ExpedMed Faculty

The ExpedMed faculty are each carefully selected based on their impeccable academic credentials, vast field experience, and teaching ability. Each speaker engages attendees with compelling real-life stories and brings a depth of knowledge unprecedented at other conferences. They have been drawn from such prestigious medical institutions as the Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, the Walter Reed Research Institute, and Oxford University among others. They continue to be active in their diverse fields of Expedition Medicine and Wilderness Medicine and, consequently, bring their passion and enthusiasm for the subject to life. Collectively, they offer the greatest range of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine talent in the world, all in one location.

Confirmed Faculty for the ExpedMED SINGAPORE Expedition Medicine conference, March 15-16, 2019

 

Gregory H. Bledsoe, MD, MPH

Director ExpedMed, Chief Editor Expedition & Wilderness Medicine, Medical Director of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Arkansas Heart Hospital, Operating Partner at New Road Capital Partners, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Timothy B. Erickson, MD, FACEP, FAACT, FACMT

Chief of Medical Toxicology, Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Faculty at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

David A. Townes, MD, MPH, DTM&H
Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Division of Emergency Medicine, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Global Health, Department of Global Health, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, USA

 

Michael V. Callahan MD  DTM&H  MSPH

Division of Infectious Disease, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Director of Translational Therapeutics, Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center (VIC), and Director of The Zika Foundation, www.ZikaFoundation.org , Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Gayathri Nadarajan, MBBS

Associate Consultant, Accident & Emergency Department, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore

Jimmy Goh, MBBS

Senior Consultant, Accident & Emergency Department, Changi General Hospital, Singapore

Valerie Ann Dobiesz, MD, MPH

Director of External Programs: STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation, Brigham & Women’s Hospital; Director of Women’s Leadership Initiative, Brigham & Women’s Hospital; Faculty, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Stephen Canon, MD, FAAP

Chief of Urology, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Director of Physician Operations/ Arkansas Children’s Medical Group, Auxiliary/ John F. Redman Endowed Chair, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

 

Past Faculty List

 Faculty Bios

Gregory H. Bledsoe, MD, MPH

Gregory H. Bledsoe, MD, MPH

Director ExpedMed

Chief Editor, Expedition & Wilderness Medicine

Dr. Bledsoe is a board certified Emergency Medicine physician and the founder and director of ExpedMed. After completing medical school and residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Dr. Bledsoe spent five years on faculty in the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine completing a two-year fellowship in International Emergency Medicine and a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2005, he received the “Teacher of the Year” award from the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine.

In 2015, Dr. Bledsoe was appointed as surgeon general for the state of Arkansas by Governor Asa Hutchinson. In addition to his work as surgeon general, Dr. Bledsoe serves as the medical director for the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Arkansas Heart Hospital, and works as an operating partner for the venture capital firm New Road Capital Partners.

Dr. Bledsoe has extensive experience in international travel having visited over 50 countries. His international medical experience includes serving as a field physician in Honduras, teaching disaster preparedness in Tanzania, leading a nutritional survey among the Beja tribe in northeast Sudan, working as a medical consultant in Beijing, China, and acting as the medical officer for ships in both Antarctica and the Arctic.

In addition to his clinical duties, Dr. Bledsoe has been an instructor and medical consultant for the United States Secret Service. He was the personal physician to former President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s tour of Africa in September 2002, and served in Uganda and Senegal on the advance team of President George W. Bush when the President visited the African continent in July of 2003.

Dr. Bledsoe’s research has been published in many prestigious medical journals including the Journal of Trauma, Prehospital & Disaster Medicine, Southern Medical Journal, Journal of Emergency Medicine, Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, Pediatric Emergency Care, and The Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. His current projects include being the chief editor of a textbook entitled Expedition and Wilderness Medicine that will be published by Cambridge University Press in the spring of 2008.  He is a frequent public speaker and has been interviewed by numerous regional and national media outlets including The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Baltimore Sun, The Naperville Sun, Fort Worth Weekly, Austin-American Statesman, Cincinnati Magazine, El Mundo, ESPN the Magazine, USA Today, FOX 5 New York City, and 60 Minutes.

In addition to his medical practice, Dr. Bledsoe is a private pilot, a scuba diver, a student in Brazilian jiu jitsu, and a member of The Explorers Club.

Howard Backer, MD

Howard Backer, MD

Dr. Howard Backer is currently Chief of the Immunization Branch, California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and leads pandemic influenza planning for CDPH.  He has served in special assignments as interim State Public Health Officer, and Special Consultant on Emergency Preparedness to the Director.  Dr. Backer is board certified in both Emergency Medicine and Public Health/General Preventive Medicine. Other areas of interest and expertise include travel medicine, international health, and medicine in remote areas. He joined the Division of Communicable Diseases, Immunization Branch, at the California Department of Health Services in 2000, after practicing medicine for 25 years in a variety of settings, including urban county hospitals, small resort communities, and community hospitals.  Prior to working at the state Health Department, Dr Backer worked for 16 years with The Kaiser Permanente Medical Group.  He attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, followed by an internship at Highland, Alameda County Hospital, and an Emergency Medicine residency at San Francisco General Hospital, later returning to UCSF for a residency in Preventive Medicine, including at MPH at UC Berkeley.  He is a past-president of the Wilderness Medical Society and Medical Consultant for Mountain Travel Sobek.

Michael V. Callahan, MD, DTM&H, MSPH

Michael V. Callahan, MD, DTM&H, MSPH

Program Manager for Biodefense and Mass Casuality Care

Defense Advanced Research Project Agency

Bethesda, Maryland

Dr. Michael Callahan is a Program Manager for Biodefense and Mass-Casualty Care at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and an Associate Physician at the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Current wilderness medicine activities include oversight of clinical research programs to protect U.S. military personnel during sustained, extreme operations, including projects in Rapid Altitude Acclimatization and Immune Hardening. Before joining DARPA, Dr Callahan was principal investigator for the S.E. Asian Polyvalent Antivenin Trial in Na Trang, Vietnam. He maintains disaster medicine billets with two international disaster response organizations.

Christina Catlett, MD, FACEP

Christina Catlett, MD, FACEP

Associate Director, The Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR)

Johns Hopkins Hospital

Baltimore, Maryland

Christina Catlett is a Board Certified Emergency Medicine physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.  Dr. Catlett received her undergraduate degree and MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following her residency in emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins in 1995, she joined the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine faculty full time.

Dr. Catlett became the Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR) following the terrorist attacks in 2001. Dr. Catlett is responsible for coordinating disaster planning and response within the Hopkins health system and integrating those activities with federal, state, and local plans. She serves as the Director of the Johns Hopkins Go Team MRC (Hopkins’ deployable medical asset) and is a member of Maryland’s new Disaster Medical Assistance Team (MD-1 DMAT). Dr. Catlett has led disaster response teams to Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, and Rita, and most recently, to the Haiti earthquake. She has also led humanitarian missions to Central and South America.

Dr. Catlett’s interest in expedition medicine began in 2004 when she began climbing mountains, starting with Kilimanjaro in Africa.  In 2005, she was the physician for an expedition cruise ship traveling from Japan to Siberia, the Arctic Circle and Alaska.  In 2006, she was the Mt. Everest basecamp physician for the Adventure Consultants expedition. She provided helicopter search-and-rescue for the 2008 and 2009 UAE Desert Challenge, a 5-day 2000 km automotive race through the deserts of the Middle East, and medical support for the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2009.

Through the Department of Emergency Medicine’s Division of Special Operations, Dr. Catlett has provided personal medical support for President Carter in Africa (2002), Mr. Bill Gates in India (2002 and 2008), President George W. Bush in Africa (2008), and President Clinton in Haiti (2010).

Dr. Catlett has spoken both nationally and internationally on a variety of disaster and wilderness medicine topics. She has published articles in Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, JAMA, BMC Public Health, Prehospital Emergency Care, American Journal of Disaster Medicine, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

Craig Cook, MD

Craig Cook, MD

Craig Cook, MD is the Medical Editor for Sport Diver Magazine and a referral physician for Divers Alert Network. With a background in Anesthesiology, Dr. Cook has been a consultant to the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other institutions as a diving medical officer on various expedition projects. An avid photographer, his photos have been published internationally. He is a scuba instructor and has been actively diving for 40 years.

Howard Donner, MD

Howard Donner, MD

Family and Emergency Medicine Physician,

San Francisco, CA

International Expedition Expert and National Speaker

Former NASA consultant

Co-author, Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine

Howard Donner is a Family Practice physician and a well-known expert in Wilderness Medicine. Dr. Donner served as an Expedition Physician on the 1988 Kangchenjunga Expedition, the 1997 NOVA Everest Expedition, and as a medical officer on the Denali Medical Research Project. As co-author of Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine, Dr. Donner is a frequent national lecturer and has provided medical support as a volunteer for the National Park Service. In addition to his medical expertise, Dr. Donner works as a commercial pilot and independent filmmaker.

Timothy B. Erickson, MD, FACEP, FAACT, FACMT

Timothy B. Erickson, MD, FACEP, FAACT, FACMT

Chief of Medical Toxicology

Department of Emergency Medicine

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Faculty, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

Boston, Massachusetts

Dr. Erickson is an emergency medicine physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston where he serves as the Chief of Medical Toxicology in the Department of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Erickson earned his M.D. degree from The Chicago Medical School in 1986. He completed emergency medicine residency training at the University of Illinois and his medical toxicology fellowship at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Erickson is a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, American College of Medical Toxicology, American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, and the prestigious Explorers Club.

