Our Contributors

Ian is currently based in Liberia with the Americares In-Country Team.

As SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Jed is charged with providing both strategic leadership and hands-on tactical execution of the organization’s marketing and communications efforts. Jed has nearly 20 years of senior marketing and strategy experience, including work with some of the world’s most recognizable brands. Prior to joining Americares, Jed served as a Vice President at iHeartMedia, a mass media company that specializes in radio broadcasting and producing live events where he oversaw iHeartMedia’s strategic brand partnerships with companies like American Express, AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Johnson & Johnson. Prior to iHeartMedia, Jed spent 10 years at The Coca-Cola Company, starting in brand management before ultimately overseeing Coca-Cola’s entertainment marketing department. Jed earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Delaware and a M.B.A in marketing from Emory University.

Kate Dischino is responsible for deploying emergency response teams into the field, coordinating large-scale deliveries of medicine and relief supplies, formulating response strategy and implementing recovery programs that restore health services for disaster survivors. Kate has been with Americares since 2012, most recently serving as emergency response director. She has responded to disasters in Nepal, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Vanuatu, among other locations. She is currently overseeing the organization’s responses to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria in the southern United States and Caribbean. Prior to joining Americares, Dischino served as the associate director of Save the Children’s Domestic Emergencies Unit.

As chief medical officer and vice president of Americares technical unit, Dr. Julie Varughese is responsible for increasing access to quality medicine for low-income patients in more than 90 countries. She shapes health programs to enhance patient care, provides medical oversight and reviews offers of donated products from over 200 pharmaceutical and medical supply companies, ensuring the contributed items are used safely and effectively by Americares health care partners around the globe. Dr. Varughese also oversees Americares Medical Outreach program, which supplies medical products to U.S.-based health care professionals traveling overseas to provide primary care services and surgeries for patients in desperate need. Since joining Americares in 2015, Dr. Varughese has traveled to Cambodia, El Salvador, Haiti, India and Tanzania to implement life-changing health programs and deliver quality medicine and medical supplies to those who need it most. Board certified in infectious disease, internal medicine and pediatrics, Dr. Varughese earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., and a medical degree from Rush University in Chicago, Ill., where she completed her residency training. She also completed an infectious disease fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY.

Lindsay O’Brien is the former VP of U.S. Programs & Partnerships at Americares.

Dr. E. Anne Peterson, MD, MPH, directs the delivery of more than $500 million in medical aid and relief supplies to more than 90 countries each year. Anne oversees AmeriCares Emergency Response, U.S. Medical Assistance and Medical Outreach programs as well as all other ongoing global health programs. Anne has deep experience in all facets of global health, including domestic and international health policy, clinical care, administration and disaster response. As assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Global Health Bureau, Anne oversaw of all of USAID’s programs in maternal and child health, AIDS, family planning, neglected tropical diseases and health systems. Anne has also worked as a consultant for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, public health program director for the Ponce School of Medicine & Health Services in Puerto Rico, a research professor at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and spent nearly six years in Sub-Saharan Africa working on community development, public health training and AIDS prevention programs. Anne has served on a number of international boards of directors, including the Global Fund (GFATM), GAVI, Stop TB, and the Child Survival Partnership. Anne earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the University of Washington and her medical degree from Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minn. She completed her master’s degree in public health and preventive medicine residency at Emory University in Atlanta.

Sal was a Senior Associate with the U.S. Program at Americares.

Dr. Majid Sadigh, MD, one of the medical team members recruited by Americares and fighting Ebola in Liberia in 2014, gives a deeply personal and close-up views of his work at an Ebola Treatment Unit as Americares expanded its support for health workers on the front lines during the Ebola Crisis.

Christina Newport serves as the Associate Director of the U.S. Program at Americares. Her current portfolio includes overseeing the U.S. Program’s Mental Health Initiative (MHI) to improve access to care in the U.S. behavioral health care safety net and leading and managing the Americares BD Advancing Community Health: Driving Quality Outcomes Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Initiative. The PCMH Initiative is designed to support free and charitable clinics in their transformation to the PCMH model and to obtain recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for their efforts. Christina is also involved in the U.S. Programs efforts to build capacity in free and charitable clinics (FCCs). She previously managed the implementation of two innovative pilot programs in FCCs which involved research studies conducted by Loyola University at Chicago; one on diabetes prevention implementing the CDC’s Diabetes Prevention Program and one on implementing the ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) model for hypertension through a partnership with ECHO-Chicago and the IL Association of Free and Charitable Clinics. Christina has over 12 years’ experience in public health, with a background in program development, project management and evaluation, quality and performance improvement and providing technical assistance to health care providers on chronic disease prevention and management. She currently holds her NCQA PCMH CCE certification, obtained in 2017, and is a graduate of Towson University.

Bret most recently coordinated the distribution of Americares medical aid for several disasters including Haiti, Japan, and India

Dmitriy Popov travels throughout Eurasia to meet with local health partners and oversees partnerships in Central Europe, FSU and South Asia to deliver on-going humanitarian medical assistance.

Guest blogger Nenette Motus is Senior Migration Health Policy Advisor, Migration Health Division at the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Americares is partnering with IOM on Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts.