Staff
Yeukai Chikwenhere: CAR Organizer
Yeukai is a pharmacist with more than six years of experience in Zimbabwe's pharmaceutical business and two years with the Ministry of Health. She has a master's degree in global health delivery and a bachelor's degree in pharmacy with honors. She has completed the Uganda Social Medicine Course 2020 and the UC Davis Rx One Health Course 2022. She holds an interest in the One Health agenda and community organizing for social justice in order to provide equal health access. She is a co-founder of the Centre For Health Equity Zimbabwe, an organization that is working to build a social medicine curriculum and promote climate change and health in Zimbabwe. Yeukai is actively leading the development of the Language Justice framework for CAR.
Anne Marie Collins: Program Manager, Campaign Against Racism
Anne Marie is one of the lead organizers for EqualHealth´s Campaign Against Racism, working with organizers and health workers from across 14 chapters globally to dismantle racial capitalism. She is also the co-lead organizer for the Red Antirracista, a multi-racial, afro-descendent, women-led platform, which two years ago pushed governing parties to declare racism as a public health crisis at the local council level.
Anne Marie comes to EqualHealth with a broad trajectory of experience in organizing, advocacy and influencing/reimagining public policy. She has long worked at the intersection of public health and community organizing internationally, from Colombia to Liberia and in harm reduction with the EU. In the past five years she has focused on community organizing within the communities surrounding Barcelona in the struggle against systems of oppression globally, working at an adult school that used the Freire methodology and more recently attending thereafter teaching at a decolonized feminism school, understanding the collective need of our communities to move away from colonial frameworks in response to structural and systematic problems.
Tinashe Goronga: Program Manager, Campaign Against Racism
Tinashe Goronga is a medical doctor and public health specialist passionate about social justice and health equity and integrating sustainable, inclusive and community-led approaches to achieving universal health. He is an alumnus of EqualHealth’s 2015 Social Medicine Course in Uganda which launched his engagement in EqualHealth’s Social Medicine Consortium and the Structural Competency network. He has also been a leader in EqualHealth’s Global Campaign Against Racism since its inception and is currently the Program Manager for the Campaign Against Racism, where he coordinates the vision and support of this critical work.
Prior to this role, he worked as a national specialist for an Inclusive Governance Initiative regional project by UNDP. He has contributed to numerous papers focusing on addressing structural issues in Global Health in order to have more inclusive systems. He is also the co-founder of the Centre for Health Equity in Zimbabwe, an organization working on developing a social medicine curriculum and climate change and health in Zimbabwe. He also serves on the board of the Sexual Rights Centre, a Zimbabwe organization that advocates for the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community and sex workers.
Youri Encelotti Louis: Leadership Council Coordinator
Youri Louis is a physician originally trained in Haiti and a founding member of a local Haitian organization working for health equity and social justice, SocMed Alumni Haiti (SMAH). In his work at EqualHealth, Youri leads the Social Medicine Course in Haiti and harmonizes the content and coordination across all three course sites annually. He has a coordinating role across all EqualHealth program content. He is the former Haiti Chapter Representative for the Campaign Against Racism and is currently a Board Member and the Leadership Committee Coordinator for EqualHealth. Youri is also a Medical Liaison specialist, Care Manager and Telemedicine Consultant for Dialogue Health Inc., in Canada.
Pierre Guerson Maurace: Program Coordinator and Country Representative, Haiti
Guerson joined EqualHealth in 2013 as a Facilitator of the Leadership Development Program for Saint Boniface Hospital. He then worked as a Program Assistant for EqualHealth and since 2019 has been a Program Coordinator and country representative for Haiti. Guerson leads EqualHealth’s Haiti-based work including the Social Medicine Course, Social Medicine Alumni of Haiti support, fellowship program, Campaign Against Racism chapter, and mutual aid efforts. Currently Guerson is enrolled in a course in General and Territorial Administration at the Université d'État d'Haïti.
