Aspen Global Health and Development

Who We Are

Peggy Clark
Vice President, Policy Programs at The Aspen Institute
Executive Director, Aspen Global Health and Development
Peggy Clark is the Vice President of Policy Programs and the Executive Director of Aspen Global Health and Development. As Vice President of Policy Programs, Peggy provides strategic oversight and guidance to the Institute’s 26 policy programs.  As Executive Director of Aspen Global Health and Development, Peggy leads programs promoting breakthrough approaches to global development including the Ministerial Leadership Initiative, a five year program designed to build the capacity of ministries of health in Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Nepal; the Health Worker Migration Initiative and its high level Global Policy Advisory Council which led the adoption of the historic WHO Global Code of Practice; The Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health composed of sitting and former heads of state and other leaders dedicated to asserting the centrality of reproductive health to development; IDEA, and Transfarm Africa, which is pioneering new approaches to transformative agricultural development and trade in Africa. 

Previously, Peggy helped to found Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative with Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, providing overall strategic, financial and management direction as founding Managing Director.  From 2001 – 2003 Peggy was the Executive Vice President for Policy Programs and Seminars of the Aspen Institute, where she managed all programmatic and leadership divisions of the Institute. Peggy began her career at Aspen in 1991 when Peggy founded the Self-Employment Learning Project, later named the Economic Opportunities Program, which she led for ten years at the Aspen Institute, addressing poverty and workforce strategies in the U.S.  In this role, Peggy helped to define and establish the field of industry-specific, or Sectoral Workforce Development with the publication Jobs and the Urban Poor and crafting new legislation to support industry led workforce development, and led efforts to establish the field of microenterprise development in the US.   Prior to that, Peggy was a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation and the first Director of Small Scale Enterprise and Credit at Save the Children.   Peggy was a leader in founding and shaping the microfinance field internationally, helping to draft the first microenterprise legislation for USAID and serving on the first Microenterprise Advisory Council to the Administrator of USAID. Peggy also was a nationally recognized leader in establishing the microfinance field in the US creating the first national evaluation and of the microenterprise field and helping to develop the first Small Business Administration legislation to support the field. For this work, Peggy received the Inaugural Presidential Award for Excellence in Microenterprise Development from President Bill Clinton in 1995. Peggy is the author of numerous publications on poverty, global health, international development, workforce strategies, and microenterprise.

Peggy received a BA with honors from Colgate University in 1978 in anthropology and fine arts, and an MA from Johns Hopkins School of International Studies in 1984 in International Economics and Latin American Studies.  Peggy was a Thomas J Watson Foundation Fellow 1975-1976, a Rockwood Yearlong Leadership Fellow in 2008 – 2010, and serves as Vice Chair of the Calvert Foundation, and as a board member of ImpactAsssets, and the African Center for Health and Social Transformation.

Rosann Wisman
Director, Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health
Rosann Wisman is Director of the Ministerial Leadership Initiative, a program of Aspen Global Health and Development. Ms. Wisman has over thirty years of executive leadership experience in non-profit organizations working in public policy and health care access, with a special emphasis on women’s health and rights. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Ms. Wisman served as Executive Director of the Accordia Global Health Foundation, an organization dedicated to fighting infectious diseases through building the clinical and research capacity of academic medical institutions in Africa. She also served as Senior Vice President at the Centre for Development and Population Activities, directing programs to improve the lives of women and girls in developing countries through leadership development, education, and access to reproductive health services. While living in Tokyo, she was Senior Advocacy Advisor for Population Action International. For the 20 years prior, Ms. Wisman was President and CEO of Planned Parenthood affiliates including Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC, where she led the significant expansion of its clinical scope, geographic reach, and policy impact. During this time, she was Chair of Planned Parenthood’s National Executive Directors’ Council, where she was recognized for her expertise in effective non-profit management and board development. She has served on numerous national and Washington DC area boards.  Ms. Wisman holds a M.S. in Public Health from the University of Missouri.

