Communication specialists with nutrition expertise

Peter Gottert  M.A., is Deputy Director of USAID’s Health Communication Partnership. From 1999 to 2002, Mr. Gottert was the AED BCC Advisor in Madagascar for USAID’s Smaller Healthier Families Project. Under AED’s PCS program he trained Haitian counterparts in message and materials design. Earlier he was senior technical advisor to the Nutrition Communication Project providing assistance and training in nutrition education and materials development, and managed programs in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Before joining AED, Mr. Gottert consulted widely in Africa for USAID, UNICEF, and CIDA. He specializes in BCC programs related to infant feeding and micronutrients and in the design of messages and materials that support these programs. Mr. Gottert had his own graphic-arts design firm in Benin for over ten years and has worked throughout Africa.  He speaks French.

Sandra Kong, MPH, has over eight years of experience in international health at various government agencies and NGOs.  Her technical areas of expertise include family planning, reproductive health, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, and TB.  As a Program Officer at AED, she provides technical assistance in behavior change communication and advocacy to the USAID-funded micronutrients project A2Z and the USAID- and CDC-funded Making Medical Injections Safer (MMIS) project.  She has demonstrated experience in program strategy and design, formative and qualitative research, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation for organizations such as the CDC, CARE, Save the Children, and Pathfinder International. Countries of professional experience include India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe.  She is a native Korean speaker, and also speaks some Spanish.

Luann Martin, M.A., is a specialist in communications and infant and young child feeding for AED’s Global Health, Population, and Nutrition Group. For ten years she served as the primary author or senior technical editor of the LINKAGES Project’s publications. She guided staff in documenting lessons learned and provided technical input into materials developed with global partners. For several years she also managed AED’s safe motherhood and newborn advocacy activities using the REDUCE and ALIVE evidence-based models. Ms. Martin came to AED in 1996 from Nurture/Center to Prevent Childhood Malnutrition. She also spent 12 years living and working in Africa and Asia (Ghana, Cameroon, Zaire, and Pakistan), including an infant feeding consultancy with UNICEF/Pakistan.

Margaret Parlato is Senior Vice President and Director of AED's Global Health Population and Nutrition Group. She oversees AED’s health programs in 23 countries.  She has been a leader over the past three decades in designing and implementing social marketing and communications programs for a range of health, nutrition and reproductive health issues.  She was instrumental in launching PROFILES, an advocacy approach for raising awareness among policy makers about nutrition issues of national importance. Ms. Parlato has extensive field experience. She was Director of AED’s Nutrition Communication Project, with programs in 12 countries; served as Resident Advisor to UNDP Communication programs in Ecuador and Thailand and to PAHO’s in Bolivia; and directed programs in Africa for Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Communication Programs.  Her areas of interest include the use of popular media to promote health care practices; consumer and market research; and partnerships with the private sector.   She is a member of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee. She has a degree in Economics from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, and is fluent in French and Spanish.

Joan Schubert has an MPH from the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In addition to her three years in Cameroon with the Peace Corps, she has worked in the field of international public health for more than two decades, both domestically and overseas. She was the Resident Advisor for LINKAGES in Ghana for four years followed by two years as LINKAGES’ behavior change advisor with primary responsibility for Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Indonesia. Areas of technical experience include infant and young child feeding, maternal nutrition, and PMTCT. Other countries of professional residence include Cameroon (AED), The Democratic Republic of Congo (AED) and Niger (CARE). Currently she is the Behavior Change Technical Advisor for BASICS. She speaks and reads French fluently.

Renata Seidel,  M.A., has 15 years of experience in behavior-change planning and program implementation focusing on child survival and nutrition, and over 20 years' experience producing IEC materials.  She has guided breastfeeding and infant and maternal nutrition programs in India, Pakistan, and Nepal, and served on the World Bank's supervisory team for the Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Program and ICDS I and II.  She led the BASICS II dissemination team, and has produced AED's major methodological behavior change and communication publications.  She has worked throughout Asia and Africa. Her master's is in South Asian Studies from the University of Chicago.

Kim Winnard holds a Master's in International Development from The American University. Mr. Winnard has more than 25 years experience with project management and behavior change interventions--counseling, mass media, policy advocacy, and training-- in infant and young child feeding, maternal and child health, reproductive health, and agriculture in the United States and overseas. Formerly a team leader with LINKAGES (USAID's initiative for improving infant and young child feeding and related dietary practices), he is currently deputy director, operations of AED's Avian Influenza Communication Project (AI.COMM). Mr. Winnard has lived and worked in Nigeria and the Philippines, and has provided training and technical assistance to projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Kenya.

Cindy Arciaga has over 15 years of experience working in specialized information services, communications, dissemination, and outreach. For over ten years she has worked in international health communications, promotion, outreach, and materials development. Recently she served as the Knowledge Sharing Team Leader for USAID’s Development Information Services (DIS). She managed a communications team providing specialized information support and knowledge management expertise throughout the Agency. Her skills include project management; conceptualization, management, and evaluation of web tools and services; development of communications and information plans; research, writing and editing; and desktop publishing. She has a Masters in Health Sciences in International Health and Population Policy from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Rose Mary Romano is a communication specialist with nearly 25 years of professional experience in designing and managing a variety of health communication and behavior change programs.  She has extensive experience in designing and conducting training programs for government officials, NGOs and CBOs, and professional audiences. In South Africa she designed a community-based vitamin A supplementation program, a national communication strategy for Food Fortification, and a provincial-level vitamin A training program for clinic nurses (which she also conducted).  She has served as the communication advisor to the World Bank’s child feeding program. Ms. Romano has a master's degree in Community Health Education. 

Dawn Soisson, MIA, is a Behavior Change Communication Advisor for USAID's  Ghana Sustainable Change Project, working on communication initiatives and campaigns for HIV, malaria, child nutrition, reproductive health, and avian influenza.  Ms. Soisson specializes in adapting private sector marketing and advertising practices to the needs of social marketing and communications for public health. Before coming to AED she was Senior Regional Media Manager for Leo Burnett in Asia, where she managed strategic communication strategies for countries across Asia and developed the local capacity of Leo Burnett agencies. Ms. Soisson has managed the development and design of social marketing programs, developed health curricula and BCC materials, conducted communication workshops, and worked closely with numerous local NGOs on strategic communication initiatives across Africa.

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