Previously, Dr. Erickson served as the Director for the UIC Center for Global Health and Professor of Emergency Medicine and Medical Toxicology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Erickson also served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, Graduate Medical Education, and Continuing Medical Education at the UIC College of Medicine. He was an Acting and Interim Head in the Department of Emergency Medicine and has held other multifaceted appointments ranging from EM Residency Program Director to Chief of Medical Toxicology.

Dr. Erickson has been a member of multiple editorial boards and has a prolific academic history including publishing over 120 original journal articles and book chapters as well as editing 4 major textbooks. He has presented over 100 national and international invited lectures related to emergency medicine, toxicology, humanitarian global health, and wilderness/expedition medicine.

Dr. Erickson’s federal grant funding includes HRSA sponsored grants related to global preparedness and bioterrorism and a Medtronic foundation grant addressing acute cardiovascular disease in India. He has extensive international experience in Africa (Rwanda, Sudan, Kenya), Asia (India, Vietnam, Nepal), South America (Brazil, Peru, Argentina), Europe (Kosovo, Ukraine, France) and Antarctica. 

Karen Van Hoeson, MD

Karen Van Hoeson, MD

Karen Van Hoesen, MD began her career as a certified diver at age 17. She became a NAUI diving instructor in 1983 and taught diving at UC Davis. Her interest in diving physiology and medicine prompted her to attend Duke University Medical School where she received her MD in 1988 and was involved with the Divers Alert Network and Hyperbaric Center at Duke. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine at UCSD and then joined the faculty full time. She is currently a Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSD and is board certified in both Emergency Medicine and Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine. She is the director of the UCSD Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship and the UCSD Diving Medicine Center.

Dr. Van Hoesen has lectured nationally and internationally in all aspects of diving medicine and has published research articles and numerous book chapters on diving and hyperbaric medicine. She is often invited to speak at national conference on Wilderness Medicine and is an active member of the Wilderness Medical Society and the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.

Joyce M. Johnson, DO, MA

Joyce M. Johnson, DO, MA

Vice President, Health Sciences, Arlington, VA

Health and Life Sciences Division, Battelle

Former Surgeon General, United States Coast Guard

Joyce M. Johnson, DO, MA is Vice President, Health Sciences in the Health and Life Sciences Division of Battelle Memorial Institute in Arlington, Virginia. She joined Battelle in December 2003 upon her retirement from the U.S. Public Health Service (rear admiral, upper half). She had been assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, and functioned as the Coast Guard’s surgeon general. Her other government assignments included senior scientific and management positions with the Food and Drug Administration and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She has held clinical positions at the National Institute of Mental Health (St. Elizabeths Hospital) and with the Veterans Administration. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she was an Epidemiologic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer and staff epidemiologist in the Center for Infectious Disease and one of the first epidemiologists to study AIDS.

Dr. Johnson has extensive international health experience, and has provided consultation or clinical care on all seven continents. She has particular medical interests in emergency preparedness, third world health care, and health systems development. During the summer, 2006, she served as Project Hope’s chief medical officer aboard the USNS Mercy, for humanitarian assistance in Indonesia and Timor Leste. At various times, she has been a medical volunteer with DoCare to Haiti, Peru, Guatemala and Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. She is a consultant to the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, focusing on the Antarctic.

Dr. Johnson is a physician board certified in three specialties – Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Clinical Pharmacology and Psychiatry. She is a Certified Addiction Specialist and Certified Food Service Executive. In addition to her medical degree, she earned a master’s degree in Hospital and Health Administration. She was conferred honorary Doctor of Public Service, Doctor of Science and Doctor of Fine Arts degrees.

Dr. Johnson writes the regular Ask the Doctor column for the Military Officer Magazine and recently completed editing the book, The Ship’s Medical Chest and Medical Aid at Sea. She serves on the Explorer’s Club Expedition Medicine Advisory Council and the TriWest HealthCare Alliance Executive Advisory Board, and is a member of the Cosmos Club. She has served on the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Board of Trustees. She is on the Georgetown University School of Medicine adjunct faculty and is active in many professional associations.

Dr. Johnson is married to Jim Calderwood, an attorney in private practice. They have one son, James, a high school student. They reside in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Kenneth M. Kamler, MD

Kenneth M. Kamler, MD

Expedition Physician, NY,

Vice President of The Explorers Club

Author NYT best sellers Doctor on Everest and

Surviving the Extremes

Kenneth Kamler, M.D. is a micro-surgeon trained at Columbia Presbyterian Medical center who practices surgery of the hand in New York but practices extreme medicine in some of the most remote regions on earth. He has treated bear bite in the Arctic and frostbite in the Antarctic. He has set fractures in the Andes and cared for out-of-breath scuba divers in the Galapagos. He has performed surgery deep in the Amazon rain forest and in an undersea mock space capsule. He has been on six expeditions to Mount Everest as expedition doctor and climber. Four were with the National Geographic Society deploying laser telescopes and global positioning satellite receivers to measure the exact height of Everest as well as the tectonic motion of the Asian continental plate. On his two most recent expeditions to Everest, he served as Chief High Altitude Physician for NASA-sponsored research on human physiological responses to extreme altitude, and monitored remote body sensors worn by climbers to provide real-time medical data as they ascended the mountain. Dr. Kamler himself has climbed to within 900 feet of the summit of Everest and was the only doctor, high on the mountain, during the infamous 1996 storm that claimed twelve lives. His treatment of the survivors was portrayed in the best-selling book, Into Thin Air, and in the IMAX film, Everest.

Dr. Kamler is Vice President of The Explorers Club, a member of the Sigma XI National Scientific Research Society, a consultant for National Geographic Magazine and for NASA, and a commentator for Outdoor Life Network. New York Magazine recognized him in 2002 as one of the best doctors in New York and he is listed in the Castle-Connolly guide to Top Doctors, as well as in Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and Who’s Who in America. He is the subject of a chapter in the book Biography Today: Medical leaders, and has been profiled in The New York Times, USA Today, US News & World Report and Readers Digest. His radio and television appearances include NPR’s Fresh Air, CBS 48 Hours, Fox News, NBC News, National Geographic, Discovery and History Channel. CNN featured him as an Extreme Medicine Pioneer. He appeared on ABC Nightline in the first ever, live interview from Everest base camp, and has been a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Dr. Kamler was recently honored at the National Boy Scout Jamboree as one of twenty of the Greatest Living Explorers.

He currently writes a monthly column for National Geographic Adventure Magazine and is a contributing editor for Popular Mechanics. He is the author of two books on the physiological and psychological effects of extreme environments, both based largely on his personal experiences: Doctor On Everest, published by Lyons Press, 2000 and Surviving The Extremes, published by St. Martin’s Press and Penguin Books, 2004.

Thomas D. Kirsch, MD, MPH, FACEP

Thomas D. Kirsch, MD, MPH, FACEP

Associate Professor and the Director of Operations

Department of Emergency Medicine

Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine

Co-Director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Deputy Director, Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response 

Baltimore, MD

Dr. Kirsch is an Associate Professor and the Director of Operations for the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine.  He is the co-Director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response (CRDR) in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR).

He has extensive disaster research and response experience, having served as the volunteer National Physician Advisor for the American Red Cross Disaster Health Services for the past 18 years.  He has also consulted on disaster-related issues for the World Health Organization, Unicef, the Centers for Disease Control, the United States Agency for International Development (Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance), and the Medical Reserve Corps.  He has been teaching on the topic of disaster preparedness and response for almost 20 years in the Hopkins School of Medicine and School of Public Health, other medical programs and as an invited lecturer around the country and globally.

Dr. Kirsch is the author of 35 scientific articles, dozens of abstract and 13 textbook chapters.  He has presented at numerous national and international disaster-related meetings, most recently including the 2009 Institute of Medicine disaster conference, 2009 Public Health Preparedness Summit, 2009 World Association of Disaster and Emergency Medicine conference, the 2008 American Public Health Association meeting and the 2008 Department of Homeland Security meeting on Community Resilience.  His recent research has focused on assessing the quality of disaster response and improving the medical and public health response capacity.  He is also the second editor of an international health textbook (

Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness

and is a reviewer for the

Annals of Emergency Medicine

from 1995-2000.

He received his BA from Creighton University, his MD from the University of Nebraska School of Medicine and a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.  He completed his clinical training in Emergency Medicine at the George Washington University/Georgetown University Combined Program in 1990.

Eric Johnson, MD

Eric Johnson, MD

Former President, Wilderness Medical Society

Director Emergency Services, Teton Valley Hospital    

Emergency Physician

Driggs, Idaho

Eric Johnson, M.D. is a Board Certified physician and Director of the Emergency Department at Teton Valley Hospital in Driggs, ID. Dr. Johnson graduated from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1984 and completed his internship and residency in Boise in 1985. He has practiced at St. Luke's Regional Medical Center in Boise and at St. Luke's Meridian Medical Center in Meridian.

An expert in wilderness medicine, Eric served as the President of the Wilderness Medicine Society from July 2006 to July 2008 and currently serves both as a chairperson and on the Executive Committee as Past President. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine.

An internationally renowned dive medicine specialist, hyperbaric physician, and NAUI instructor, Dr. Johnson is affiliated with the Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine and currently serves as a board member for the Himalayan Rescue Association – USA, where he also volunteered in 1998 and 2002.  In addition, Johnson is a pilot, climber, and enjoys multiple outdoor activities.

Geoffrey Ling, MD, PhD

Geoffrey Ling, MD, PhD

Dr. Ling is professor and vice-chairman of neurology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland, director of neuro critical care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in Washington, D.C. and attending neuro critical care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD.  He is an active duty Colonel in the U.S. Army.  He received his B.A. with honors from Washington University in St. Louis, his Ph.D. in pharmacology from Cornell University and his M.D. from Georgetown University.  He completed his internship and neurology residency at WRAMC and a clinical neuro critical care fellowship at Johns Hopkins.  He also did a research post-doctoral fellowship in neuropharmacology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.  He is board certified in both neurology and neuro critical care.

