who we are.

The Health Justice Collaborative, Inc. (HJC) was founded in 2003 to address the growing need for organizations devoted to social justice and public health in the international arena. HJC board members work in medicine, nursing, public health, social work, law and business throughout the US and abroad.

As a young organization, we are currently focused primarily on fundraising and building community partnerships. With the help of volunteers, donors, and partner organizations, HJC is currently forming a long-term relationship with the impoverished bateyes of the Dominican Republic. We are dedicated to addressing health and human development needs within these communities.

HJC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Baltimore, MD.

board of directors and officers.

Becky Genberg
Executive Director and Chair

B. Ryan Phelps
Co-Deputy Director

Benjamin Link
Co-Deputy Director

Christopher Pih
Secretary

Allison Groves
Treasurer

Gregg Greenough

Aaron Mandell

Raja Raghunath

Sonia Walia

Brenda Walter

volunteers.

Kaveh Azimi
in-country volunteer

Jack Laroux of Laroux Art
www.laroux.com
logo design

Ceren and Jose Silva
in-country volunteers

Erland Svahn
information technology consultant

Yusuke Uetani
information techonology consultant

Emilia Ward Vandenbroek
legal consultant

Nina Walia
web design


biographies.

Becky Genberg holds a BA in Psychology from Rutgers University and a Master’s of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. She has worked on several medical and public health research projects related to children's health, women's health and HIV prevention in the US and abroad. Her international work experience includes projects in the Dominican Republic, Viet Nam, Thailand and sub-Saharan Africa. Becky is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and continues to work on international HIV prevention research. Her areas of professional interest include global women’s health policy, infectious disease prevention, and health and human rights.

Gregg Greenough graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and completed an emergency medicine residency at UCLA. After completing a Master’s of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health he joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts before returning to Johns Hopkins. Gregg held a joint appointment as assistant professor in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health where he taught in the Humanitarian Assistance track and was the Deputy Director of the School’s Center for Refugee and Disaster Response. Gregg is now the Research Director at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative where he holds a joint appointment in Emergency Medicine at Brigham & Women's Hospital. He has worked on public health issues in conflict-affected populations in the Balkans, the Palestinian Territories, Tanzania, and refugee camps worldwide, and recently with the American Red Cross on the response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Ali Groves has an MHS in International Health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a BA in Psychology from Grinnell College. She has worked at the community level throughout her public health ventures, which range from providing HIV case management services in Denver, Colorado, to preventing intimate partner violence among youth in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is interested in utilizing qualitative research methods to better understand social and behavioral determinants of health and to document social injustice. Ali is currently working on the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission among women in South Africa with the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health.

Benjamin Link holds a Master’s of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and a Master’s of Social Work from the University of Maryland, as well as a BA in Political Science from Connecticut College. He has worked on infectious disease prevention programs in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. Ben is currently working on developing alternative energy sources in the Latin American/Carribean region. His areas of professional interest include environmental health, economic development in resource poor settings, as well as grassroots community organizing.

Aaron Mandell holds a Bachelors and Masters of Science in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of Vermont and has spent his career managing the commercialization of engineering technologies in the fields of nanotechnology, energy, materials science, biotech and electronics. Previously, Aaron founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company, and co-founded Coatue Corporation, a polymer microelectronics company, in which he was also the Chief Technology Officer. Prior to founding Coatue, Aaron designed and built computer models to control groundwater contamination in Israel’s drinking water. He currently sits on the Board of Advisors for the Engineering School at the University of Vermont and has held visiting scientist appointments as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tel-Aviv University. Concurrently, Aaron founded and holds the position of Vice President of Technology for GreatPoint Energy, a Boston startup developing a clean coal power generation process. He also serves as the Vice President of the Boston Center for Jewish Heritage, a non-profit organization.

Ryan Phelps earned his medical degree from Duke University in North Carolina, and his Master's in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. He also studied Latin American and the Humanities at UT-Austin, and spent a year in Brazil studying Portuguese and Medical Anthropology. Ryan has traveled with medical assistance teams to Central America, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. His past experiences include a Pediatric clerkship in South Africa and an Epidemiology clerkship in Mozambique. Currently, Ryan completed a pediatrics residency program at UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco and is now working in Swaziland with the Baylor AIDS Corps to treat children with HIV and train local health care providers. Please visit Ryan's blog to learn more about pediatric HIV in Swaziland as well as the recent happenings of Ryan. See: pediatrician-in-swaziland blog

Christopher Pih is a corporate lawyer in New York whose practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings and project finance transactions. He has worked for various for-profit and non-profit institutions based abroad (including Cambodia, Korea and Romania) and in the United States (including New Jersey and Washington, D.C.). He was also a co-founder of an organization in Seoul, Korea focused on providing instructional programs in English to low-income students. Christopher holds a Juris Doctor degree from The University of Michigan Law School, where he was a Note Editor of the Michigan Journal of International Law.

Raja Raghunath holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School and is a lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York. He has worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the Campus Law Clinic of the University of Natal-Durban in Durban, South Africa, and The Valley Trust, a primary health care provider in the Valley of 1000 Hills in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Sonia Walia holds a Master’s of Public Health with a concentration in International Maternal and Child Health from Johns Hopkins University. She also holds a bachelor’s in science in Respiratory Therapy from the Medical College of Georgia. She has worked as a project manager for the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) teaching midwives and traditional birth attendants on Essential Newborn Care and newborn resuscitation. Her other past experiences include working clinically in the US and teaching newborn resuscitation in India. Sonia is currently working as a Desk Manager for International Medical Corps in Washington, DC.

Brenda Walter Brenda Walter holds a BA in Biology from Grinnell College and a Masters of Public Health from Boston University. She has taught math and biology in Greater New Orleans as a Teach for America corps member. She has worked with Population Services International as a contractor on a condom social marketing campaign in the Dominican Republic. Brenda is currently the HJC country coordinator for the Dominican Republic. She is also the Community Liaison Officer for the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Her areas of professional interest include environmental and maternal/child health.

past members.

Derek Ehrhardt

Lisa George-Svahn

Daniel Mudrick