Leadership

Leadership

Director — Brian Willis

Brian began researching the public health impact of child sex trafficking in 1990 at the same time he joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he worked on HIV laws and policies, tuberculosis, and immunizations. In 2002, he co-authored the first study to estimate the global public health impact of sex trafficking of children. In 2003, he left the CDC in order to focus all his time on the maternal and child health impact of sex trafficking and sex work. Between 2006 and 2007, Brian researched the public health impact of sex trafficking in South Asia under a grant from the U.S. Department of State. Seeing a lack of attention to the maternal and child health needs of mothers who are trafficked or in sex work and their children, in 2007 he founded Global Health Promise [GHP].Brian has published studies on the maternal and child health of female sex workers and their children in Bangladesh and the U.S. and was a contributor to the 2009 IOM manual on the care of victims of human trafficking. In 2013 Brian received a Fulbright Scholarship to research the maternal health of female sex workers (FSW) in Cambodia. Based on this study, in 2016 he and two colleagues published the first ever study to document maternal deaths among FSW. In 2014, Brian was among the first ten recipients of the C10 Award, presented in Stockholm. During 2015 and 2016, he met with mothers who have been trafficked or in sex work in ten countries. Comments from the mothers were shared in an article published by The Lancet Global Health and presented at the Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen. He and Dr. Heather Thompson, the Maternal Health Advisor for GHP, advocated for FSW at the 2019 Women Deliver Conference in Vancouver, Canada. During 2019, Brian conducted research on the maternal health of FSW and the health of their children in eight countries. Results of this study are being prepared for publication. In addition to his research, Brian has operated a small program, called “Our Mother’s House,” for mothers who are trafficked or in sex work in Portland, Oregon. Brian is the lead on all research conducted by GHP, as well as publications and partnership building.

Deputy Director - Isabella Danel, MD MSc

Isabella Danel MD MSc served as the Deputy Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization, from 2014 through 2019. Prior to joining PAHO/WHO, Isabella worked twenty-one years with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a variety of positions focusing initially on reproductive and maternal health, and later broadening to provide support for strengthening public health systems globally. Her posts at CDC included Chief of the Field Support Branch of the Division of Reproductive Health (DRH), Associate Director for Program Development at CDC’s Center for Global Health, Director of the CDC Regional Office for Central America and Panama in Guatemala, Deputy Chief of the Pregnancy and Infant Health Branch of DRH and CDC Epidemic Intelligence Officer. From 2000-2006 she worked at the World Bank, on secondment by CDC, as a Senior Public Health Specialist in the Bank’s Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office. Earlier in her career, Isabella was a Clinical Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine focusing on maternal mortality and an attending physician at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois where she specialized in medical complications during pregnancy.

Isabella is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois in Chicago. She has written numerous scholarly articles and book chapters on reproductive health, maternal mortality, public health systems and other public health topics. She holds a medical degree from Albany Medical College in New York and a Master of Science from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Program Manager for Nutrition, Education and Economic Empowerment — Lyndsey Roos

Lyndsey Roos is an English language teacher based in Portland, Oregon. She studied Philosophy at Willamette University in Salem, OR before earning a master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) from Portland State University. An avid language learner, she previously studied French abroad in Angers, France. She has also lived and taught English in Bali, Indonesia.

As a child, her family instilled in her the values of education and service to others through their work in her small hometown of Port Angeles, WA. She is a passionate advocate for community activism, education equity, and social justice, and looks forward to learning more about non-profit work while helping Global Health Promise grow and develop.

Program Manager for Maternal and Child Health Program — Regan Moss

Regan Moss

Regan Moss is an MPH student at Columbia University. Regan studies maternal, reproductive, and menstrual health through health equity and social determinants of health frameworks for policy and health systems impact.

She has engaged in maternal health efforts across a variety of sectors, such as through March of Dimes, ARRWIP at Johns Hopkins University, Health Omics and Perinatal Epidemiology at Yale’s Child Study Center and Averting Maternal Death and Disability at Columbia University.

Regan has been engaged with community-based efforts and community-based participatory research initiatives focused on commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), sex work, and/or sexual abuse for 6+ years. In undergrad, Regan founded a student-led organization that worked to combat the myths about commercial sexual exploitation and engage community partners in efforts to decrease risk of CSE.

Most recently, Regan supported the development of didactic training tools for the American Academy of Pediatrics (Chapter 3) to improve physician knowledge and practice for youth impacted by CSE.