He is the only actively serving board certified neuro critical care specialist in the Dept of Defense (DoD) and the first for the U.S. Army.  In this capacity, he served in support of the Global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan (2003) with the 452nd Combat Support Hospital and in Baghdad, Iraq (2005) with the 86th and 10th Combat Support Hospitals.  

Dr. Ling has received numerous national awards and has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, reviews and book chapters, including the traumatic brain injury chapter in Cecil’s Textbook of Medicine, 23rd ed.  

COL Ling is also a program manager with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  His portfolio of research programs focuses on restoring injured warfighters, such as advanced prosthetics and explosive blast brain injury.  Other active efforts seek to optimize care in the austere environment of far forward military operations.  

He also serves on various national and international committees to include the Advisory Panel of NIH-NINDS (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke), NIH study sections and NIH PULSE (post-resuscitation and life saving efforts) committee on which he chaired the brain injury subcommittee.  He serves as co-chair of the VA-DoD Mild Brain Trauma Practice Guidelines committee and has served on several Veterans Administration (VA) Merit Review boards.  He is principle advisor and subject matter expert on brain injury to the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Marine Corps’ Warfighting Laboratory.

Tracey L. Knutson, Esq.

Tracey L. Knutson, Esq.

Adventure Travel legal expert, Anchorage, AK

Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee Representative

Practice focuses on recreation and adventure sport defense.

Tracey L. Knutson is a licensed attorney in Anchorage, Alaska whose primary practice involves working with recreation and adventure sports commercial operators, public land administrators and recreation oriented educational groups. An experienced trial lawyer, Tracey defends recreation companies and sports groups from liability claims, often negotiating pretrial conclusions that minimize time and expense. In addition, she provides risk management and training services.

Tracey's belief, when it comes to recreational endeavors, is that risk and opportunity exist simultaneously. Learning how to maximize the opportunities in your recreational endeavors by minimizing or mitigating the risks is a key component of operating a quality adventure sport or recreational endeavor or business.

Alan J. Magill MD, FACP, FIDSA

Alan J. Magill MD, FACP, FIDSA

COL / MC, US Army (retired)

Program Manager, Defense Science Office (DSO), Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency (DARPA)

Emeritus, Division of Experimental Therapeutics Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Associate Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, Uniformed Services University

President, International Society of Travel Medicine

Spring Field, Maryland

Dr. Alan J. Magill is the Director of the Division of Experimental Therapeutics, at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Silver Spring, Maryland. He also serves as the Research Coordinator for the Leishmania Research Program and the anti-Malaria Drug Research and Development Program for the Military Infectious Disease Research Program. He is a graduate of the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, entering the US Army in 1984. He completed residency training in Internal Medicine at the Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, and fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC in 1992. He then joined the Department of Immunology at the WRAIR as an infectious disease officer. In 1996 he became the Chief, Department of Parasitology, at the Naval Medical Research Center Detachment (NMRCD), Lima, Peru. He conducted clinical trials in the Peruvian Amazon Basin to support the development of new generation malaria diagnostics, vaccines and prophylactic anti-malarial drugs. He also conducted therapeutic efficacy trials that helped guide Peruvian national anti-malarial control policies. On return from Peru, he spent 2 years as the Head, Clinical Research, of the Malaria Vaccine Development Unit of the NIH before returning to the WRAIR in the fall of 2001. He has had extensive international research experience in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Current interests include the ethics and practicalities of clinical research in the developing world, translational clinical research for anti-malarial drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics and product development efforts for new diagnostic and therapeutic solutions for cutaneous leishmaniasis. He is an Attending Physician at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, President of the Clinical Group of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, President-Elect of the International Society of Travel Medicine, and an invited participant and speaker at numerous national and international meetings and courses. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland. He is the author of 55 peer-reviewed publications, over 85 abstracts, and 9 book chapters.

Martin T. Nweeia, DDS, DMD

Martin T. Nweeia, DDS, DMD

Clinical Instructor, Department of Restorative Dentistry and Biomaterials Sciences

Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA

Martin T. Nweeia, D.D.S., D.M.D. has lead seven expeditions to diverse locations including the Colombian Amazon, Ulithi Atoll in Micronesia and more recently High Arctic Expeditions to Baffin Island and Greenland. He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The National Geographic Society and Harvard University and was a graduate research fellow in physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Nweeia is currently a research associate in the Marine Mammal Program at the Smithsonian. His published works include research papers, lectures at international meetings, and the consumer guidebook, The Whole Tooth. As editor of three professional journals, Dr. Nweeia has won distinguished writing awards from the International College of Dentists, and the Academy of General Dentistry. For ten years, he was a dental columnist for Gannett-USA Today and a CBS health correspondent and a recipient of national media and community awards for his work from the Academy of General Dentistry.

Dr. Nweeia graduated from Trinity College, Hartford and Case School of Dental Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Dentists, the International College of Dentists, the Pierre Fauchard Academy, the Academy of Dentistry International and the Academy of General Dentistry. He is a national fellow of the Explorers Club, World Center for Exploration and has carried the "flag" on four expeditions. Dr. Nweeia practiced for twelve years in Honolulu, Hawaii, and currently practices in Sharon, Connecticut. He is Instructor in the Advanced Dental Rotation at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.

David R. Shlim, MD

David R. Shlim, MD

Medical Director, The CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Centre, Kathmandu, Nepal (1983 to 1998)

Medical Editor, Center for Disease Control’s Health Information for International Travel (The Yellow book)

Executive Board Member, Int’l Society of Travel Medicine Faculty       

Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

David R. Shlim, M.D. was the Medical Director of the CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Center in Kathmandu, Nepal from 1983 to 1998.  The CIWEC Clinic was the world’s first destination travel medicine clinic, and is still the busiest.  Dr. Shlim has published over 40 original papers in peer-reviewed journals on travel-related topics including the risks of trekking, rabies immunoprophylaxis, altitude-related problems, typhoid fever, hepatitis, Japanese encephalitis, the discovery of a new intestinal pathogen called Cyclospora, and numerous other papers on traveler’s diarrhea.

Dr. Shlim has been a Medical Editor of the Center for Disease Control’s Health Information for International Travel (The Yellow Book) since 2007.  He serves on the Executive Board of the International Society of Travel Medicine.  He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, the Journal of Travel Medicine, and High Altitude Medicine and Biology.  In October 2007 he became the first American to be named to the Travel Medicine Faculty of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow).

Dr. Shlim moved with his family to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 1998, where he still resides, and has a travel medicine practice.  He is the co-author, with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, of Medicine and Compassion: A Tibetan Lama’s Guidance for Caregivers (Wisdom Publications, 2004), and lectures frequently on the topic of training one’s capacity for compassion.

Stanley L. Spielman, MD

Stanley L. Spielman, MD

Chairman Emeritus

Southern Florida Explorers Club, Miami, FL

In 1964, Stanley L. Spielman, M.D. began his ophthalmology practice in Miami and the Florida Keys after completing his residency at Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia. He moved from Atlantic City to Miami on a charter fishing boat he designed and hand-built. In Miami, Stan joined the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute as a Clinical Professor instructing eye surgery.

Dr. Spielman has participated as a scientist and physician on 40 research cruises with the University of Miami. Specializing in the visual system of sharks, he performed underwater examinations and operations on the eyes of large live un-sedated sharks. He also produced a unique contact lens for refracting aquatic animals and developed a trauma kit for the University’s research vessels. He has presented lectures, “Prevention and Treatment of Shark Attack,” to hospital medical staffs and the Florida Medical Association.

Since 1971, Dr. Spielman has traveled to remote villages from the Amazon Basin to the New Guinea Highlands, providing eye care to tribal people. In March 2007, he joins the Cousteau expedition documenting effects of global warming in the Amazon Basin. He has been chairman of the Southern Florida Chapter of The Explorers Club, Inc. for the past seven years.

David A. Townes, MD, MPH, DTM&H

David A. Townes, MD, MPH, DTM&H

Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Emergency Medicine

Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Global Health

University of Washington School of Medicine

Seattle, Washington

Medical Epidemiologist

International Emergency and Refugee Health Branch

Center for Global Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Atlanta, Georgia

Dr. Townes received his medical degree from the University of Massachusetts and completed his internship and residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is Board Certified in Emergency Medicine. Dr. Townes completed a fellowship in International Emergency Medicine, earning a Master's Degree in Public Health, and has also attended the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the University of London.

Dr. Townes has worked in a variety of wilderness and international settings including Alaska, Antarctica, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Russia, the West Indies, and Yosemite National Park. In addition to his academic duties, he has been a physician volunteer for the National Ski Patrol, the search and rescue team at Yosemite National Park, and the Indian Health Service, and has served as the Medical Director for the Heartland AIDS Ride (2001), the Subaru Primal Quest Expedition Length Adventure Race (2002, 2003, 2004), and the Coastal Challenge (2005, 2006).

As a former member of the Board of Directors for the Wilderness Medical Society, Dr. Townes is a frequent speaker and author in the areas of Wilderness and Expedition medicine. He is currently an Associate Professor and the Associate Residency Program Director in the Division of Emergency Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington.

Richard S. Williams, MD, FACS

Chief Health and Medical Officer

NASA, Washington, DC

Dr. Williams serves as NASA’s Chief Health and Medical Officer and is responsible for the oversight of all medical aspects of all national and international NASA missions involving humans. A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, he is certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Preventive Medicine (Aerospace Medicine). He has extensive experience in the clinical practice of general surgery and aerospace medicine as well as in administrative medical management. He has held appointments as Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at Wright State University and Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery at the Medical College of Virginia. During his 27 year Air Force career, Dr. Williams served in a wide variety of settings as a clinical practitioner and medical leader, including command of medical units in contingency deployments. His military decorations and civilian honors include the Bronze Star Medal, the John R. Tamisea Award, the NASA Space Flight Safety Award, and the Melbourne C. Boynton Award. Dr. Williams is also an active instrument-rated private pilot with over 3000 hours flying single and multi-engine aircraft.