Joe Guinan
Director, TransFarm Africa Initiative
Joe Guinan is the Director of the TransFarm Africa Initiative (TFA), a program of Aspen Global Health and Development. Mr. Guinan has a decade of experience in international economics, trade policy, global agriculture, and food security. Prior to joining Aspen Global Health and Development, Mr. Guinan was a consultant to the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Global Development Program and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, where he was primarily involved in programming on agriculture, trade, and development. He is a member of the steering committee of the Foundation Working Group on Food and Agriculture Policy and has served on the steering committee of the Global Trade and Financial Architecture Program of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development and the review committee for the U.S. Department of State’s Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program. Mr. Guinan was previously a researcher at the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and at the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives in Washington D.C., where he researched political-economic systems. He is a frequently cited expert on international economics and trade policy in major news media, including the New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, BBC News, and al-Jazeera. Born in England but with dual Irish and British citizenship, he was educated at Balliol College, Oxford.

Katrin Kuhlmann
Senior Fellow and Director, TransFarm Africa "Removing the Barriers"
Katrin Kuhlmann is a Senior Fellow and Director of TransFarm Africa "Removing the Barriers," a program of Aspen Global Health and Development. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Trade and Development at Georgetown University Law Center. Ms. Kuhlmann has nearly fifteen years of experience in international trade and development policy and legal reform. Her work involves developing a demand-driven, bottom-up approach to trade, development, and food security policies for sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income countries. She frequently speaks and writes on issues of international trade and development and has been asked to testify before Congress. Prior to joining Aspen Global Health and Development, Ms. Kuhlmann was a resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the President of the Trade, Aid, and Security Coalition (TASC). She was also Senior Vice President for Global Trade at the Women’s Edge Coalition, where she developed and led the organization’s trade policy program. From 1999 to 2005, Ms. Kuhlmann served as the Director for Eastern Europe and Eurasia in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) where she was responsible for developing and coordinating U.S. trade policy with Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Prior to joining USTR, Ms. Kuhlmann practiced international trade and corporate law in Washington, DC and New York. She holds a law degree from Harvard Law School, a Bachelor’s degree from Creighton University and was a Fulbright scholar in eastern Germany in 1992.

May Doherty
Finance Director
May Doherty is the Finance Director at Aspen Global Health and Development.  Prior to joining the Institute, she worked for the U.S. Department of State in various capacities, most recently in the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan where she managed the State Department’s foreign assistance funds to Sudan.  Previous to that, she worked in South Africa with community organizations focused on home-based care and orphans and vulnerable children.  She has over ten years of international development experience, working both in government and the NGO community in the U.S. and abroad.  A certified teacher, she holds degrees from Harvard University and New York University.

Katie Drasser
Senior Program Officer, Health Worker Migration Initiative
Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Katie worked nationally and around the world on global health and development initiatives, including HIV/AIDS implementation strategies in Romania, operations research for private health services in Myanmar and the scale up of Kenya’s national emergency medical system through a public-private partnership.  Katie also spent time leading a range of start-ups that included designing a network of charter schools, integrating microfinance with other development activities, and most notably was instrumental to the success of Good Capital, a venture fund that invests in expanding social enterprises. Katie holds a BA in political science from Colgate University and MSPH in global health policy and administration from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Stephanie Weber
Senior Program Officer, Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health
Stephanie Weber is an international public health professional with experience working in a diverse range of humanitarian and development settings. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Stephanie worked for the American Refugee Committee, a US-based humanitarian organization. During this time, Stephanie provided technical support to a wide range of reproductive health programs in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, and worked in Southern Sudan directly implementing comprehensive HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence programs. Stephanie also spent time in West Africa as a Public Health Peace Corps Volunteer in Guinea and conducting research on orphans and vulnerable children in northern Togo. She has an MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Marissa Mommaerts
Senior Program Officer, Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health
Marissa Mommaerts was first introduced to Aspen Global Health and Development (GHD) while interning on the Health Worker Migration Initiative as an undergrad. After returning to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she began advocating for reproductive health and rights and founded a student-run international development initiative that partners with the Lingira Island community in Lake Victoria, Uganda. Marissa completed her Masters of International Public Affairs from the La Follette School of Public Affairs in May 2010, and after working on the midterm elections in Wisconsin she joined the Aspen GHD team as a Program Officer for the Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health project in November 2011.