Guerson Maurace was born and raised in Port-au-Prince. Previously, he worked with Doctors Without Borders Holland as a trainer for programs around gender-based violence. He has studied cabinet making, architecture, and worked as a journalist and host of a radio show titled “My Feeling”on Radio Boukman out of Cité Soleil. After completing high school, Guerson went on to become a volunteer at La Maison de l’Arc-en-Ciel, where he spent ten years accompanying children impacted or infected by HIV/AIDS. In this role, he received extensive training in first aid and organizational leadership. In 2008, while working for Medecin du Monde Canada, he received training to become a facilitator in the LDP and also worked as a community health worker, logistician, and CHW supervisor.
Owilli Alex Olirus RN, BScN, MN, PhD(c): Administration Lead - Leadership Council
Alex is a public health researcher, global health expert, and an internationally trained nurse with experience in clinical and community nursing, health advocacy, and nursing education. Alex serves as the Course Director for the Global Health in the Local Context Course offered by EqualHealth and as a Research Associate with the Urban Public Health Network of Canada. As an educator, Alex utilizes innovative teaching pedagogies to enable health professionals (in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health, among others) to conceptualize social determinants through the tenets of social medicine in a bid to inspire personal transformation, action, and commitment for health equity. As a researcher, he employs qualitative designs, mixed methods approach, and policy analysis techniques to contribute to science. His research interest is in the areas of Public Health Systems and Services, Public Health Surveillance Systems, Health Equity Lens, Social Determinants, and Maternal Health Services. He is also a member of the core Leadership Council for EqualHealth.
Alex obtained his bachelor's in nursing from Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), Uganda. In 2017, Alex joined the University of Saskatchewan as a Queen Elizabeth Scholar to complete a master's degree in Nursing, and he is currently completing a PhD in Community and Population Health Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan.
Margaret Odyek: Operations Manager
Margaret is a professional with over 10 years of operations and human resource management experience, with her last 5 years of experience being based in non-profits. She has worked with highly reputable organizations, such as the European Union – Uganda, Eskom Uganda Limited, and Spark Microgrants.
She has notable experience in human resources management, policy and process development, project implementation, employee relations & engagement, organizational resource planning, and budgeting. She holds a bachelor’s degree in management from Nkumba University in Entebbe, Uganda and a postgraduate certificate in human resource management & development from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.
Nabirye Peruth: CAR Organizer
Nabirye Peruth (she/her) is a visual communicator in health and a teacher by profession, with a master of science in medical illustration and a bachelor’s in education. She is passionate about health equity and social justice, and uses her artistic skills, passion for storytelling and oral poetry to organize for social change in various works. In 2020 she completed a course in Social Medicine in Uganda. She has trained in social movement technologies and has vehemently supported publicity with regards to Uganda chapter organizing. Peruth is a part of SocMed Uganda global team of directors. She joined CAR’s Uganda chapter in 2018 and has led and participated in grassroot organizing at the chapter level to date. She is currently leading a Cancel the Debt subgroup. She is a Ugandan currently based in Kampala.
Arthur Walela: Finance Manager
Arthur joined EqualHealth in September 2020, leading financial operations through a time of growth and developing standard best practices to support programs and long term vision. A native of Uganda, Arthur previously worked in accounting and finance at Spark Microgrants, an organization promoting community-led development and microfinance in East Africa. His passion for working with community-driven nonprofit organizations led him to join the EqualHealth team. He also currently works with an affordable housing company based in Wisconsin.
Leadership
Amy Finnegan
Amy Finnegan is a co-course director for the Social Medicine Course in Minnesota and Uganda, a collective member of EqualHealth leadership and an Associate Professor of Peace and Justice at the University of St. Thomas. Dr. Finnegan is a sociologist whose teaching and research interests include social movements and social change, peace and conflict, global health, human rights, medical sociology, globalization and health policy, service learning, and African studies. As a program officer, researcher, activist, and teacher, Finnegan has been involved in work related to Uganda for the past 13 years. She has previously taught at the University of Minnesota–Rochester, Tufts University, Boston College, and Gulu University in Gulu, Uganda.