Kristin Larson, JD

Kristin Larson has been an Antarctican since 1988, serving the U.S. Antarctic Program in a variety of roles including winter and summer manager of the research laboratory at McMurdo Station, and later in the development and implementation of environmental policy. Recently she returned to her Antarctic haunts as a lecturer for guided trips to the South Pole and the Antarctic Peninsula region. Kristin has two degrees in science, a law degree and is past president of the Antarctican Society and is currently serving on the Board of Directors and Legal Committee of the Explorers Club. To honor her Antarctic achievements, “Kristin Peak” (located in Antarctica) was named for Ms. Larson in 2001.  Kristin currently resides in Washington DC where she is an environmental attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

Christian Macedonia, MD, FACOG

Dr. Christian Macedonia, MD FACOG is a US Army surgeon currently serving as the Chief of Research Operations at the Telemedicine and Advanced Technologies Research Center located on the campus of Fort Detrick, Maryland. Dr. Macedonia graduated with a chemistry degree from Bucknell University in 1985 and then served as an ambulance platoon leader in Goeppingen Germany for three years with the First Infantry Division. Upon returning to the US Dr. Macedonia attended medical school at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda Maryland graduating in 1992. Dr. Macedonia completed ob/gyn residency in 1996 and followed this training with a three-year fellowship at Georgetown University and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the advanced subspecialty of maternal-fetal medicine. It was through his training in Telemedicine at the NIH Center for Information Technology that Dr. Macedonia was introduced to a number of advanced technology projects dealing with medical care in remote and hostile environments. He became the medical primary investigator on Project MUSTPAC; a portable 3D ultrasound system that worked over satellite networks. This DARPA funded program became the functional model for networked 3D ultrasound systems used worldwide today. For this work he and his engineering partner were presented with the Discover Magazine Award for Science and Technology. Dr. Macedonia continued with telemedicine research far beyond 3D ultrasound. He served as a climb doctor and scientist on the NASA sponsored Everest Extreme Expeditions 1998 and 1999. As a fellow of the Explorer’s Club Lieutenant Colonel Macedonia has traveled the globe on a diverse series of research and educational missions including diving in a Mir submersible 12,800 ft to the ocean floor to the wreck of the RMS Titanic. Dr. Macedonia is an internationally recognized expert of fetal behavioral ultrasound pioneering the use of functional ultrasonic imaging for this purpose. Dr. Macedonia served as the Medical Director for Women’s and Children’s Health at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda before deploying to Iraq in late 2004. LTC Macedonia served for a year as the deputy commander (and Chief of the Clinical Staff) of

The 115th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq’s Anbar province where he was awarded the Bronze Star. Recently Dr. Macedonia was made a recipient of the Heroes of TRICARE award given to the Department of Defense’s most outstanding health professionals. Dr. Macedonia is an Associate Professor at Uniformed Services University where he remains active in ob/gyn, military and emergency medicine, and medical ethics instruction.

Jeri Mendelson, MD

Dr. Jeri Kersten Mendelson is a board-certified dermatologist. She began her professional career as a wildlife biologist with a degree from the University of Wyoming. Her wildlife jobs took her to Wyoming, northern Thailand and eastern Oregon where she worked as a big game biologist for the Ochoco National Forest.

After leaving the Forest Service she attended the University of Oregon where she received a Masters degree studying bat echolocation. It was at the U of O where she met her husband and for the next several years followed him to Northwestern University, University of Pittsburgh and finally to the University of Arkansas for his post doctoral training in neurophysiology and physical therapy. Along this journey she taught anatomy and physiology and general biology. She attended the University of Arkansas medical school and dermatology residency program while her husband ran a medical research lab and practiced physical therapy. Together, they raised two active Razorback-loving boys.

Dr. Mendelson is a certified Dermatologist, MD FAAD and currently practices in Medford. As a clinical associate professor at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), Dr. Mendelson also teaches dermatology to family practice residents during their rotations in the clinic. She has continued her educational interests by working with school groups and community organizations in sun/skin awareness programs. Jeri is a part time speaker and faculty member for the Wilderness Medicine Society.

James Marinucci

James Marinucci, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, has been involved in Emergency Medical Education for over fifteen years. He is currently Director of Emergency Medical Education Training Programs and Director of Wound Management Programs at The George Washington University Department of Emergency Medicine. He has organized and taught multiple seminars in trauma, acute and chronic wound management topics, corporate and personal emergency preparedness and prehospital emergency medical response for medical and non-medical personnel. He has organized and directed international projects in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He has also participated in various medical missions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Ethiopia, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. James Marinucci directed the Trauma Technology and Wound Management Program and has participated on the Trauma Team for fifteen years. He has served as both Director and Faculty Advisor for the Ronald Reagan Institute for Emergency Medicine’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program for the District of Columbia.

Nelson Tang MD, FACEP

Dr. Nelson Tang is a Board Certified Emergency Medicine physician who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Tang oversees the Division of Special Operations, a division that provides medical support for numerous programs in out-of-hospital environments both within the United States and around the world. In addition to his academic duties, Dr. Tang serves as the Medical Director for multiple federal and state law enforcement agencies including the United States Secret Service.

Michael VanRooyen MD, MPH

Dr. VanRooyen is a Board Certified Emergency Medicine physician and Co-Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Dr. VanRooyen has worked extensively in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in over thirty countries, including recent crises in Bosnia, Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, Congo, Honduras, and Iraq. He has considerable experience teaching in the field of disaster and humanitarian assistance and is widely published on these issues. His research interests focus on humanitarian practice and he is currently working with Physicians for Human Rights on the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Prior to joining the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Dr. VanRooyen was co-director of the Center for International Emergency, Disaster, and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins University, an associate professor and vice chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and a professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He holds academic degrees from Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the University of Illinois.

Eddie Frank

Eddie Frank, Founder & President,

Tusker Trail

Eddie Frank is an American born and raised in Africa. He founded Tusker Trail in 1977. Since then he has traveled through all but 3 of the countries on the African continent. Over the past 32 years he has built Tusker Trail into one of the leading adventure companies in the travel industry.

Eddie, as one of the world’s foremost Kilimanjaro experts, has developed Tusker Trail’s reputation as the most professional climbing company on Kilimanjaro. In his 32 years since founding Tusker Trail, he has crossed the Sahara Desert 34 times, and has climbed Kilimanjaro 36 times. He is a Wilderness First Responder and member of the Wilderness Medical Society. Specializing in high altitude, he has utilized a highly specialized high altitude medical training course which he personally conducts each year with Tusker Trail’s 20 Tanzanian mountain guides.

Currently he serves on the board of directors of the non-profit Uhuru Foundation, and the Uhuru Rural Bank, a new micro finance bank whose main mission is to alleviate poverty amongst villages in the rural Kilimanjaro region. He has also founded Doctors Out of Children (D.O.C), which plans to educate the children of Tusker Trail’s guides, and turn them into doctors, who will ultimately provide much needed medical care in their communities.

Luanne Freer, MD, FACEP

Dr. Luanne Freer is a board certified Emergency Medicine physician and expert in Wilderness and High Altitude Medicine. She has held numerous prestigious leadership positions including serving as the former President of the Wilderness Medical Society and currently as the Medical Director for the Yellowstone National Park. In addition to her medical work in the United States, Dr. Freer is the Founder and Director of the Everest Base Camp Medical Clinic in Nepal, a position she has held since the beginning of the clinic in 2003.

Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, FAAP

Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, FAAP

Distinguished Research Professor

President, Sabin Vaccine Institute

Walter G. Ross Professor and Chair

Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine

The George Washington University

Washington, DC

Peter J. Hotez is a Distinguished Research Professor and Walter G. Ross Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, & Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University. He is also President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, an affiliated non-profit research and advocacy organization. 

Dr. Hotez received a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry magna cum laude (phi beta kappa) from Yale University, a PhD from Rockefeller University, and a Doctorate in Medicine from Weill Cornell Medical College. He obtained pediatric residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and postdoctoral training at Yale University School of Medicine.  Dr. Hotez’s research focuses on vaccine development for parasitic diseases, with an emphasis on recombinant vaccines for hookworm and schistosomiasis. He is Director and Principal Investigator of Sabin Vaccine Development, a product development partnership supported by the Sabin Vaccine Institute. Dr. Hotez also has a strong policy interest to promote the control of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). In 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative, Dr. Hotez co-founded the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (GNNTD) with the mission to facilitate access to essential NTD medicines.

In 2007, Dr. Hotez became the founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases and he is currently the President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene. Dr. Hotez has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles as well as several books, including Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases (ASM Press).

