Sarah Lawrence College Health Advocacy Faculty
Peter S. Arno
B.A., Queens College. Ph.D., Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. Economist, professor and director, Division of Public Health and Policy Research, Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine (NYC). Pew Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Institute for Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco (1984-86); a scholar of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (1989-92) and recipient of an Investigator Award in Health Policy from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (1998-2003); co-author of Against the Odds: The Story of AIDS Drug Development, Politics & Profits (HarperCollins), nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Recent work includes studies of regulation and pricing practices of the pharmaceutical industry; the economics of informal caregiving and long-term care; public health and legal implications of regulating tobacco as a drug; cost, access, quality and outcome measures related to HIV disease; and the impact of income support policies on health. Based on this work has testified before numerous U.S. House and Senate committees. SLC, 2004-
Bruce F. Berg
Associate professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Fordham University. Author of published articles and book chapters on the delivery of health care to the elderly, interest group politics, bureaucratic politics, program evaluation and New York City politics; teaches courses on health policy, intergovernmental relations, interest groups and group theory, social policy and New York City politics and government; involved on several committees at Fordham University dealing with structuring health benefit packages and programs for full-time and retired faculty; has served as president of Fordham’s Faculty Senate. SLC 1999-
Sayantani DasGupta
A.B., Brown University. M.D./M.P.H., Johns Hopkins University. Pediatric internship and residency, the Residency Program in Social Pediatrics at Montefiore Hospital/Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Assistant attending in Clinical Pediatrics at Columbia University and faculty member, Social Pediatrics Program, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. Author of The Demon Slayers and Other Stories: Bengali Folktales (1995), Her Own Medicine: A Woman’s Journey from Student to Doctor (1999) and numerous essays and articles on topics of health, gender, race and sexuality. SLC, 2001-
Rachel N. Grob
B.A., Wesleyan University. M.A. (Health Advocacy), Sarah Lawrence College. Doctoral student in sociology, City University of New York Graduate Center; research focus on the impact of advocacy and social movements on the construction of the modern public health apparatus. Currently Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Sarah Lawrence College. Formerly Director of Policy Analysis and Planning, Andrus Children’s Center; responsibilities included program development of services for children and families and spearheading an Early Childhood Initiative in Yonkers, N.Y., and Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner of Health, Westchester County Health Department. Author of “Celebrating and Mobilizing: How We Started a Family Day in Yonkers,” America’s Family Support Magazine, Spring 2000, v. 19, No. 1 and co-author of the article “Parenting and Inequality,” forthcoming. SLC, 1998-
Catherine Handy
Ph.D., New York University. Oncology clinical nurse specialist, St. Vincent’s Cancer Center, New York City. Nationally certified as an Advanced Oncology Certified Nurse; 30 years’ experience in nursing in such areas as bone marrow transplantation, home care, AIDS care and education; special interests include pain management and ethical issues; frequent speaker on oncology and AIDS nursing issues; recipient of New York State Liberty Award, 2002. SLC, 2000-
Alice Herb
B.A., Syracuse University. J.D., LL.M., New York University School of Law. Assistant clinical professor of family practice and humanities in medicine, SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn. Formerly ethics consultant to the Brooklyn Hospital Center (1994-2003); formerly TV news and cultural affairs producer, director and writer; special interest in clinical ethics, particularly in channels/ barriers between health care professionals and patients/families; cultural diversity and its effect on physician/patient interaction, the role of palliative care in a high-tech environment and the continuing dilemma in human subject research; currently involved in a palliative care initiative of changing institutional culture to accommodate an alternate treatment approach; assisting in development of research ethics certificate program and an analysis of a clinical ethics program at an acute care facility. Co-author with A. Berg and M. Hurst, Cochlear Implants in Children: Ethics, Informed Consent, and Parental Decision-Making, Journal of Clinical Ethics, Fall 2005; author, The Patient as Research Participant, a Guide to Hospitals and Inpatient Care, Springer Publishing Company (2003). SLC, 1996-
Rebecca O Johnson