Michelle Morse
Dr. Michelle Morse serves as board chair of EqualHealth and founding co-director. Dr. Morse is the inaugural Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness (CHECW) at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH), where she leads the agency’s work in bridging public health and health care to reduce health inequities, guiding CHECW’s place-based and cross-cutting health equity programs, and serving as a key liaison to clinicians and clinical leaders across New York City. Dr. Morse is an internal medicine and public health doctor who works to achieve health equity through global solidarity, social medicine and anti-racism education, and activism. She is a general internal medicine physician, part-time hospitalist at Kings County Hospital, co-founder of EqualHealth, and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Morse’s continued commitment to advancing health equity and justice is informed by her experience in leadership roles as Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Partners In Health, as a Soros Equality Fellow launching a global Campaign Against Racism, and as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy fellow with the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Marisa Nadas
Marisa is an attending physician and Director of Women's Options in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department in New York’s Jacobi Medical Center. She is passionate about providing high quality full spectrum OBGYN care to women around the globe through a human rights lens. As one of EqualHealth’s founding members, Marisa has been essential to the development of EqualHealth's vision and deeply engaged in the development and implementation of many programs, with a special emphasis on the Social Medicine Course and Visiting Professor Program. She has served as an inaugural course director and faculty for the Social Medicine Course in Haiti since its inception in 2014, and currently serves on the EqualHealth board of directors.
Zadok Sacks
Dr. Zadok Sacks is a founding co-director of EqualHealth and an attending hospitalist in internal medicine and pediatrics for the Ventura County Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program in Ventura, CA. Born and raised in California, Dr. Sacks attended Stanford University and the UCSF School of Medicine. He completed his residency and served as chief resident at the Brigham and Women's/Boston Children's Hospital in the Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program, graduating in 2012. Among his roles with EqualHealth, Dr. Sacks serves as an instructor in the Teach the Teacher Program, a course director for the Social Medicine Course, and fellowship director for the Medical Education Fellowship program. His work with EqualHealth reminds him on a daily basis that, to paraphrase Howard Zinn, there is fun and fulfillment in being involved with good people in something worthwhile.
Michael Westerhaus
Michael Westerhaus is a course director, Minnesota; collective member of EqualHealth leadership council; primary care physician at the Center for International Health in St. Paul, MN; and a member of University of Minnesota Global Health Faculty. As a primary care clinician at the Center for International Health, he bears witness to and supports refugee efforts to draw on social and cultural assets to seek health. As co-founder of the Social Medicine Consortium, Dr. Westerhaus leads efforts with a global community of educators who merge transformative pedagogy with strategic community organizing to mobilize power for advancing health equity.
Board of Directors
Provia Ainembabazi, Registered Nurse Capacity Building Officer-Ethics, Infectious Diseases Institute, Kampala, Uganda
Hugo Flores, MD - Associate Physician, Brigham and Women’s Division of Global Health Equity - Harvard Medical School. Co founder - Partners In Health Mexico
Amy Finnegan PhD, MALD - Associate Professor of Peace & Justice Studies, University of St. Thomas; Co-founder, SocMed
Casey Fox - Nurse Practitioner Student, MGH Institute of Health Professions
Eliazar Jean - Generalist Physician, Co-Founder Social Medicine Alumni of Haiti
Kettie Louis, DNP, WHNP-BC, ANP-BC - Associate Professor Department of OB-GYN, Boston University Medical School
Youri Encelotti Louis, MD - Generalist Physician, Co-Founder, SocMed Alumni Haiti
Evan Lyon, MD - Chief Integrated Health Officer, Heartland Alliance General Internist
Stecie Midy - Generalist Physician, Co-Founder Social Medicine Alumni of Haiti
Michelle Morse, MD, Founding Director - Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, Co-Founder, EqualHealth
Marisa Nadas, MD - Attending physician, OBGYN, Jacobi Medical Center Assistant Professor, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Owilli Alex Olirus, RN, BScN, MN - Registered Nurse Co-Director, SocMed
Pierre Paul - Senior TB/HIV Medical Advisor Global Health & Infectious Disease Division, USAID, Washington D.C.
Zadok Sacks, MD - Attending Hospitalist, Ventura County Medical Center, Co-Founder, EqualHealth
Michael Westerhaus, MD, MA - Primary Care Physician, Center for International Health, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota Co-Founder, SocMed