Randall N. Hyer, MD, PhD, MPH

Born in Walnut Creek, California, Dr. Hyer graduated from Los Alamos High School in New Mexico in 1981. Appointed to the US Naval Academy, he graduated with distinction and served 12 years on active duty in the US Navy attaining the rank of Commander. After earning his medical degree from Duke University, Dr. Hyer served as the 40th Winter-Over Medical Officer with Operation DEEP FREEZE at McMurdo and South Pole Stations in Antarctica.  Trained in public health at Walter Reed and Harvard, Commander Hyer supported four major military operations in the European, African, and southwest Asian theatres including as Chief Public Health Advisor to General Clark for the Kosovo operations and Deputy Surgeon for the Mozambique flood relief operations. Dr. Hyer then served four years at Headquarters, World Health Organization in Geneva as Medical Officer, Alert and Response Operations and as the first Civil Military Liaison Officer where he helped institutionalize militaries' medical and logistical support to outbreak alert and response operations.  As part of WHO's outbreak alert and response team, he helped coordinate the global response to deadly outbreaks like anthrax, SARS and avian influenza as well as organize sea-based helicopter health assessment missions in Aceh Province, Indonesia, during the 2005 Tsunami response. Dr. Hyer earned the PhD from the University of Oxford, studying the molecular genetics of juvenile diabetes and helped prove the role of the insulin gene in disease susceptibility. At Oxford, he also founded the molecular biologics firm, "Alpha-Plus DNA". Later he was a Congressional Fellow for Senator Pete V. Domenici where he helped introduce legislation to safeguard genetic privacy known as The Genetic Confidentiality and Non-discrimination Act of 1996. Dr. Hyer is the co-founder of CrisisCommunication.NET and is the co-author of Effective Media Communication during Public Health Emergencies:  A WHO Handbook. Dr. Hyer has a keen interest in expeditions and expedition medicine and has advised NASA on health in extreme environments to include the International Space Station and long-duration space travel. In 1998, Dr. Hyer was selected as a Fellow of The Explorer's Club.

Howard Backer, MD

Howard Backer, MD

Dr. Howard Backer is currently Chief of the Immunization Branch, California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and leads pandemic influenza planning for CDPH.  He has served in special assignments as interim State Public Health Officer, and Special Consultant on Emergency Preparedness to the Director.  Dr. Backer is board certified in both Emergency Medicine and Public Health/General Preventive Medicine. Other areas of interest and expertise include travel medicine, international health, and medicine in remote areas. He joined the Division of Communicable Diseases, Immunization Branch, at the California Department of Health Services in 2000, after practicing medicine for 25 years in a variety of settings, including urban county hospitals, small resort communities, and community hospitals.  Prior to working at the state Health Department, Dr Backer worked for 16 years with The Kaiser Permanente Medical Group.  He attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, followed by an internship at Highland, Alameda County Hospital, and an Emergency Medicine residency at San Francisco General Hospital, later returning to UCSF for a residency in Preventive Medicine, including at MPH at UC Berkeley.  He is a past-president of the Wilderness Medical Society and Medical Consultant for Mountain Travel Sobek.

Michael V. Callahan, MD, DTM&H, MSPH

Michael V. Callahan, MD, DTM&H, MSPH

Program Manager for Biodefense and Mass Casuality Care

Defense Advanced Research Project Agency

Bethesda, Maryland

Dr. Michael Callahan is a Program Manager for Biodefense and Mass-Casualty Care at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and an Associate Physician at the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Current wilderness medicine activities include oversight of clinical research programs to protect U.S. military personnel during sustained, extreme operations, including projects in Rapid Altitude Acclimatization and Immune Hardening. Before joining DARPA, Dr Callahan was principal investigator for the S.E. Asian Polyvalent Antivenin Trial in Na Trang, Vietnam. He maintains disaster medicine billets with two international disaster response organizations.

Christina Catlett, MD, FACEP

Christina Catlett, MD, FACEP

Associate Director, The Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR)

Johns Hopkins Hospital

Baltimore, Maryland

Christina Catlett is a Board Certified Emergency Medicine physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.  Dr. Catlett received her undergraduate degree and MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following her residency in emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins in 1995, she joined the Johns Hopkins Department of Emergency Medicine faculty full time.

Dr. Catlett became the Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR) following the terrorist attacks in 2001. Dr. Catlett is responsible for coordinating disaster planning and response within the Hopkins health system and integrating those activities with federal, state, and local plans. She serves as the Director of the Johns Hopkins Go Team MRC (Hopkins’ deployable medical asset) and is a member of Maryland’s new Disaster Medical Assistance Team (MD-1 DMAT). Dr. Catlett has led disaster response teams to Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, and Rita, and most recently, to the Haiti earthquake. She has also led humanitarian missions to Central and South America.

Dr. Catlett’s interest in expedition medicine began in 2004 when she began climbing mountains, starting with Kilimanjaro in Africa.  In 2005, she was the physician for an expedition cruise ship traveling from Japan to Siberia, the Arctic Circle and Alaska.  In 2006, she was the Mt. Everest basecamp physician for the Adventure Consultants expedition. She provided helicopter search-and-rescue for the 2008 and 2009 UAE Desert Challenge, a 5-day 2000 km automotive race through the deserts of the Middle East, and medical support for the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2009.

Through the Department of Emergency Medicine’s Division of Special Operations, Dr. Catlett has provided personal medical support for President Carter in Africa (2002), Mr. Bill Gates in India (2002 and 2008), President George W. Bush in Africa (2008), and President Clinton in Haiti (2010).

Dr. Catlett has spoken both nationally and internationally on a variety of disaster and wilderness medicine topics. She has published articles in Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, JAMA, BMC Public Health, Prehospital Emergency Care, American Journal of Disaster Medicine, and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

Craig Cook, MD

Craig Cook, MD

Craig Cook, MD is the Medical Editor for Sport Diver Magazine and a referral physician for Divers Alert Network. With a background in Anesthesiology, Dr. Cook has been a consultant to the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other institutions as a diving medical officer on various expedition projects. An avid photographer, his photos have been published internationally. He is a scuba instructor and has been actively diving for 40 years.

Howard Donner, MD

Howard Donner, MD

Family and Emergency Medicine Physician,

San Francisco, CA

International Expedition Expert and National Speaker

Former NASA consultant

Co-author, Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine

Howard Donner is a Family Practice physician and a well-known expert in Wilderness Medicine. Dr. Donner served as an Expedition Physician on the 1988 Kangchenjunga Expedition, the 1997 NOVA Everest Expedition, and as a medical officer on the Denali Medical Research Project. As co-author of Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine, Dr. Donner is a frequent national lecturer and has provided medical support as a volunteer for the National Park Service. In addition to his medical expertise, Dr. Donner works as a commercial pilot and independent filmmaker.

Timothy B. Erickson, MD, FACEP, FAACT, FACMT

Timothy B. Erickson, MD, FACEP, FAACT, FACMT

Professor of Emergency Medicine

Director, Division of Medical Toxicology

Director, University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Global Health

Chicago, Illinois

Timothy B. Erickson, MD is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he serves as the Vice Chair for the Department of Emergency Medicine and Director of the Division of Clinical Toxicology. He is a Fellow in the American College of Emergency Physicians, American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, American College of Medical Toxicology, and National Geographic Explorers Club. Dr. Erickson has won numerous teaching awards including a national teaching award from the American College of Emergency Physicians and a “Speaker of the Year” award from the American College of Emergency Physicians Scientific Assembly.  Dr. Erickson has expedition and medical relief experience in Rwanda, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Kosovo, Chernobyl, Ukraine, Amazonian Brazil, Argentina, India, and Indonesia.

Eddie Frank

Eddie Frank, Founder & President,

Tusker Trail

Eddie Frank is an American born and raised in Africa. He founded Tusker Trail in 1977. Since then he has traveled through all but 3 of the countries on the African continent. Over the past 32 years he has built Tusker Trail into one of the leading adventure companies in the travel industry.

Eddie, as one of the world’s foremost Kilimanjaro experts, has developed Tusker Trail’s reputation as the most professional climbing company on Kilimanjaro. In his 32 years since founding Tusker Trail, he has crossed the Sahara Desert 34 times, and has climbed Kilimanjaro 36 times. He is a Wilderness First Responder and member of the Wilderness Medical Society. Specializing in high altitude, he has designed a highly specialized high altitude medical training course which he personally conducts each year with Tusker Trail’s 20 Tanzanian mountain guides.

Currently he serves on the board of directors of the non-profit Uhuru Foundation, and the Uhuru Rural Bank, a new micro finance bank whose main mission is to alleviate poverty amongst villages in the rural Kilimanjaro region. He has also founded Doctors Out of Children (D.O.C), which plans to educate the children of Tusker Trail’s guides, and turn them into doctors, who will ultimately provide much needed medical care in their communities.

Luanne Freer, MD, FACEP

Dr. Luanne Freer is a board certified Emergency Medicine physician and expert in Wilderness and High Altitude Medicine. She has held numerous prestigious leadership positions including serving as the former President of the Wilderness Medical Society and currently as the Medical Director for the Yellowstone National Park. In addition to her medical work in the United States, Dr. Freer is the Founder and Director of the Everest Base Camp Medical Clinic in Nepal, a position she has held since the beginning of the clinic in 2003.

Karen Van Hoeson, MD

Karen Van Hoeson, MD

Karen Van Hoesen, MD began her career as a certified diver at age 17. She became a NAUI diving instructor in 1983 and taught diving at UC Davis. Her interest in diving physiology and medicine prompted her to attend Duke University Medical School where she received her MD in 1988 and was involved with the Divers Alert Network and Hyperbaric Center at Duke. She completed her residency in Emergency Medicine at UCSD and then joined the faculty full time. She is currently a Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSD and is board certified in both Emergency Medicine and Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine. She is the director of the UCSD Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Fellowship and the UCSD Diving Medicine Center.

Dr. Van Hoesen has lectured nationally and internationally in all aspects of diving medicine and has published research articles and numerous book chapters on diving and hyperbaric medicine. She is often invited to speak at national conference on Wilderness Medicine and is an active member of the Wilderness Medical Society and the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.

Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, FAAP

Expedition Medicine Faculty Photo Peter Hotez, MD, Phd

Distinguished Research Professor

President, Sabin Vaccine Institute

Walter G. Ross Professor and Chair

Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine

The George Washington University

Washington, DC

Peter J. Hotez is a Distinguished Research Professor and Walter G. Ross Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, & Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University. He is also President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, an affiliated non-profit research and advocacy organization. 

