Gene Bukhman, MD, PhD, is a cardiologist and medical anthropologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), where he founded the Center for Integration Science and serves as its Executive Director. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine and an Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he also directs the Program in Global Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and Social Change. He is the Senior Health and Policy Advisor on NCDs to Partners In Health (PIH), the Director of the BWH Advanced Clinical Fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease and Global Health Equity, and the Director of the BWH Research Fellowship in Type 1 Diabetes and Global Health Equity. Dr. Bukhman completed his medical training and doctorate in medical anthropology at the University of Arizona, an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a cardiology fellowship at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Over the past 15 years, Dr. Bukhman has argued that for those living in extreme poverty, NCDs are best understood as part of the “long tail” of global health equity that demands a new “science of integration.” He has translated this critique into practical delivery strategies such as the Package of Essential NCD Interventions – Plus (PEN-Plus), that are now impacting patients’ lives in more than a dozen countries.
Dr. Bukhman is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters that apply a range of methodologies from ethnography and archival research to epidemiology and mathematical modeling to identify solutions to the problem of “NCDI Poverty.” Dr. Bukhman was the lead-author and co-chair of the 1996-2020 Lancet Commission on Reframing NCDs and Injuries for the Poorest Billion. He is now co-chair of the 22-country NCDI Poverty Network launched in December of 2020 to support implementation of the Lancet Commission’s recommendations.
Emily Yale is the Director of Finance and Operations for the Center for Integration Science in Global Health Equity. She holds an MPH in Global Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Public Health from Elon University. Emily has worked for several global health organizations dedicated to improving the health of vulnerable populations. She has primarily worked in the areas of program management, finance and administration, operations, compliance, and business development.
Prior to joining the Center, Emily worked at the Center for Global Health at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), supporting community health projects in rural Uganda. Before MGH, Emily worked for an International NGO, John Snow, Inc. (JSI), where she managed large USAID-funded HIV/AIDS projects in East Africa and frequently traveled to field offices to provide local staff with training on operations, finance, and U.S. government contract compliance.
Rachel Gasana is the Senior Director of Advancement for the Center for Integration Science. She oversees partnerships, advocacy, marketing, and communications for the Center, the PEN-Plus Partnership, and the NCDI Poverty Network. Gasana brings 15 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, mobilizing $200M+ for high-growth, mission-driven organizations in a variety of contexts. While at Partners In Health, she expanded programming and partnerships across 11 countries and 3 continents, including support for the initial implementation of PEN-Plus. She started her career establishing a grassroots literacy nonprofit in New Haven, Connecticut, and building public and private sector support for a Tony-award-winning theatre company in the state’s Capitol. Gasana holds a BA from Dartmouth College (2006) and an MBA from the Yale School of Management (2021).
Emily Wroe, MD, MPH, an internist and global health expert, serves as the Senior Director of Programs for the NCDI Poverty Network and the Center for Integration Science. In this role she supports the implementation and expansion of PEN-Plus programs.
Dr. Wroe’s expertise in health systems for chronic diseases stems from several years working as Partners In Health’s Chief Medical Officer in Malawi, where she worked closely with the Ministry of Health to strengthen health care in the rural district of Neno. In Malawi she led the team to integrate HIV and noncommunicable disease clinics, spearheaded a stepped-wedge study of a community health worker program, and helped launch two clinics for patients with severe NCDs, which was the beginning of the PEN-Plus programming in Malawi. Her role expanded to support southern Africa as NCD Synergies’ Associate Director of Policy and Implementation and as the co-chair to the Ministry of Health for Malawi’s National NCDs and Injuries of Poverty Commission.
Dr. Wroe is also deeply experienced in pandemic response and acts as a Senior Advisor for PIH’s COVID-19 response. She graduated from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health and completed her residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Alma Adler is the Research and Monitoring and Evaluation Director for the Center for Integration Science (CIS) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital since 2018. Dr. Adler began her career as a bioanthropologist receiving her PhD in 2005, but later received an MSc in Public Health/Developing Countries, Epidemiology Stream from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Before joining CIS, Dr. Adler was an Assistant Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where she was a member of the Centre for Chronic Diseases and the Centre for Maternal, Adolescent, Reproductive, & Child Health. Other positions Dr. Adler has held include systematic review specialist at the Cochrane Heart Group and Science Officer at the World Heart Federation. Dr. Adler’s research focuses on three areas: Implementation science, mixed methods evaluations of complex interventions, and evidence synthesis. She has led implementation research projects in nine countries on three continents. Dr. Adler has over 50 publications and numerous media appearances.
Paula Brewer Byron is the Communications Director for the NCDI Poverty Network. She has spent most of her communications career in the fields of medicine, public health, and human rights. Most recently she worked at Virginia Tech, first as communications director for a startup medical school and biomedical research institute, then as senior editor at the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. For the previous dozen years, she was editor of Harvard Medical School’s magazine, and before that she served as communications director for what was then the Harvard AIDS Institute, an initiative of the Harvard School of Public Health. One of Byron’s principal specialties is publications. In addition to editing Harvard Medicine, she has served as editor of Illumination, an annual magazine at Virginia Tech; Carilion Medicine, the biannual magazine of a regional health system; Silent Spring Review, a publication focused on the environmental causes of breast cancer; Baobab, the daily newspaper for an AIDS in Africa conference in Senegal; and a range of publications for the AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria, the Reebok Human Rights Awards Program, and the Harvard AIDS Institute. Byron has also edited three books on AIDS in Africa and coauthored a book on human rights heroes around the world. She earned her bachelor’s in English at Williams College and her master’s in Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.
