Our Staff

Susan Krenn

Director

Ms. Krenn has over 20 years of experience developing, implementing and managing communication programs for family planning, safe motherhood, reproductive health, malaria, child survival, TB, democracy and governance and HIV/AIDS. Her areas of expertise include strategy design, materials development, program management and facilitation, among others. Throughout her 24 year career at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, she has demonstrated her ability to build, manage and lead effective teams, and deliver project results consistent with the Center’s and the School’s mission. Prior to assuming the role of Director at the Center, Susan was Director of CCP’s Program Unit bringing extensive leadership and management experience as well as technical expertise to the position. She served as Regional Director for CCP’s Africa Division between 1994 – 2008. Susan has worked professionally in 14 African countries, Central America and the Caribbean, including a three-year field position in Nigeria.

The CCP Leadership Group


Piers Bocock

Project Director, Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project

Mr. Bocock is a seasoned and creative leader in the fields of international development, knowledge management, communications and technology development with nearly two decades of experience as an innovator and a communicator. He has worked in more than 20 countries and has helped organizations develop solutions to information management, public health, business, policy, trade, operational, leadership and technology challenges. Prior to joining the Center for Communication Programs, Mr. Bocock was the Senior Director for Communications & Knowledge Exchange at Management Sciences for Health (MSH), where he helped the organization and its projects leverage knowledge management best practices to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Before MSH, Mr. Bocock worked for Development Alternatives, Inc. as a Senior Development Specialist in the Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade Group, focusing on enterprise development in Eastern Europe, North Africa and Southeast Asia. Mr. Bocock earned his BA in Communications from McGill University and his MBA in International Business and Strategy from Georgetown University.

Kirsten Böse

Deputy Director, Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project

Ms. Böse is a public health and communication specialist with 20 years of experience developing and implementing projects in reproductive health/family planning, HIV/AIDS, malaria, child survival and adolescent health promotion. Ms. Böse has spent the majority of her career with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, where she is able to combine her penchant for theory with practical applications. Ms. Böse has worked extensively throughout the African continent and in Asia. Most recently, she lived in Malawi and Tanzania for six years while serving as Chief of Party for several USAID-funded programs. She is specifically interested in the power of new technologies, especially mobile phones, to strengthen provider capacity and client participation in the delivery of health services. Ms Böse enjoys working together with communities to inspire solutions for better health. Ms. Böse earned her BA in Anthropology from Stanford University and her MHS in Maternal and Child Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Marc Boulay

Deputy Director, Research and Evaluation

Dr. Boulay is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has over ten years of experience monitoring and evaluating both Social and Behavior Change Communication and Advocacy projects in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and in the United States and has worked on a range of health issues, including maternal and child health, family planning, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS and malaria. His areas of expertise include the use of statistical and econometric approaches in program evaluation and the use of social network analysis to examine the diffusion of program messages through family and peer networks. He teaches an advanced graduate course on social network analysis at the School of Public Health.

Kimberly Brooks

Human Resources Manager

Ms. Brooks has 20 years of experience in human resources management and holds a Senior Professional in Human Resource Management Certification. As a generalist of human resources, she has expertise in various HR disciplines, including organizational and employee development, employee relations, staffing management, labor and employment law compliance, benefits and compensation. She is currently the Human Resources Manager at CCP where she oversees the global HR function comprised of 175 US based employees and over 500 employees in over 20 countries. During her 3 years with CCP, she has been instrumental in the development and implementation of an employee relations policy and process; standardizing expatriate, third county national and host country national compensation plans; a CCP On-boarding process for new hires; and the development of an international personnel policy manual template. Prior to joining CCP, Ms. Brooks worked at a variety of private sector organizations including CitiFinancial, Inc., Educate Corporate Center Holdings, Inc. (Sylvan Learning), Alpharma US Human Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and FILA U.S.A., Inc.

Jane Brown

Africa Team Leader

Ms. Brown has over 20 years experience in development communication and production, with an emphasis on gender, adolescent reproductive health, malaria, HIV/AIDS, as well as program management and mass media. Her depth of experience includes developing S/BCC strategies, radio distance learning programs, video production and community based media approaches. Ms. Brown has worked extensively with government and non-government partners to build their capacity to produce high quality high impact S/BCC programming. She has also worked with the private sector. She was one of the principle innovators of the African Transformation methodology which enables women and men to explore the underlying gender barriers and facilitators to practice positive health behaviors and develop realistic solutions. As Team Leader, she oversees country programs in Ethiopia, Malawi and Zambia as well as the regional Go Girls Initiative. Ms. Brown has worked in Europe, Central America and Africa; she speaks conversational French.

