Richard Skolnik, MPA - Director of International Programs, The Population Reference Bureau, Washington, D.C.
Richard Skolnik is a half-time Lecturer in Global Health at The George Washington University (GWU) where he teaches two undergraduate courses each term in global health and development and supervises graduate student Master of Public Health (MPH) projects. Richard also works as an independent consultant on program design and evaluation activities in a number of areas of global health, including HIV, TB, and nutrition.
Until November 2008, Richard was the Vice President for International Programs at the Population Reference Bureau. Earlier, he served as the Executive Director of the Harvard School of Public Health PEPFAR program for AIDS treatment in Botswana, Nigeria, and Tanzania. From 2001 to 2004, Richard was The Director of the Center for Global Health at The George Washington University, where he also taught undergraduate and graduate courses in global health.
Richard worked at the World Bank from 1976 to 2001, last serving as the Director for Health and Education for South Asia. His work at the World Bank focused on health systems development, family planning and reproductive health, child health, the control of communicable diseases, and nutrition in low-income countries. He was extensively engaged with TB, leprosy, and cataract blindness control projects in India that have been cited as important public health successes. Richard coordinated the World Bank’s work on TB for five years, was deeply involved in the establishment of STOP TB, served on a number of WHO working groups on TB, and served three rounds on the Technical Review Panel of the Global Fund.
Richard has led two evaluations of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and also led evaluations of the Global Alliance to Eliminate Leprosy and the World Bank’s work on HIV and TB in Russia. Richard has also served on advisory groups and faculty for the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the development of a women’s health program at Harvard University, and the Global Health Leadership Institute at Yale University. He is on the Advisory Board for the College of Health and Human Services at George Mason University and a member of an expert panel that is now reviewing the Framework Program of the Fogarty Center of the United States National Institutes of Health.
Richard received a BA from Yale University and an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. He has received a number of awards and honors for his teaching, including being named the Undergraduate Public Health Teacher of the Year at The George Washington University, serving as an honorary coach of The GWU women’s soccer team, and being asked to deliver a lecture in the GWU “Last Lecture series. (
http://gwired.gwu.edu/sac/LeadershipDevelopment/LastLecture/20092010LastLecture/)
