Frist Global Health Leaders 2009

Danielle Dittrich is currently a Registered Nurse, and, in August 2009 she graduated as a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. As an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University's George Peabody College, she majored in Human and Organizational Development (Health and Human Services), and she participated in the accelerated bridge program, which combines undergraduate and graduate school into five years. As a student in Nashville, she worked at the Waverly Belmont United Neighborhood Health Service clinic where she sees mostly pregnant Latina patients. She also mentored in the Latina Birthing Project, through Metro Public Health Department. To this day, she remains passionate about improving the health of women in underserved communities, specifically Latina women. In the fall 2009, she will travel to a rural village in the western highlands of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala to set up a women's health program as a part of the Primeros Pasos pediatric clinic. While in Guatemala, she focused on prenatal care and cervical cancer screening.

Krista Ford was born in Washington D.C. and spent most of her childhood there before moving to Maryland. She graduated from Princeton University in June 2009 with a B.A. in psychology. After graduation she relocated to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania where she has worked with Africare through a Princeton in Africa fellowship. Her academic areas of interest include cultural psychology, social psychology, and African studies. She is interested in understanding how culture can propel or inhibit social change. Her personal interests include Swahili and photography. In Dar es Salaam, she will work to expand Africare Tanzania's Most Vulnerable Children (MVC) programs through incorporation of strategies that seek to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS related vulnerabilities at household level.

Calandra Miller was born in the small town of Pulaski, Virginia. After graduating from Pulaski County High School in 2001, she attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 2005, she graduated with a BA in music. After attending a presentation about career opportunities for students, she came to discover public health. Calandra has recently completed her Master of Public Health with an epidemiology concentration at East Tennessee State University College of Public Health. She has both academic and humanitarian interests in global health. Calandra is excited to take her knowledge of public health principles from the classroom and apply them to a critically underserved population like the township of Munsieville, South Africa. There she worked with Project HOPE UK doing work in HIV/AIDS prevention and education.

Glenn Quarles (at right in photo) was born in Columbia, SC, but he has lived the majority of his life in the East Tennessee Tri-Cities area. He graduated from ETSU in 2007 with a B.S. in Mathematics, and recently he graduated in December 2009 with both a Masters of Public Health (concentration in Epidemiology) and a Graduate Certificate in Rural Health from East Tennessee State University College of Public Health. His primary hobby is playing the trombone. He is currently in the ETSU Wind Ensemble and just returned from New York City where they played at Carnegie Hall on April 8 of this year. He will be working with Project Hope UK on the Munsieville Model for the culminating experience of his MPH in Munsieville, South Africa.

Kelly Tschida graduated August 2009 from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing with a Master of Science in Nursing, specializing as Family Nurse Practitioner. He has a wide variety of experience including work as both firefighter and an emergency medical technician. He spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon helping alleviate poverty through microfinance. In this role he advised banks and small business owners on best business practices. He has a Masters of Business Administration and taught Entrepreneurial Finance at Washington State University. Through these experiences Kelly has come to realize the dire need many people of the world have for basic healthcare. As a result, he has decided to work in global health providing care for the underserved. Kelly spent his time in the Bugesera District in Nyamata, Rwanda working with the staff in the Nyamata Hospital.

Amelia (Amy) Wood is currently a fellow at the University of Colorado. She will be new faculty in the Fall 2009 where she will work as an Instructor of Neonatology.  Her main hospital of service is Denver Health which is the primary site for indigent care in the city of Denver allowing Amy to provide health care for those newborns at greatest risk in the city. However, Denver Health is also the hospital where the University of Colorado pediatric residents receive the bulk of their hands on training. Therefore, Amy has the great pleasure of being both a clinician and an educator. Amy did her residency in general pediatrics at Vanderbilt University.  Then she will complete a fellowship in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the University of Colorado in late September 2009 while working at the Bethany Kid's Kijabe Hospital in rural Kijabe, Kenya.  During fellowship Amy focused her research on the educational process of training pediatric providers to care for sick infants.  She continues to work on methods of improving education to help doctors prepare for their tiniest patients.  She hopes to use this information in training both U.S. doctors and doctors in the developing world.