Cathy Church-Balin

Director of Business Development

Ms. Church-Balin has over 20 years of experience in health communication and a decade in business development. She is currently the Business Development Director at CCP. Cathy also provides technical assistance in the design, implementation and management of health communication projects in maternal and child health and serves as the Project Director for the communication component of the B’more for Healthy Babies project in Baltimore City. Before returning to CCP in 2004 to lead business development efforts, she was Director of Education and Director of Maternal Health Information for the March of Dimes and a consultant with KPMG. She holds a MHS in Maternal and Child Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Arzum Ciloglu

Africa Team Leader

Dr. Ciloglu has over fifteen years experience in public health in the areas of family planning, reproductive health, maternal health, postabortion care, HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. She has worked extensively in the development and implementation of capacity building programs in family planning counseling and interpersonal communication and in the development of curricula and training materials for strategic health communication program planning. She has specific expertise in advocacy, quality and performance improvement, knowledge management, and strategic leadership and management. She is Co-Director of CCP’s Global Program on Family Planning and Reproductive Health. At Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr. Ciloglu was a Nafis Sadik Fellow and received a certificate in health communication. She has worked extensively in Africa, Asia, and Near East/Eastern Europe. She is fluent in Turkish.

Lisa Cobb

Africa Team Leader

Ms. Cobb has over 15 years experience in public health and health communication. She has worked in many areas of health communication, from counseling self-neglecting elders in the US, to teaching health classes in Turkmenistan, to designing and overseeing large and complex programs at scale. In her role as Team Leader, Ms. Cobb provides leadership, oversight and technical guidance to programs in Nigeria and Kenya, using her expertise in program design, strategic planning and management to ensure programs meet their goals. Ms. Cobb has expertise in applying communication interventions to multiple health areas, including family planning and reproductive health, maternal and child health, HIV prevention and malaria, and has used those skills in numerous countries in Europe and Eurasia, the Near East and Africa. She speaks conversational Spanish and Russian.

Maria Elena Figueroa

Director of Research and Evaluation

Dr. Figueroa is currently Associate Scientist in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) where she teaches a graduate seminar on Health Communication. She is also the Director of the Global Program on Water and Hygiene, and Director of the Research and Evaluation Division at CCP. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Figueroa has contributed to the field of applied communication for behavior change on health and development through research conducted in numerous countries. Her current work focuses on the understanding of ecological, household and individual factors affecting hygiene behavior and household water treatment. As Director for the Global Program on Water and Hygiene, Dr. Figueroa provides technical expertise in these areas to CCP research and programs and to the larger community working on these issues.

Amrita Gill Bailey

Near East Team Leader

Ms. Gill Bailey has almost twenty years of experience in strategic communication for family planning/reproductive health, maternal health, child health, infectious diseases including HIV, non-communicable diseases and health lifestyles. She provides leadership, technical and administrative oversight and guidance to projects and staff for a portfolio of over 50 million dollars. She is an expert on strategy development, program implementation, traning, materials development, interpersonal communication and counseling and media planning, and has lived and worked in countries in the Near East, Africa, Asia and Europe. Ms. Gill Bailey speaks German and French and conversational Hindi and Punjabi.

William Glass

Director of Strategic Communication Programs

Mr. Glass has worked in public health and development communication for 22 years. He has expertise in every aspect of programming, including strategic planning, program development, marketing and fundraising, training, media production, and monitoring. He has worked extensively with government, NGO and private sector organizations across sub-Saharan Africa to build their capacity to manage nationwide health communication programs. After his return from four years managing CCP’s programs in Ghana, he has served as Deputy Regional Director for Africa, Deputy Director of Programs and now, Director of Strategic Communication Programs. This latest position is a member of the Center’s core leadership, and involves oversight of seven Baltimore and overseas program management teams that implement over 50 reproductive health, maternal health, child health, HIV/AIDS, advocacy, marketing, social change and mobilization programs in over 20 countries.

Deanna Kerrigan

Project Director, Research to Prevention (R2P) Project

Dr. Kerrigan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the social and structural factors affecting the health and well-being of underserved populations. Much of her work over the past two decades has focused on developing and evaluating effective HIV prevention interventions among marginalized groups in Latin America such as female sex workers and people living with HIV as well as at-risk youth in the United States. Dr. Kerrigan directs a global HIV prevention research program entitled, Project SEARCH: Research to Prevention (R2P) funded by the United States Agency for International Development and coordinated and managed by the Center for Communication Programs. R2P conducts applied research in 15 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, aimed at improving the quality and effectiveness of HIV prevention programming and policies. She has also worked as a Program Officer for the Ford Foundation, coordinating their Sexuality and Reproductive Health and Rights portfolio in Brazil and subsequently their Global Sexuality Research Initiative.

