DGH Board of Directors

July 2007 - July 2008

Linnea Capps, MD, MPH, President & CEO, is the Associate Director of the Department of Medicine at Harlem Hospital and also Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Columbia University in New York City. She lived in El Salvador from 1986-1987 doing volunteer health work and spent 1998 working in the DGH project in Chiapas, Mexico. Linnea returns to Chiapas regularly. (Board Term: 2005-2008)

Monica Sanchez, Vice President & Public Relations Counsel, a native of Colombia, South America, is the Deputy Director of the Medicare Rights Center, a not-for-profit organization devoted to education and advocacy for older Americans and people with disabilities. Previously, she was Executive Editor of Health Pages, an online health information service devoted to empowering health care consumers to make informed health care choices. Monica volunteers with DGH editing and designing its newsletter and web site, and coordinating its Nicaragua projects. (Board Term: 2005-2008)

Denise Zwahlen, PA-C, MPH, Chairperson and Domestic Volunteer Coordinator, a native of Switzerland, is a Physician Assistant who has been working in community-based health centers across Massachusetts for the last 20 years. She completed her undergraduate studies in Sociology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, received her training as a Physician Assistant at Northeastern University and her MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. For the last 2 years, Denise has been involved as a volunteer with DGH, working in the repopulated community of Santa Marta, El Salvador and with US-based DGH activities. She plans to continue her involvement with immigrant communities in the US and abroad. (Board Term: 2005-2008)

Shankar LeVine, Secretary, is a medical student at Brown Medical School, Providence, RI. After completing his undergraduate at Lewis & Clark College, he decided to enter the field of medicine. Toward this goal he attended a post-bachelors pre-med program at Columbia University. During this time he volunteered with DGH in Santa Marta, El Salvador for a summer. He has previous experience with development work in southern India. He is currently active in the DGH international volunteer committee. (Board Term: 2006-2009)

Daniel Bausch, MD, MPH&TM, Registrar, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Tropical Medicine at Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, LA. He is a physician who is board-certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases with a master's degree in public health and tropical medicine. Dan specializes in tropical viruses and has extensive experience in research, outbreak control, community health development, and medical training in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia. He also has a keen interest in the role of the scientist in promoting health and human rights. (Board Term: 2006-2009)

Shirley Novak, MA, Treasurer, is a charter member of the DGH Board. She has participated in El Salvador solidarity work since 1984, through Syracuse Covenant Sanctuary, an NGO that advocated for and protected undocumented Salvadoran refugees in the US. Since 1993, she has coordinated the Syracuse, NY-La Estancia Sister Community in rural El Salvador, leading annual delegations. A former teacher of immigrant adults learning English and an Early Childhood and Family Educator in a bilingual preschool program, Shirley currently works with developmentally delayed Latino preschoolers as a special education teacher in Syracuse, NY. (Board Term: 2007-2010)

Jonathan Kirsch, MD, International Volunteer Coordinator, is an internist in Ithaca, NY. He currently splits his time between work as a hospitalist in Ithaca and as a traveling 'in-camp' doctor with migrant farmworkers through the Finger Lakes Migrant Health Care Project. He has spent time in Chiapas, Mexico working in both hospital and rural settings throughout medical school and residency and took a year off of medical school to do health and human rights work in Minnesota and in Chiapas. (Board Term: 2005-2008)

Maureen McCue, MD, PhD, Advocacy Counsel, has traveled and worked extensively as a peace maker, researcher and physician, and helped organize many fora on cross cultural, global health and refugee health issues. She is the coordinator for the Iowa Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a founding member and former Director of the University of Iowa Global Health Studies Program, where she remains active on the governing board, and also a founding member and executive committee member of the UI Center for Human Rights. She has regularly interacted with international and domestic representatives of many programs, disciplines and perspectives regarding global health issues including actively participating in several unique peace, health and human rights events in the former Soviet Union, Nicaragua, Cuba, Ecuador and Bangladesh. (Board Term: 2006-2009)

Lanny Smith, MD, MPH, DTM&H, Liberation Medicine Counsel & President's Council of Honor Member, is the founding president of DGH and Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Residency Programs of Primary Care and Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. At Montefiore he is Assistant Director of the Human Rights Clinic for Victims of Torture and a practicing community health physician in the South Bronx. For six and a half years (1992-8), Lanny served as the volunteer Coordinator of the Salvadoran Mission of "Médecins du Monde-France" (Physicians of the World-France) in Morazán, El Salvador (a program using "health as reconciliation" and responsible for "building health where the peace is new" through community health promoters, day care centers, women's rights programs, clinic-schools, a bridge and other means). From that experience he pioneered the concept of Liberation Medicine (the conscious, conscientious use of health to promote social justice and human dignity). He has also helped create the Social Medicine Portal, a web site devoted linking together the diverse international community of people working in social medicine and health activism. (Board Term: 2007-2010)

