical Officer, Dr. Scott helped shape maternal and child health state and national policies, contributed to building a global prevention, treatment, and care infrastructure for HIV/AIDS, provided leadership to interrupt transmission of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, and responded to multiple global disasters.

Dr. Scott’s international work focused on strengthening health systems and supporting reform in Côte d’Ivoire, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Ecuador, Jamaica, Haiti, and Tanzania. She strategized on prevention for uterine rupture-associated infant and maternal mortality in rural Côte d’Ivoire, examined delayed puberty in malnourished schoolgirls in rural Kenya, and delivered in-home care services to villagers residing near the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. Her relief work has supported communities impacted by conflict and disasters including post-earthquake technical assistance to restore Haiti’s tuberculosis program, responding to suspected anthrax contamination in Tanzania, and delivering clinical services to newly displaced Kosovar and African-Colombian refugees. In the early 80s, she joined Brigada Venceremos on a mission to Cuba where she visited Cuba’s polyclinics and an HIV sanitarium. These visits complemented Cuba’s medical diplomacy priority, whereby Cuban physicians served alongside Dr. Scott and other nation partners combatting Africa’s AIDS epidemic. From 1993-95 Dr. Scott served as a CDC member of the UN High Commission on Refugees.

Dr. Scott was seconded to the US Department of State in 2000-2005 as the inaugural CDC Director for the United Republic of Tanzania. With an HIV prevalence of nearly 10% in 2000 and no AIDS treatment in a country of 43 million residents, the Tanzanian government sought to develop a coordinated, sustainable approach to reduce disease and poverty. Dr. Scott established a CDC office and $34M HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment program, which laid a cornerstone for the rapid scale-up of national services on Tanzania’s mainland and islands of Zanzibar. She collaborated with multilateral and Tanzania’s European donor partners on founding sixteen national HIV treatment sites, organized technical assistance from several US university antiretroviral treatment partners, and played a critical role in negotiating for the use of FDA-approved second-line antiretroviral drugs for treatment sites in 2004. Her collaborations resulted in Tanzania initiating their first no-cost national antiretroviral therapy program, which provided AIDS treatment and monitoring to more than 10,000 Tanzanians by 2005. 25

From 2005-2010 Dr. Scott joined the California Department of Public Health Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis Service (MDR TB), where she served as the physician lead for prevention, detection, treatment, and management of California’s MDR TB cases, the highest in the nation. Dr. Scott retired at the rank of CAPT from USPHS in 2010.

She graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz, Boston University School of Medicine, and Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. She completed residencies in internal and preventive medicine. Her work has been awarded throughout her career, and she continues to advise efforts that support her passions of education, history, health equity and civil/human rights.

She enjoys writing and spending time with her husband and twenty-something daughter, a medical student at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Elizabeth Sommers, SPH’ 89, SPH ’10,
Senior Acupuncturist and Researcher, Integrative Medicine and Health Disparities Program, Boston Medical Center

Senior Acupuncturist and Researcher in the Integrative Medicine and Health Disparities Program of Boston Medical Center. She holds degrees from Boston University School of Public Health (1989, 2010) and New England School of Acupuncture (1979). She also coordinates an acupuncture clinic at Tufts Medical Center that provides care for individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Sommers has been on the research faculty of New England School of Acupuncture (1990 – 1994) and served as adjunct faculty in Health Policy and Management at Boston University School of Public Health (2015 – 2018). As an acupuncture researcher, she has published and lectured internationally in the areas of acupuncture detoxification, health economics, and treatment of individuals diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Her book “Acupuncture as an Adjuvant in the Treatment of HIV/AIDS” was published in 2014. Dr. Sommers is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine and serves as the public health editor of the journal Meridians: Journal of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. She co-edited the special public health issue of the European Journal of Integrative Medicine (2013) and also co-edited a 2018 special issue of Medicines on acupuncture and cancer care. She is currently contributing a chapter on health disparities and social justice in the context of integrative and traditional approaches to an international reader Public Health and Health Services Research in Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Health Care: International Perspectives.

She is former chair of the American Public Health Association’s Section on Integrative, Complementary and Traditional Health Practices (2008 to 2013), and currently serves on APHA’s Governing Council and Intersectional Council Steering Committee. A public health advocate, Dr. Sommers is committed to ensuring that healthcare including wellness is a right not a privilege.

She tweets #PublicHealthHaiku with the handle @AcuOxPhD and loves to follow colleagues from all avenues of public and planetary health.

James Stark
Global Medical Development and Scientific Affairs – Vaccines, at Pfizer

In his tenth year at Pfizer, James, employs his creative mindset, industry experience, and epidemiology expertise to drive the medical and scientific affairs strategy for vaccine assets. Through his leadership, the medical and scientific affairs asset team applies disease knowledge and evidence generation strategies to drive regulatory, clinical development and commercial business decisions. In addition, James has led efforts at Pfizer to devise novel digital tools to change behaviors in how asset teams’ access and internalize epidemiology data and medical information to the betterment of knowledge acquisition and decision making.

James has also brought his energy to Putnam Associates, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and as an adjunct faculty member at NYU College of Global Public Health.

Throughout his career, James has contributed to the scientific discourse by publishing numerous articles in the peer-reviewed literature across a range of content areas including infectious diseases, physical activity, built environment, epi methods, and teaching epidemiology.

James is also a board member with VIDA, a non-profit organization in Guatemala improving the lives of children with disabilities.

He earned his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and holds an Sc.M. in Epidemiology from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an Sc.M in Molecular Microbiology and immunology from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

James resides in Brookline, MA with his wife Sunday, a BU SPH alum, and amazing daughter Bennett.

Sonja Tong, SPH ’05
Executive Director and Chief of Staff for Regulatory Affairs, Patient Safety, Quality, and Medical Affairs, Gilead Sciences

Sonja Tong is the Executive Director and Chief of Staff for Regulatory Affairs, Patient Safety, Quality, and Medical Affairs at Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since joining Gilead in 2008, her responsibilities include influencing on strategic labeling considerations for global product approval and during label negotiations with FDA and leading cross-functional teams in the development and maintenance of prescription drug labeling for physicians and for patients across all of Gilead products, which includes products for the treatment of HIV, hepatitis C, and hepatitis B; and unmet medical needs in the areas of oncology, inflammation, and cardiovascular disease.

Prior to joining Gilead, Sonja led the global labeling teams for osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis products at Amgen in Thousand Oaks, CA Sonja has also previously held Regulatory Affairs positions at two pharmaceutical companies in Lexington, MA: lndevus Pharmaceuticals, where she supported the clinical development of products in the areas of overactive bladder, stuttering, and HIV (including a clinical trial of an antiviral vaginal gel conducted in Africa); and Cubist Pharmaceuticals, where she supported the regulatory maintenance and clinical development of products for MRSA. From a summer internship opportunity, Sonja started her career in the Regulatory Affairs department of Genzyme in Cambridge, MA supporting early clinical development of a monoclonal antibody for scleroderma and a xenotransplantation product for Parkinson’s disease and Huntington disease.

Sonja earned a BS from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MPH from Boston University School of Public Health with concentration in Epidemiology/Biostatistics.

She lives in San Francisco with her husband, and in her free time enjoys traveling.