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.

Program Manager for Education and Economic Empowerment — Lindsay 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 — Nicole Hubert

Nicole Hubert, Grant Writer

Nicole Hubert is a lifetime activist and recent graduate of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health where she earned her Master of Public Health (MPH) concentrating in Health Management and Policy. She earned her B.A. in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology and Spanish from Rollins College. She has spoken out for disability rights at the local and national-levels including to the United States Congress, advocated for the houseless as the Operations Lead for a low-barrier medical clinic in Oregon, and continues to champion reproductive justice in the face of the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Nicole is passionate about global health policy, specifically in creating more equitable and justice-oriented health systems and promoting maternal and child health and reproductive justice. She is the lead on program management, donor relations and fundraising efforts, social media, and grant writing, and assists with in-country research and data cleanup.