Benjamin V. Lozare

Director of Training and Capacity Building

Dr. Lozare is responsible for the capacity building efforts of CCP. Dr. Lozare has more than 25 years of experience in research, teaching, and practice in international and development communication. He has served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the Health Sciences Campus of the University of the Philippines, as the first Director-General of the Philippine Information Agency, and as Deputy Secretary-General of the Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Center Foundation. Dr. Ben Lozare was an Eisenhower Fellow and recipient of the first Newsweek International Communication Grant.

Matthew Lynch

Director of Global Program on Malaria

Dr. Lynch is Project Director for the NetWorks project, developing sustainable models to increase access to, and use of, long-lasting insecticidal nets for vulnerable households. He directed the Voices for a Malaria-Free Future malaria advocacy project for three years, focusing on improving malaria advocacy in the US, at the global level and in four African countries. He also serves as Vice-Chair of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership Board.

Alice Payne Merritt

Director of Global Programs

Ms. Merritt has 25 years of field experience in social and behavior change communication across a range of health and social development issues including: HIV prevention, family planning, adolescent reproductive health, tobacco control, maternal mortality, environmental advocacy, infectious diseases and quality accreditation systems in over 20 countries. She provides leadership for CCP's seven Global Programs and technical support to HIV/AIDS, Family Planning/Reproductive Health and Tobacco Control efforts. Merritt has designed and managed a wide variety of health communication programs, such as national health strategies, mass media campaigns, community-based initiatives, enter-educate outreach and special initiatives for under-served groups such as street kids, commercial sex workers, indigenous groups, and men. She has managed several global health communication projects such as PCS and the Health Communication Project. Initiatives under her directions have received international awards at the Cannes, New York and London Festivals. She has an MPH and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. Country experience includes: Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Eastern Caribbean, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Peru, Russia, Tanzania, Turkey and Uganda.

Patricia Poppe

Latin America and Lusophone Africa Team Leader

Ms. Poppe is the Team Leader for Latin America and Lusophone Africa and the Senior Communication Advisor for Water and Hygiene programs worldwide at Global Program on Water and Hygiene for JHU/CCP. She has worked in the field of health communication and development for over 25 years as an international consultant for UNFPA, UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, and Save the Children, and as staff at CCP. Ms. Poppe has designed and managed national, state and community level communication programs and campaigns in a wide range of health areas, including HIV/AIDS prevention, maternal and neonatal health, reproductive health, prevention of violence against women, adolescent development, and water, sanitation and hygiene practices. Ms. Poppe has worked in over 20 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. She is fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Basil Safi

Asia Team Leader

Mr. Safi has over 10 years of international and domestic experience designing and implementing public health and integrated communication programs. He combines technical skills with those gained in the field of health communication to specialize in the areas of demand generation, consumer-driven improvement of healthcare services, household behavior change and improving the efficiency of public health systems. His areas of communication expertise include strategic communication design, mass media and community mobilization planning, crisis/risk communication, advocacy, harmonization of diverse working groups, ICT implementation, developing public-private alliances and local BCC capacity building. Mr. Safi is responsible for managing all of CCP’s Asia programs, in addition to serving as the Director of the Global Program on Avian and Pandemic Influenza. Mr. Safi is a registered Professional Engineer, serves as an Associate in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and is a Environmental Public Health Leadership Fellow at the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health. He has experience working in Azerbaijan, Barbados, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Egypt, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Panama, Tajikistan, South Sudan, and the United States.

J. Douglas Storey

Associate Director for Communication Science and Research

Dr. Storey is an Associate Director at CCP and faculty member at the Bloomberg School of Public Health where he teaches courses on strategic health communication programs. He has 30 years of experience in health communication, development communication and evaluation research, and has lived and worked in 29 countries. His work spans a wide range of topics including reproductive health, maternal and child health, avian and pandemic flu, preventive health behavior, environmental communication, community capacity building and strategic communication planning. He has consulted on health behavior communication research, evaluation and strategic planning for numerous international organizations and foundations. Previously, he was Director of Program Research for the Health Communication Partnership and has worked with the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness since 2006 researching the role of communication in all-hazards preparedness planning and response. Dr. Storey is ex-officio Chair of the Health Communication Division of the International Communication Association. He is fluent in Indonesian.

Erika Wagner

Administrative Financial Manager

Ms. Wagner has over 10 years of experience in program and finance administration at CCP, and currently serves as CCP's Administrative Manager. In this capacity, she is responsible for oversight of the financial operations of the Center, including those of the more than 60 international programs run by CCP. Prior to joining CCP, Ms. Wagner taught English overseas and worked at the US Department of Defense. Ms. Wagner holds an MBA from Loyola University in Maryland.

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