Dr. Hotez received a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry magna cum laude (phi beta kappa) from Yale University, a PhD from Rockefeller University, and a Doctorate in Medicine from Weill Cornell Medical College. He obtained pediatric residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and postdoctoral training at Yale University School of Medicine.  Dr. Hotez’s research focuses on vaccine development for parasitic diseases, with an emphasis on recombinant vaccines for hookworm and schistosomiasis. He is Director and Principal Investigator of Sabin Vaccine Development, a product development partnership supported by the Sabin Vaccine Institute. Dr. Hotez also has a strong policy interest to promote the control of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). In 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative, Dr. Hotez co-founded the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (GNNTD) with the mission to facilitate access to essential NTD medicines.

In 2007, Dr. Hotez became the founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases and he is currently the President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene. Dr. Hotez has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles as well as several books, including Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases (ASM Press).

Randall N. Hyer, MD, PhD, MPH

Born in Walnut Creek, California, Dr. Hyer graduated from Los Alamos High School in New Mexico in 1981. Appointed to the US Naval Academy, he graduated with distinction and served 12 years on active duty in the US Navy attaining the rank of Commander. After earning his medical degree from Duke University, Dr. Hyer served as the 40th Winter-Over Medical Officer with Operation DEEP FREEZE at McMurdo and South Pole Stations in Antarctica.  Trained in public health at Walter Reed and Harvard, Commander Hyer supported four major military operations in the European, African, and southwest Asian theatres including as Chief Public Health Advisor to General Clark for the Kosovo operations and Deputy Surgeon for the Mozambique flood relief operations. Dr. Hyer then served four years at Headquarters, World Health Organization in Geneva as Medical Officer, Alert and Response Operations and as the first Civil Military Liaison Officer where he helped institutionalize militaries' medical and logistical support to outbreak alert and response operations.  As part of WHO's outbreak alert and response team, he helped coordinate the global response to deadly outbreaks like anthrax, SARS and avian influenza as well as organize sea-based helicopter health assessment missions in Aceh Province, Indonesia, during the 2005 Tsunami response. Dr. Hyer earned the PhD from the University of Oxford, studying the molecular genetics of juvenile diabetes and helped prove the role of the insulin gene in disease susceptibility. At Oxford, he also founded the molecular biologics firm, "Alpha-Plus DNA". Later he was a Congressional Fellow for Senator Pete V. Domenici where he helped introduce legislation to safeguard genetic privacy known as The Genetic Confidentiality and Non-discrimination Act of 1996. Dr. Hyer is the co-founder of CrisisCommunication.NET and is the co-author of Effective Media Communication during Public Health Emergencies:  A WHO Handbook. Dr. Hyer has a keen interest in expeditions and expedition medicine and has advised NASA on health in extreme environments to include the International Space Station and long-duration space travel. In 1998, Dr. Hyer was selected as a Fellow of The Explorer's Club.

 

Eric Johnson, MD

Former President, Wilderness Medical Society

Director Emergency Services, Teton Valley Hospital    

Emergency Physician

Driggs, Idaho

Eric Johnson, M.D. is a Board Certified physician and Director of the Emergency Department at Teton Valley Hospital in Driggs, ID. Dr. Johnson graduated from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1984 and completed his internship and residency in Boise in 1985. He has practiced at St. Luke's Regional Medical Center in Boise and at St. Luke's Meridian Medical Center in Meridian.

An expert in wilderness medicine, Eric served as the President of the Wilderness Medicine Society from July 2006 to July 2008 and currently serves both as a chairperson and on the Executive Committee as Past President. He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine.

An internationally renowned dive medicine specialist, hyperbaric physician, and NAUI instructor, Dr. Johnson is affiliated with the Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine and currently serves as a board member for the Himalayan Rescue Association – USA, where he also volunteered in 1998 and 2002.  In addition, Johnson is a pilot, climber, and enjoys multiple outdoor activities.

 

Joyce M. Johnson, DO, MA

Vice President, Health Sciences, Arlington, VA

Health and Life Sciences Division, Battelle

Former Surgeon General, United States Coast Guard

Joyce M. Johnson, DO, MA is Vice President, Health Sciences in the Health and Life Sciences Division of Battelle Memorial Institute in Arlington, Virginia. She joined Battelle in December 2003 upon her retirement from the U.S. Public Health Service (rear admiral, upper half). She had been assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, and functioned as the Coast Guard’s surgeon general. Her other government assignments included senior scientific and management positions with the Food and Drug Administration and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She has held clinical positions at the National Institute of Mental Health (St. Elizabeths Hospital) and with the Veterans Administration. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she was an Epidemiologic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer and staff epidemiologist in the Center for Infectious Disease and one of the first epidemiologists to study AIDS.

Dr. Johnson has extensive international health experience, and has provided consultation or clinical care on all seven continents. She has particular medical interests in emergency preparedness, third world health care, and health systems development. During the summer, 2006, she served as Project Hope’s chief medical officer aboard the USNS Mercy, for humanitarian assistance in Indonesia and Timor Leste. At various times, she has been a medical volunteer with DoCare to Haiti, Peru, Guatemala and Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. She is a consultant to the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, focusing on the Antarctic.

Dr. Johnson is a physician board certified in three specialties – Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Clinical Pharmacology and Psychiatry. She is a Certified Addiction Specialist and Certified Food Service Executive. In addition to her medical degree, she earned a master’s degree in Hospital and Health Administration. She was conferred honorary Doctor of Public Service, Doctor of Science and Doctor of Fine Arts degrees.

Dr. Johnson writes the regular Ask the Doctor column for the Military Officer Magazine and recently completed editing the book, The Ship’s Medical Chest and Medical Aid at Sea. She serves on the Explorer’s Club Expedition Medicine Advisory Council and the TriWest HealthCare Alliance Executive Advisory Board, and is a member of the Cosmos Club. She has served on the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Board of Trustees. She is on the Georgetown University School of Medicine adjunct faculty and is active in many professional associations.

Dr. Johnson is married to Jim Calderwood, an attorney in private practice. They have one son, James, a high school student. They reside in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

 

Kenneth M. Kamler, MD

Expedition Physician, NY,

Vice President of The Explorers Club

Author NYT best sellers Doctor on Everest and

Surviving the Extremes

Kenneth Kamler, M.D. is a micro-surgeon trained at Columbia Presbyterian Medical center who practices surgery of the hand in New York but practices extreme medicine in some of the most remote regions on earth. He has treated bear bite in the Arctic and frostbite in the Antarctic. He has set fractures in the Andes and cared for out-of-breath scuba divers in the Galapagos. He has performed surgery deep in the Amazon rain forest and in an undersea mock space capsule. He has been on six expeditions to Mount Everest as expedition doctor and climber. Four were with the National Geographic Society deploying laser telescopes and global positioning satellite receivers to measure the exact height of Everest as well as the tectonic motion of the Asian continental plate. On his two most recent expeditions to Everest, he served as Chief High Altitude Physician for NASA-sponsored research on human physiological responses to extreme altitude, and monitored remote body sensors worn by climbers to provide real-time medical data as they ascended the mountain. Dr. Kamler himself has climbed to within 900 feet of the summit of Everest and was the only doctor, high on the mountain, during the infamous 1996 storm that claimed twelve lives. His treatment of the survivors was portrayed in the best-selling book, Into Thin Air, and in the IMAX film, Everest.

Dr. Kamler is Vice President of The Explorers Club, a member of the Sigma XI National Scientific Research Society, a consultant for National Geographic Magazine and for NASA, and a commentator for Outdoor Life Network. New York Magazine recognized him in 2002 as one of the best doctors in New York and he is listed in the Castle-Connolly guide to Top Doctors, as well as in Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and Who’s Who in America. He is the subject of a chapter in the book Biography Today: Medical leaders, and has been profiled in The New York Times, USA Today, US News & World Report and Readers Digest. His radio and television appearances include NPR’s Fresh Air, CBS 48 Hours, Fox News, NBC News, National Geographic, Discovery and History Channel. CNN featured him as an Extreme Medicine Pioneer. He appeared on ABC Nightline in the first ever, live interview from Everest base camp, and has been a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Dr. Kamler was recently honored at the National Boy Scout Jamboree as one of twenty of the Greatest Living Explorers.

He currently writes a monthly column for National Geographic Adventure Magazine and is a contributing editor for Popular Mechanics. He is the author of two books on the physiological and psychological effects of extreme environments, both based largely on his personal experiences: Doctor On Everest, published by Lyons Press, 2000 and Surviving The Extremes, published by St. Martin’s Press and Penguin Books, 2004.

 

Thomas D. Kirsch, MD, MPH, FACEP

Associate Professor and the Director of Operations

Department of Emergency Medicine

Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine

Co-Director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Deputy Director, Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response 

Baltimore, MD

Dr. Kirsch is an Associate Professor and the Director of Operations for the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine.He is the co-Director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response (CRDR) in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response (CEPAR).

He has extensive disaster research and response experience, having served as the volunteer National Physician Advisor for the American Red Cross Disaster Health Services for the past 18 years.He has also consulted on disaster-related issues for the World Health Organization, Unicef, the Centers for Disease Control, the United States Agency for International Development (Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance), and the Medical Reserve Corps. He has been teaching on the topic of disaster preparedness and response for almost 20 years in the Hopkins School of Medicine and School of Public Health, other medical programs and as an invited lecturer around the country and globally.

