20TH ANNUAL GLOBAL HEALTH SYMPOSIUM: April 8, 2025

DR. JAMES CONWAY, EMCEE

DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF GLOBAL HEALTH, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Dr. James Conway is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine & Public Health, where he serves as Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program Director and Director of the Office of Global Health, as well as Medical Director for UW Health Immunization Programs. He is responsible for coordinating global health educational programs involving health professional students at UW-Madison, and oversight of international programs in the UW School of Medicine & Public Health.

Dr. Conway has spent much of his career working to improve immunization systems and address vaccine hesitancy in the US and abroad.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, where he serves as a Global Sustainability advisor, and received an AAP Special Achievement Award in 2009 for his global immunization projects and another in 2016 for HPV advocacy. He is a member of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society Vaccine Advocacy Committee and has served on the American Board of Pediatrics- SubBoard of Pediatric Infectious Diseases since 2018 and elected Chair for 2022-23.

His most recent project involves serving as a Technical and Global Sustainability Advisor for a collaborative program between the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers of Disease Control, working to simultaneously strengthen pediatric professional societies and immunization programs in over a dozen high priority countries in Africa and Asia.

DR. JENNIFER KUSHNER, KEYNOTE PRESENTER

DIRECTOR, CALS GLOBAL, COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL AND LIFE SCIENCES

Dr. Jennifer Kushner is the Director of CALS Global at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she leads and supports international engagement in agriculture and the life sciences. Prior to joining CALS, she was a state specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension from 2007-2018.  

For the past thirty years she has led and evaluated US-based and global initiatives related to agriculture, the environment, and health.  She specializes in systems approaches to complex issues, with focused work in water. She holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural sciences, and a master’s degree in adult education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a doctorate in adult education from National-Louis University. Dr. Kushner is a member of APLU’s International Committee on Organization and Policy (ICOP) Executive Committee and the Globalizing Extension Innovation Network’s Council.

DR. JORGE OSORIO, FIRESIDE CHAT MODERATOR

DIRECTOR, GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE

Jorge Osorio, DVM, Ph.D., M.S., is a Professor in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine. He has had a lengthy career in medical sciences, including virology, field epidemiological studies, vaccinology, antivirals and vector control programs.

Osorio is also the Co-director of a Colombia-Wisconsin One Health Consortium, a joint effort between the University of Wisconsin and Universidad Nacional in Colombia that is studying emerging diseases and one-health issues.

He also founded VaxThera, a Colombian-based company that will produce vaccines and biologicals for Colombia and the region. He was also a co-founder and chief Scientific officer of Inviragen, a biotechnology company that developed a novel chimeric tetravalent dengue vaccine that recently completed successfully Phase 3 clinical trials. He also developed vaccines against chikungunya, influenza, rabies, plague and many other emerging infectious diseases.

Osorio also has served as Vice President of Research and Vice President of Government Affairs for the Vaccine Business Division of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. His industry career also included positions at Heska Corporation (Ft. Collins, Colorado), Merial LTD (Athens, Georgia), and Chiron-Powderject Vaccines (Madison, Wisconsin). He has more than 30 years of research and industry experience with more than 130 scientific publications in international journals and 32 patents.

MRS. SUCHITRA ELLA

CO-FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR, BHARAT BIOTECH

Mrs. Suchitra Ella is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech, which she co-founded with Dr. Krishna Ella in 1996. With experience in customer operations, finance, marketing and business development, Ella is a strong pillar of support and guidance at Bharat, overseeing a wide range of operations in the company. She is also the Chairperson of CII – Southern Region and Indian Women Network. She serves on the Boards of ISB Well Wisher’s Trust and United Way Hyderabad — an International Charity Partner focused on social empowerment in local communities with focus on livelihoods, health and education. Ella strongly believes in corporate citizenship and social responsibility and spearheads the CSR initiatives of the company. Ella holds a BA in Economics and Social Sciences from the University of Madras, as well as a diploma in business development from UWCU—Madison, a diploma in real estate management from University of South Carolina and post-graduate diploma in patent law from NALSAR—Hyderabad.

DR. EYAL FRANK

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO HARRIS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

Dr. Eyal Frank is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. As an environmental economist, he works at the intersection of ecology and economics. His work addresses three broad questions: (i) how do natural inputs, namely animals, contribute to different production functions of interest, (ii) how do market dynamics reduce natural habitats and lead to declining wildlife population levels, and (iii) what are the costs, indirect ones in particular, of conservation policies. 

These areas of research present a causal inference challenge as manipulating ecosystems and species at large scales is often infeasible. In his work, Frank draws natural experiments from ecology and policy, and uses econometric techniques to estimate different pieces of the puzzle regarding the social cost of biodiversity losses. 

Prior to the University of Chicago, Frank was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from Columbia University, and earned his M.A. in Economics and B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences and Economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

DR. BRUCE KLEIN

TENURED PROFESSOR AND CHIEF, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, DEPARTMENT OF PEDIATRICS, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

Dr. Bruce Klein, tenured professor and chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, has an abiding commitment to service. He has served as the division leader of infectious diseases for over two decades. He held leadership roles in pediatrics as vice chair for research for several years. Klein is committed to faculty career development and has served on tenure and promotion committees, chairing both the university’s divisional committee on biological sciences and the medical school’s committee on promotion to professor. Other notable campus service activities have included membership on the University Athletic Board at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. At the national level, he served his research community in leadership roles including at the American Society for Microbiology, Medical Mycology, Gordon Research Conference on Immunology of Fungal Infections, and finally, as charter member on multiple NIH study section, including service as chair.

Klein has an affiliate appointment in the Department of Medicine and a joint appointment in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology.

DR. TONIE ROCKE

RESEARCH EPIDEMIOLOGIST, NATIONAL WILDLIFE HEALTH CENTER

Tonie Rocke, M.S., Ph.D. is a research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center, Madison, Wisconsin. She has contributed knowledge and management tools for a variety of wildlife health issues in numerous species, including avian botulism and lead poisoning in wild waterfowl, sylvatic plague (Yersinis pestis) in black-footed ferrets and prairie dogs, rabies in vampire bats, and most recently, white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has decimated populations of insectivorous bats throughout the US and Canada.

Rocke is developing and applying novel methods to mass vaccinate wild animals against disease and has led large, intensive and multi-agency field efficacy studies, including bait-delivered sylvatic plague vaccine to prevent disease in prairie dogs and oro-topical application of vaccine to bats to mitigate white-nose syndrome and rabies. She is regularly consulted on vaccination of endangered species, e.g. black-footed ferrets for plague and SARS-CoV-2, and highly pathogenic avian influenza in California condors.

Rocke has served as the President of the Wildlife Disease Association and a review editor for the journal, EcoHealth. She has more than 40 years of experience as a research scientist with more than 130 scientific publications in international journals.

DR. DAVID DRAKE

PROFESSOR AND EXTENSION WILDLIFE SPECIALIST, DEPARTMENT OF FOREST AND WILDLIFE ECOLOGY, COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL AND LIFE SCIENCES

David Drake is a Professor and Extension Wildlife Specialist in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research and extension programs primarily focus on wildlife and wildlife damage management in human-dominated landscapes. David received his Ph.D in Forestry from North Carolina State University, a M.S. degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences from Texas A&M University, and a B.A degree in Biology from Macalester College.