Michele Brothers (Board Term: 2007-2010)

Irma Cruz, MD, a native of Mexico, is currently the Medical Counsel for the Centro Popular de Apoyo y Formación para la Salud (Popular Center for the Support and Formation of Health), in Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico. She also teaches first aid classes to Physical Education students at a local university. She is working to organize a nonprofit, nongovernmental group to work with women in the Istmo de Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca. Irma recently completed a degree in Health Promotion and is studying Health Administration. A few years ago, she returned to Mexico after many years in El Salvador, where she worked with then DGH partner Medicos por el Derecho a la Salud (Doctors for the Right to Health), working with and training health promoters. (Board Term: 2006-2009)

David Dereczyk, PA-C, is currently chief Physician Assistant at Henry Ford Hospital's Department of Emergency Medicine in Detroit Michigan. He graduated from the University of Detroit Mercy (UDM) program and holds clinical instructor positions at UDM as well as Wayne State University Detroit PA programs. David has worked and advocated for Central Americans here in the United States and in El Salvador and Guatemala. He participated in numerous medical missions to Central America as well as more recent projects in Ghana and Nigeria. Locally, current he is also a board member of RISES (Running in Solidarity with El Salvador), a group involved in the growth and development of repatriated communities in El Salvador through education, health and financial projects. A founding board member of DGH, David is becoming re-involved with the organization. (Board Term: 2007-2010)

Sara Doorley, MD, is a Social Medicine Resident at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. After obtaining a BS from the University of Notre Dame she attended medical school at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Between the third and fourth year of medical school, she took a one-year leave of absence in order to volunteer with DGH in Santa Marta, El Salvador. She has also volunteered in Palestine and Haiti. She is actively involved with the DGH volunteer committee. (Board Term: 2005-2008)

Bridget Dyer, MD, is a resident in emergency medicine living in Tucson, Arizona. She became involved with DGH when she volunteered for a year in Nicaragua in 2003. She is very excited and proud to be a new board member of such a dynamic and inspiring organization. Bridget has lived in Washington, Denver, Portland and Philadelphia, and is trying to settle in Tucson, where she says she is finally warm enough. (Board Term: 2007-2010)

Jennifer Kasper, MD, MPH, is a Clinical AIDS Advisor in Mozambique for the nonprofit organization Health Alliance International. Previously she was on the faculty of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences and a pediatrician in the Tucson Medical Center Emergency Department. She is a former Soros Medicine as a Profession Advocacy Fellow who worked with Physicians for Human Rights on immigrant issues. Jen's domestic interests include child poverty and health; food insecurity and hunger; immigrant populations; and child rights. She spent nearly two years in El Salvador serving as the field coordinator and community health worker trainer, as well as providing pediatric care. She has also worked in Honduras, India, and Chiapas, Mexico. (Board Term: 2006-2009)

Lleni Pach, MD, is associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, at Upstate Medical University, in Syracuse, NY. She was born in Lima, Peru, and has had a long-standing interest in issues of human rights and social justice. Lleni has volunteered her medical services in Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua and Kenya. (Board Term: 2006-2009)

Elizabeth Rogers, MD, is a resident in the Harvard Associated Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program in Boston. She completed a BS from Loras College in Dubuque, IA before spending a year in Seattle as a Jesuit Volunteer. She then attended medical school at the University of Nebraska, her home state. Between her third and fourth years, she took a year a one-year leave of absence to focus on international health. During this time she spent six months as a DGH volunteer in Santa Marta, El Salvador, where she has since returned for a second six-week visit. She has also volunteered in Guatemala, Ecuador, and Pakistan. She is an active member of the DGH Volunteer Committee. (Board Term: 2007-2010)

Emily Rosenberg, MA, is a Community Health Specialist at the Regional Center for Healthy Communities (Metrowest) in Cambridge, MA. Having received her BA from McGill University in Canada, Emily worked in public health in Guatemala, Chile, and the United States before completing a Masters in Medical Anthropology at Universiteit van Amsterdam. Emily's work focuses on fostering community-led health initiatives, equitable allocation of community resources and cross-cultural understanding. (Board Term: 2007-2010)