Dr. Kirsch is the author of 35 scientific articles, dozens of abstract and 13 textbook chapters.He has presented at numerous national and international disaster-related meetings, most recently including the 2009 Institute of Medicine disaster conference, 2009 Public Health Preparedness Summit, 2009 World Association of Disaster and Emergency Medicine conference, the 2008 American Public Health Association meeting and the 2008 Department of Homeland Security meeting on Community Resilience.His recent research has focused on assessing the quality of disaster response and improving the medical and public health response capacity.He is also the second editor of an international health textbook (Emergent Field Medicine).He serves on the Editorial Board for the American Medical Association’s journal, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness and is a reviewer for the Annals of Emergency Medicine and was the editor of the international section of the Annals of Emergency Medicine from 1995-2000.

He received his BA from Creighton University, his MD from the University of Nebraska School of Medicine and a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.He completed his clinical training in Emergency Medicine at the George Washington University/Georgetown University Combined Program in 1990.

 

Tracey L. Knutson, Esq.

Adventure Travel legal expert, Anchorage, AK

Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee Representative

Practice focuses on recreation and adventure sport defense.

Tracey L. Knutson is a licensed attorney in Anchorage, Alaska whose primary practice involves working with recreation and adventure sports commercial operators, public land administrators and recreation oriented educational groups. An experienced trial lawyer, Tracey defends recreation companies and sports groups from liability claims, often negotiating pretrial conclusions that minimize time and expense. In addition, she provides risk management and training services.

Tracey's belief, when it comes to recreational endeavors, is that risk and opportunity exist simultaneously. Learning how to maximize the opportunities in your recreational endeavors by minimizing or mitigating the risks is a key component of operating a quality adventure sport or recreational endeavor or business.

Kristin Larson, JD

Kristin Larson has been an Antarctican since 1988, serving the U.S. Antarctic Program in a variety of roles including winter and summer manager of the research laboratory at McMurdo Station, and later in the development and implementation of environmental policy. Recently she returned to her Antarctic haunts as a lecturer for guided trips to the South Pole and the Antarctic Peninsula region. Kristin has two degrees in science, a law degree and is past president of the Antarctican Society and is currently serving on the Board of Directors and Legal Committee of the Explorers Club. To honor her Antarctic achievements, “Kristin Peak” (located in Antarctica) was named for Ms. Larson in 2001.  Kristin currently resides in Washington DC where she is an environmental attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

 

Geoffrey Ling, MD, PhD

Dr. Ling is professor and vice-chairman of neurology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland, director of neuro critical care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in Washington, D.C. and attending neuro critical care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD.  He is an active duty Colonel in the U.S. Army.  He received his B.A. with honors from Washington University in St. Louis, his Ph.D. in pharmacology from Cornell University and his M.D. from Georgetown University.  He completed his internship and neurology residency at WRAMC and a clinical neuro critical care fellowship at Johns Hopkins.  He also did a research post-doctoral fellowship in neuropharmacology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.  He is board certified in both neurology and neuro critical care.

He is the only actively serving board certified neuro critical care specialist in the Dept of Defense (DoD) and the first for the U.S. Army.  In this capacity, he served in support of the Global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan (2003) with the 452nd Combat Support Hospital and in Baghdad, Iraq (2005) with the 86th and 10th Combat Support Hospitals.  

Dr. Ling has received numerous national awards and has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, reviews and book chapters, including the traumatic brain injury chapter in Cecil’s Textbook of Medicine, 23rd ed.  

COL Ling is also a program manager with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  His portfolio of research programs focuses on restoring injured warfighters, such as advanced prosthetics and explosive blast brain injury.  Other active efforts seek to optimize care in the austere environment of far forward military operations.  

He also serves on various national and international committees to include the Advisory Panel of NIH-NINDS (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke), NIH study sections and NIH PULSE (post-resuscitation and life saving efforts) committee on which he chaired the brain injury subcommittee.  He serves as co-chair of the VA-DoD Mild Brain Trauma Practice Guidelines committee and has served on several Veterans Administration (VA) Merit Review boards.  He is principle advisor and subject matter expert on brain injury to the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Marine Corps’ Warfighting Laboratory.

 

Christian Macedonia, MD, FACOG

Dr. Christian Macedonia, MD FACOG is a US Army surgeon currently serving as the Chief of Research Operations at the Telemedicine and Advanced Technologies Research Center located on the campus of Fort Detrick, Maryland. Dr. Macedonia graduated with a chemistry degree from Bucknell University in 1985 and then served as an ambulance platoon leader in Goeppingen Germany for three years with the First Infantry Division. Upon returning to the US Dr. Macedonia attended medical school at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda Maryland graduating in 1992. Dr. Macedonia completed ob/gyn residency in 1996 and followed this training with a three-year fellowship at Georgetown University and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the advanced subspecialty of maternal-fetal medicine. It was through his training in Telemedicine at the NIH Center for Information Technology that Dr. Macedonia was introduced to a number of advanced technology projects dealing with medical care in remote and hostile environments. He became the medical primary investigator on Project MUSTPAC; a portable 3D ultrasound system that worked over satellite networks. This DARPA funded program became the functional model for networked 3D ultrasound systems used worldwide today. For this work he and his engineering partner were presented with the Discover Magazine Award for Science and Technology. Dr. Macedonia continued with telemedicine research far beyond 3D ultrasound. He served as a climb doctor and scientist on the NASA sponsored Everest Extreme Expeditions 1998 and 1999. As a fellow of the Explorer’s Club Lieutenant Colonel Macedonia has traveled the globe on a diverse series of research and educational missions including diving in a Mir submersible 12,800 ft to the ocean floor to the wreck of the RMS Titanic. Dr. Macedonia is an internationally recognized expert of fetal behavioral ultrasound pioneering the use of functional ultrasonic imaging for this purpose. Dr. Macedonia served as the Medical Director for Women’s and Children’s Health at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda before deploying to Iraq in late 2004. LTC Macedonia served for a year as the deputy commander (and Chief of the Clinical Staff) of

The 115th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq’s Anbar province where he was awarded the Bronze Star. Recently Dr. Macedonia was made a recipient of the Heroes of TRICARE award given to the Department of Defense’s most outstanding health professionals. Dr. Macedonia is an Associate Professor at Uniformed Services University where he remains active in ob/gyn, military and emergency medicine, and medical ethics instruction.

 

Alan J. Magill MD, FACP, FIDSA

COL / MC, US Army (retired)

Program Manager, Defense Science Office (DSO), Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency (DARPA)

Emeritus, Division of Experimental Therapeutics Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Associate Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, Uniformed Services University

President, International Society of Travel Medicine

Spring Field, Maryland

Dr. Alan J. Magill is the Director of the Division of Experimental Therapeutics, at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Silver Spring, Maryland. He also serves as the Research Coordinator for the Leishmania Research Program and the anti-Malaria Drug Research and Development Program for the Military Infectious Disease Research Program. He is a graduate of the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, entering the US Army in 1984. He completed residency training in Internal Medicine at the Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, and fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC in 1992. He then joined the Department of Immunology at the WRAIR as an infectious disease officer. In 1996 he became the Chief, Department of Parasitology, at the Naval Medical Research Center Detachment (NMRCD), Lima, Peru. He conducted clinical trials in the Peruvian Amazon Basin to support the development of new generation malaria diagnostics, vaccines and prophylactic anti-malarial drugs. He also conducted therapeutic efficacy trials that helped guide Peruvian national anti-malarial control policies. On return from Peru, he spent 2 years as the Head, Clinical Research, of the Malaria Vaccine Development Unit of the NIH before returning to the WRAIR in the fall of 2001. He has had extensive international research experience in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Current interests include the ethics and practicalities of clinical research in the developing world, translational clinical research for anti-malarial drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics and product development efforts for new diagnostic and therapeutic solutions for cutaneous leishmaniasis. He is an Attending Physician at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, President of the Clinical Group of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, President-Elect of the International Society of Travel Medicine, and an invited participant and speaker at numerous national and international meetings and courses. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland. He is the author of 55 peer-reviewed publications, over 85 abstracts, and 9 book chapters.

James Marinucci

James Marinucci, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, has been involved in Emergency Medical Education for over fifteen years. He is currently Director of Emergency Medical Education Training Programs and Director of Wound Management Programs at The George Washington University Department of Emergency Medicine. He has organized and taught multiple seminars in trauma, acute and chronic wound management topics, corporate and personal emergency preparedness and prehospital emergency medical response for medical and non-medical personnel. He has organized and directed international projects in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He has also participated in various medical missions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Ethiopia, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. James Marinucci directed the Trauma Technology and Wound Management Program and has participated on the Trauma Team for fifteen years. He has served as both Director and Faculty Advisor for the Ronald Reagan Institute for Emergency Medicine’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program for the District of Columbia.

 

Jeri Mendelson, MD

Dr. Jeri Kersten Mendelson is a board-certified dermatologist. She began her professional career as a wildlife biologist with a degree from the University of Wyoming. Her wildlife jobs took her to Wyoming, northern Thailand and eastern Oregon where she worked as a big game biologist for the Ochoco National Forest.

After leaving the Forest Service she attended the University of Oregon where she received a Masters degree studying bat echolocation. It was at the U of O where she met her husband and for the next several years followed him to Northwestern University, University of Pittsburgh and finally to the University of Arkansas for his post doctoral training in neurophysiology and physical therapy. Along this journey she taught anatomy and physiology and general biology. She attended the University of Arkansas medical school and dermatology residency program while her husband ran a medical research lab and practiced physical therapy. Together, they raised two active Razorback-loving boys.

Dr. Mendelson is a certified Dermatologist, MD FAAD and currently practices in Medford. As a clinical associate professor at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), Dr. Mendelson also teaches dermatology to family practice residents during their rotations in the clinic. She has continued her educational interests by working with school groups and community organizations in sun/skin awareness programs. Jeri is a part time speaker and faculty member for the Wilderness Medicine Society.

