New Dimensions in Womens Health

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Dr. Linda Lewis Alexander has an extensive career in public health and women's health. She is currently Vice President, Women's Health and Global Advocacy for QAIGEN, Inc. In this role, Dr. Alexander oversees corporate women's health program efforts in the public sector and advocacy support initiatives in global cervical cancer prevention. Her previous professional experiences include serving as Vice President, Women's Health at Digene Corporation and President and CEO of the American Social Health Association (ASHA). At ASHA she provided national leadership and worked in close partnership with industry and federal leaders to promote national awareness for all sexually transmitted diseases.Dr. Alexander is also a retired lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Her military career included assignments in community health nursing in the United States and Europe, and she was a nurse epidemiologist at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. As a health educator, she has held academic positions at the University of Maryland–College Park and the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. In her position as Vice President for Women's Health and Science with United Information Systems, she provided leadership with the Department of Defense congressionally appropriated research programs in breast cancer, osteoporosis, and ovarian cancer.Dr. Alexander is nationally known for her leadership in women's health advocacy and has published extensively on women's health issues. Her many honors include appointments to national advisory panels on infectious diseases and women's health; she also is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. She holds a baccalaureate degree in nursing, master's degrees in education/counseling and community health, and a doctoral degree in health education.

Helaine Bader has focused her work in the fields of health communications and women's health. In her present position as Director, Women's Health and Global Advocacy at QIAGEN, Inc., Ms. Bader works to ensure access to cervical cancer screening through developing and implementing advocacy and educational initiatives, with the ultimate goal of eliminating cervical cancer.Previous to this position, Ms. Bader was with Glaxo- SmithKline, where she worked in cardiovascular and women's health communications and was responsible for media relations and community outreach within research and development. Ms. Bader has more than 10 years of experience in women's health research, health communications, and health education, including a breast cancer research fellowship with the National Cancer Institute. She has worked on multimedia and Web-based health campaigns in both the public and private sectors and has developed, implemented, and evaluated health education projects for various issues affecting women and children.Ms. Bader received her baccalaureate degree in English with a minor in premedical sciences from the University of Pennsylvania and her master's degree in public health from University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Judith LaRosa's career has spanned education, research, and clinical practice. Her present position is vice dean and professor, SUNY Downstate Graduate Program in Public Health, where her current research focuses on cultural perceptions of health and disease. Prior to this, she served as professor and chair, Department of Community Health Sciences, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and Director, Tulane Xavier National Center of Excellence in Women's Health.From 1991-1994, she was the first Deputy Director of the Office of Research on Women's Health, National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is a co-author of the legislatively mandated 1994 NIH Guidelines on the Inclusion of Women and Minorities as Subjects in Clinical Research. From 1978-1991, Dr. LaRosa served at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) as the first Coordinator of the NHLBI Workplace Initiative in CVD Risk Factor Reduction. In 1990, she was appointed as the designer and first Coordinator of the National Heart Attack Alert Program -- a national education program to reduce time to treatment at the first signs of a heart attack.Dr. LaRosa has served on the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Understanding the Biology of Sex and Gender as well as the Committee on Assessing the Medical Risks of Human Oocyte Donation for Stem Cell Research; the National Institute for Nursing Research's Advisory Council; the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board; and the National Science Foundation/Institute of Medicine Committee on Defense Women's Health Research. She was a member of the U.S. Army Research and Materiel Command/ United Information Systems, Inc., core directorate to design and implement the Department of Defense (DoD) breast cancer and defense women's health grant review process. Dr. LaRosa has served as a scientific reviewer for the NIH, CDC, and DoD. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Community Health.Dr. LaRosa received her bachelor of science degree in nursing and her, master of nursing education degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her PhD in health education from the University of Maryland.

Susan Garfield is a market access, reimbursement, and economics strategist, with expertise in demand creation and advocacy. For more than 12 years, her professional career has focused on women's health, innovations in health care, the economics of practice change, and the role of reimbursement and policy to the adoption of new technologies.Ms. Garfield is currently vice president at Bridgehead International, where she runs the Boston office of the market access consulting practice. At Bridgehead, Ms. Garfield works to help companies navigate the complexities of bringing innovative health-care technologies to market. Prior to joining Bridgehead, Ms. Garfield was the Director of Global Reimbursement Policy and Economic Strategy at QIAGEN, Inc. (formerly Digene Corporation). In this role, she planned and executed a reimbursement strategy that resulted in near universal coverage for the company's leading cancer diagnostic product. In addition, she directed global economic and pricing analyses for the company's clinical diagnostic portfolio. Before QIAGEN, Ms. Garfield was a director at Boston Healthcare Consulting. During her tenure there, Ms. Garfield worked with biotechnology, medical device, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic firms on market access strategy and execution. In this role she translated primary research with more than 2,000 clinicians, payers, government decision makers, and patients into actionable programs for clients.Ms. Garfield received her baccalaureate degree in English and women's studies from the University of Pennsylvania, a master's of science in population and development from the London School of Economics, and a master's degree in health policy and management from Harvard University, School of Public Health. Ms. Garfield is currently pursuing her doctorate of public health at Boston University.