Jennifer Magalong
Program Officer, Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health
Jennifer Magalong is a Program Officer at the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health, a program of Aspen Global Health and Development. Prior to joining the MLI team, Jennifer supported the finance and operations and health programs of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. Jennifer holds a Master’s degree in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations (Global Security) and History from Brown University.

Gwen Hopkins
Program Officer, Aspen IDEA Initiative
Gwen earned a BA in English Literature from Trinity College in Hartford, CT, with minors in French and Women, Gender & Sexuality. She spent a semester abroad in Dakar, Senegal, where she had the opportunity to intern with women's rights NGO Siggil Jiggeen (which translates from Wolof as "to raise the heads of women") and observe rural women’s advocacy organization APROFES (Association pour la Promotion de la Femme Sénégalaise) on the ground. Gwen also concentrated on creative nonfiction and the personal essay as an undergrad and wrote her senior thesis on travel writing. After graduating, she worked on Teach For America's Recruitment Team before joining the Aspen Institute in June 2009.

Elise Mann
Program Assistant, Aspen IDEA Initiative
Elise Mann graduated from University of Wisconsin, Madison with a BA in Political Science and certificates in Women’s Studies and African Studies. She spent a semester studying in Arusha, Tanzania focusing on gender and development in a Peace and Conflict Resolutions Program.  As an undergrad, she was actively involved with a student international development group, EDGE Project, where she spent two summers in a rural community in Uganda learning, helping with agricultural trainings.  After interning with the Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health in the fall of 2011, Elise joined the IDEA Initiative in January 2012.

Sarah Lindsay
Program Assistant, Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health
Sarah holds a Masters from American University in Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs, a multidisciplinary program offering an ethical response to contemporary global problems. Within her program, she concentrated on Ethical Development with a focus on women, health, and the environment. She has spent time studying abroad at Oxford and in Italy. Sarah holds a BA in English Language and Literature from North Carolina State University along with minors in Africana Studies and History.

Rachel Feely-Kohl
Administrative Assistant
Rachel Feely-Kohl earned a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland-College Park.  She spent a semester abroad in London, England working with for London’s Social Services-Looked after Children Team.  Most recently, Rachel was at the National Conference on Citizenship, a non-profit focused on civic engagement, where she managed logistics, vendor relations, and on-site coordination for their 2011 conference. Previously, she worked at a media consulting firm for political campaigns and for the Case Foundation's social innovation team.  Rachel joined Aspen Global Health and Development (GHD) in December 2011.

 Advisory Board

Hon. Mary Robinson, Honorary Co-Chair
President and Founder
Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice

Dr. Madeleine Albright, ex officio
Principal
The Albright Group

Peggy Clark
Executive Director, Aspen Global Health Development
Vice President, Policy Programs
The Aspen Institute

Lord Nigel Crisp
Former Chief Executive, UK National Health Service
Permanent Secretary, UK Department of Health

Senator Tom Daschle
Distinguished Senior Fellow
Center for American Progress
Former Senate Majority Leader

Dr. Paul Farmer
President
Partners in Health

Robert E. Friedman
Chair and General Counsel
Corporation for Enterprise Development

Elliot Gerson
Executive Vice President
Policy and Public Programs and International Partnerships
The Aspen Institute

Dr. Jessica Herzstein, MD
Global Medical Director
Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

Henrietta Holsman Fore
CEO
Holsman International

Musimbi Kanyoro
President and CEO
The Global Fund for Women

Robert Kapp
Of Council: Human Rights Legal Advisor
Hogan & Hartson LLP

Dr. Jordan Kassalow
Founder and CEO
VisionSpring Inc.

Dr. Francis Omaswa
Executive Director
African Center for Health & Social Transformation

Lynda Resnick
Co-Chairman
Roll International Corporation