 

Martin T. Nweeia, DDS, DMD

Clinical Instructor, Department of Restorative Dentistry and Biomaterials Sciences

Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA

Martin T. Nweeia, D.D.S., D.M.D. has lead seven expeditions to diverse locations including the Colombian Amazon, Ulithi Atoll in Micronesia and more recently High Arctic Expeditions to Baffin Island and Greenland. He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The National Geographic Society and Harvard University and was a graduate research fellow in physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Nweeia is currently a research associate in the Marine Mammal Program at the Smithsonian. His published works include research papers, lectures at international meetings, and the consumer guidebook, The Whole Tooth. As editor of three professional journals, Dr. Nweeia has won distinguished writing awards from the International College of Dentists, and the Academy of General Dentistry. For ten years, he was a dental columnist for Gannett-USA Today and a CBS health correspondent and a recipient of national media and community awards for his work from the Academy of General Dentistry.

Dr. Nweeia graduated from Trinity College, Hartford and Case School of Dental Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Dentists, the International College of Dentists, the Pierre Fauchard Academy, the Academy of Dentistry International and the Academy of General Dentistry. He is a national fellow of the Explorers Club, World Center for Exploration and has carried the "flag" on four expeditions. Dr. Nweeia practiced for twelve years in Honolulu, Hawaii, and currently practices in Sharon, Connecticut. He is Instructor in the Advanced Dental Rotation at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.

 

David R. Shlim, MD

Medical Director, The CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Centre, Kathmandu, Nepal (1983 to 1998)

Medical Editor, Center for Disease Control’s Health Information for International Travel (The Yellow book)

Executive Board Member, Int’l Society of Travel Medicine Faculty       

Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

David R. Shlim, M.D. was the Medical Director of the CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Center in Kathmandu, Nepal from 1983 to 1998.  The CIWEC Clinic was the world’s first destination travel medicine clinic, and is still the busiest.  Dr. Shlim has published over 40 original papers in peer-reviewed journals on travel-related topics including the risks of trekking, rabies immunoprophylaxis, altitude-related problems, typhoid fever, hepatitis, Japanese encephalitis, the discovery of a new intestinal pathogen called Cyclospora, and numerous other papers on traveler’s diarrhea.

Dr. Shlim has been a Medical Editor of the Center for Disease Control’s Health Information for International Travel (The Yellow Book) since 2007.  He serves on the Executive Board of the International Society of Travel Medicine.  He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, the Journal of Travel Medicine, and High Altitude Medicine and Biology.  In October 2007 he became the first American to be named to the Travel Medicine Faculty of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow).

Dr. Shlim moved with his family to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 1998, where he still resides, and has a travel medicine practice.  He is the co-author, with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, of Medicine and Compassion: A Tibetan Lama’s Guidance for Caregivers (Wisdom Publications, 2004), and lectures frequently on the topic of training one’s capacity for compassion.

 

Stanley L. Spielman, MD

Chairman Emeritus

Southern Florida Explorers Club, Miami, FL

In 1964, Stanley L. Spielman, M.D. began his ophthalmology practice in Miami and the Florida Keys after completing his residency at Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia. He moved from Atlantic City to Miami on a charter fishing boat he designed and hand-built. In Miami, Stan joined the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute as a Clinical Professor instructing eye surgery.

Dr. Spielman has participated as a scientist and physician on 40 research cruises with the University of Miami. Specializing in the visual system of sharks, he performed underwater examinations and operations on the eyes of large live un-sedated sharks. He also produced a unique contact lens for refracting aquatic animals and developed a trauma kit for the University’s research vessels. He has presented lectures, “Prevention and Treatment of Shark Attack,” to hospital medical staffs and the Florida Medical Association.

Since 1971, Dr. Spielman has traveled to remote villages from the Amazon Basin to the New Guinea Highlands, providing eye care to tribal people. In March 2007, he joins the Cousteau expedition documenting effects of global warming in the Amazon Basin. He has been chairman of the Southern Florida Chapter of The Explorers Club, Inc. for the past seven years.

 

Nelson Tang MD, FACEP

Dr. Nelson Tang is a Board Certified Emergency Medicine physician who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Tang oversees the Division of Special Operations, a division that provides medical support for numerous programs in out-of-hospital environments both within the United States and around the world. In addition to his academic duties, Dr. Tang serves as the Medical Director for multiple federal and state law enforcement agencies including the United States Secret Service.

 

David A. Townes, MD, MPH, DTM&H

Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Emergency Medicine

Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Global Health

University of Washington School of Medicine

Seattle, Washington

Medical Epidemiologist

International Emergency and Refugee Health Branch

Center for Global Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Atlanta, Georgia

Dr. Townes received his medical degree from the University of Massachusetts and completed his internship and residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is Board Certified in Emergency Medicine. Dr. Townes completed a fellowship in International Emergency Medicine, earning a Master's Degree in Public Health, and has also attended the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the University of London.

Dr. Townes has worked in a variety of wilderness and international settings including Alaska, Antarctica, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Russia, the West Indies, and Yosemite National Park. In addition to his academic duties, he has been a physician volunteer for the National Ski Patrol, the search and rescue team at Yosemite National Park, and the Indian Health Service, and has served as the Medical Director for the Heartland AIDS Ride (2001), the Subaru Primal Quest Expedition Length Adventure Race (2002, 2003, 2004), and the Coastal Challenge (2005, 2006).

As a former member of the Board of Directors for the Wilderness Medical Society, Dr. Townes is a frequent speaker and author in the areas of Wilderness and Expedition medicine. He is currently an Associate Professor and the Associate Residency Program Director in the Division of Emergency Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington.

 

David A Warrell, MA, DM, DSc, FRCP, FRCPE

Professor of Tropical Medicine and

Honorary Fellow of St. Cross College

University of Oxford, London, England, UK

David Warrell is now Emeritus Professor of Tropical Medicine and Honorary Fellow of St. Cross College at the University of Oxford, UK. After training at Oxford, St Thomas’s Hospital and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London, UK, he has lived and worked as a physician, teacher, researcher and expedition doctor in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. He is senior editor of the Oxford Textbook of Medicine and Essential Malariology and the Oxford Handbook of Expedition and Wilderness Medicine and has published more than 400 research papers and textbook chapters on malaria, rabies, relapsing fevers and other infectious and tropical diseases, comparative respiratory physiology, respiratory diseases, herpetology, venomous animals, envenoming and plant and chemical poisoning. He is a consultant to the World Health Organization (on malaria, rabies, snake bites, antivenom production), British Army, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Medical Research Council, Royal Geographical Society, Zoological Society of London and Earth Watch International. He is a past President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and International Federation for Tropical Medicine and Honorary Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ceylon College of Physicians.

 

Michael VanRooyen MD, MPH

Dr. VanRooyen is a Board Certified Emergency Medicine physician and Co-Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Dr. VanRooyen has worked extensively in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in over thirty countries, including recent crises in Bosnia, Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, Congo, Honduras, and Iraq. He has considerable experience teaching in the field of disaster and humanitarian assistance and is widely published on these issues. His research interests focus on humanitarian practice and he is currently working with Physicians for Human Rights on the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Prior to joining the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Dr. VanRooyen was co-director of the Center for International Emergency, Disaster, and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins University, an associate professor and vice chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and a professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He holds academic degrees from Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the University of Illinois.

 

Richard S. Williams, MD, FACS

Chief Health and Medical Officer

NASA, Washington, DC

Dr. Williams serves as NASA’s Chief Health and Medical Officer and is responsible for the oversight of all medical aspects of all national and international NASA missions involving humans. A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, he is certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Preventive Medicine (Aerospace Medicine). He has extensive experience in the clinical practice of general surgery and aerospace medicine as well as in administrative medical management. He has held appointments as Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at Wright State University and Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery at the Medical College of Virginia. During his 27 year Air Force career, Dr. Williams served in a wide variety of settings as a clinical practitioner and medical leader, including command of medical units in contingency deployments. His military decorations and civilian honors include the Bronze Star Medal, the John R. Tamisea Award, the NASA Space Flight Safety Award, and the Melbourne C. Boynton Award. Dr. Williams is also an active instrument-rated private pilot with over 3000 hours flying single and multi-engine aircraft.

 

Will Smith, MD, Paramedic

Medical Director, Grand Teton National Park, Teton County Search and Rescue, Jackson Hole Fire/EMS, NPS-SE AZ Group, USFS-BTNF
Clinical Faculty, University of Washington School of Medicine
Emergency Medicine, St. John’s Medical Center, Jackson, WY

Lt. Colonel, MC, US Army Reserve - 62A (Emergency Medicine)

Dr. Smith practices Emergency Medicine in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and is clinical WWAMI faculty for the University of Washington School of Medicine, as well as the Medical Director for the US National Park Service.  Locally, he serves as the Co-Medical Director for Grand Teton National Park, Teton County Search & Rescue, Bridger Teton National Forest, and Jackson Hole Fire/EMS.  Dr. Smith also serves as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps, recently completing his 3rd Middle East deployment.  LTC Smith has practiced medicine around the world on 6 continents, from the 'Baghdad ER' to Easter Island.  His combat experience combined with his pre-hospital EMS experience as a Paramedic, and his technical Search and Rescue skills have lead to numerous speaking engagements at Wilderness and EMS conferences/seminars around the world. Dr. Smith has also been appointed to several national committees (American Heart Association), authored numerous book chapters and consensus guidelines on Wilderness and Rescue Medicine, and serves as a Subject Matter Expert for DARPA. He has founded and runs Wilderness and Emergency Medicine Consulting (WEMC), LLC. More information can be found at www.wildernessdoc.com .