B.A., Southern New Hampshire University. M.S. (Community Economic Development), Southern New Hampshire University. M.F.A. (Nonfiction), Sarah Lawrence College. Founder and Executive Director of Cooperative Economics for Women, organizing with immigrant and refugee women living in the greater Boston area. Expertise in community organizing, housing development, organizational and fund development, participatory action research, oral history, and other forms of community history research; author/editor of many articles, reviews, and reports, including most recently, Lonesome Refugees, a consideration of the 1927 Flood and its impact on the African-American migration to Chicago (Callaloo, pending); We Want To Be At The Table: Helping Environmental Groups Rebuild After Katrina (Environmental Support Center, 2006); The History of Charity (Grassroots Fundraising Journal Conference 2006); New Moon Over Roxbury, Ecofeminism and the Sacred, Carol Adams, ed. (Continuum, 1993). SLC, 2007-
Margaret Keller
A.B., Trinity College. J.D., Columbia University School of Law. M.S. (administrative medicine), Columbia School of Public Health. Retired partner, DeForest & Duer; special interest in the interfaces of law, medicine and health care administration; author, co-author and co-editor of numerous articles on law and health care administration, especially developments in federal law and New York State law. SLC, 1981-
Laura I. Long
B.A., Kenyon College. M.S. (human genetics), Sarah Lawrence College. Specializes in behavioral science and counseling skills required to help people change health-related behaviors; involved in training and research on programs to help reduce risk of HIV/STDs in all at-risk populations in the New York City geographic area; has been involved in both primary and secondary prevention efforts and has provided training to social service and health care organizations on program development in these areas; teaches Issues in Genetic Counseling IV in the Human Genetics program. SLC, 1999-
Terry Mizrahi
B.A., New York University. M.S.W., Columbia University. Ph.D. (sociology), University of Virginia. Professor, Hunter College School of Social Work; director, Education Center for Community Organizing at HCSSW; expertise in medical sociology, organizational and community development, health care policy and patients’ rights; areas of research and training in professional socialization and physician behavior, social work in health care, interdisciplinary collaboration, interorganizational coalition-building and community organizing; author of several books, monographs, guides and articles, including Getting Rid of Patients: Contradictions in the Socialization of Physicians (Rutgers, 1986), Community Organization and Social Administration: Trends and Issues (Haworth, 1993) and Creating Strategic Partnerships: The Theory and Practice of Coalitions and Collaboration. Past president of the National Association of Social Workers (the largest social work organization in the world) and one of the founders of the Association for Community Organization and Social Administration, which awarded her a lifetime career achievement award in 2004. SLC, 1981-
Constance Peterson
B.S. (Sociology/Anthropology), Southwest Missouri State University. M.A. (Health Advocacy), Sarah Lawrence College. Currently Administrative Manager and Patient Services Specialist in the Emergency Department of New York-Presbyterian Hospital Cornell Weill Medical Center. Faculty appointments: Weill Medical College Cornell University Department of Public Health and Department of Medical Ethics and Sarah Lawrence College/Health Advocacy Program.
Michael J. Smith
B.A., Seton Hall University. M.S.W., University of Pennsylvania. D.S.W., Columbia University. Professor, Hunter College School of Social Work and Doctoral Program in Social Welfare, Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Research and evaluation consultant to social, health and mental health agencies in New York City; author of numerous books and articles on family care of the aged and disabled children, single-parent families, and mental health services; author of an introductory text in evaluation research, Program Evaluation in the Human Services (Springer Press, 1990), and a forthcoming text, Program Evaluation: Trends and Methods (Oxford University Press). SLC, 1993-
Laura Weil
B.A., State University of New York. M.A. (Health Advocacy), Sarah Lawrence College. Past president of the New York Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy; served on the national board of the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy of the American Hospital Association. Member of the New York Metropolitan Ethics Network. Has held position of patient representative at NYU Medical Center and St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York. Currently Director, Patient Representative Department at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. Responsible for patient advocacy activities at Beth Israel’s multi-hospital system. Duties include grievance resolution, aggregation, trending, reporting of patient feedback, medical center staff training, patients’ rights and advance directives, Institutional Review Board evaluation of human research activities and participation in design of hospital system modifications to more effectively meet the needs of patients. SLC, 1999-