Saving lives by providing diagnostic imaging in rural communities around the world
Kristen DeStigter received her M.D. degree from Case Western Reserve University where she was involved in parasite research through the Division of Geographic Medicine (now the CWRU Center for Global Health and Diseases). She completed her Diagnostic Radiology residency training and Body Imaging fellowship at University Hospitals of Cleveland. Ater five years of private practice radiology in Michigan, she joined the faculty at the University of Vermont/Fletcher Allen Health Care in an academic position. Dr. DeStigter has extensive experience performing ultrasound internationally, for both WHO-sponsored parasite research projects and medical outreach groups. Shis is currently Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Radiology at the University of Vermont/Fletcher Allen Health Care and is the Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program Director. She Chairs the Association of Program Directors in Radiology (APDR) Residency Restructuring Committee, and also sits on the ABR Maintenance of Certification and Small Programs Committees for the APDR. She is on the Executive Council of the New England Roentgen Ray Society (NERRS). She is also the President of the Vermont Chapter of the American College of Radiology (ACR), currently Vermont State Councilor to the ACR in Washington D.C. She is the mother of four children.
Dr. Garra completed his residency training at the University of Utah and spent three years as an Army radiologist in Germany before returning to Washington DC and the National Institutes of Health in the mid 1980’s. After four years at the NIH, he joined the faculty of Georgetown University as Director of Ultrasound. In 1998, he left Georgetown to become Professor & Vice Chairman of Radiology at the University of Vermont/Fletcher Allen Healthcare. His clinical interests include vascular ultrasound, GU ultrasound and breast ultrasound. His research interests include PACS, digital signal processing, quantitative ultrasound including Doppler, and ultrasound elastography. He was chair of the FDA radiological Devices Panel from 1999 to 2002 and has been involved in the approval of several new technologies including high resolution breast ultrasound, the first digital mammographic system, the first computer aided detection system for mammography, and the first computer aided nodule detection system for chest radiographs as well as the ultrasound contrast agent albunex. He also led the team that developed the AIUM breast ultrasound accreditation program, and helped develop the ARDMS registry in breast ultrasound. He is currently working on applications of poroelastic imaging and ultrasound outreach to developing countries.
Andrea Newton joined Imaging the World in January 2009 as a consultant hired to lead organizational development, and became the Executive Director in October 2009. From 2005 until 2008, she held the position of Vice President of the Western Region at Resource Real Estate in Philadelphia, where she directed a 17-state territory. In this position, she raised over $150 million in capital and traveled extensively through the western United States speaking at major events and conducting educational investment seminars. Prior to her position at Resource Real Estate, Andrea held numerous positions at Kennedy Associates, a pension fund advisory firm, from 1996 until 2004. There she held positions in marketing, finance and asset management, helping to raise and effectively invest institutional capital in commercial real estate. Andrea has served on numerous boards and currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the PCC Farmland Trust, an organic farmland preservation organization. She has a BA from the University of Montana, and graduated from the Fundraising School at the Center of Philanthropy at University of Indiana, Purdue. She lives in Seattle with her husband and enjoys mountain climbing and cycling.
Kristin Bravo received her BS degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute where she studied Biomedical Engineering. After graduating from WPI, Kristin joined the GE Healthcare Edison Engineering Development Program where she held design roles in magnetic resonance imaging, advanced applications for cardiac computed tomography, and ultrasound. In 2006, Kristin joined GE’s Life Sciences business as the Global Marketing Manager for Pre-Clinical Imaging managing a multi-modality portfolio of small animal imaging devices. After two years in Pre-Clinical Imaging, Kristin returned to her passion, clinical ultrasound. Today, Kristin is the Americas Marketing Manager for GE Healthcare’s General Imaging Ultrasound business. Her most recent focus has been around improving patient management and interoperability for breast imaging. Kristin lives in Wisconsin where she enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband and son.
Sue Benzonelli-Blanchard received her BS degree from Seattle University in Diagnostic Ultrasound, and holds a certificate in Project Management from the University of Washington. Sue is also a registered Diagnostic Sonogragher in both radiology and cardiac applications.
In addition to her career in the clinical field, Sue has also worked in the commercial healthcare industry. Sue worked at Siemen’s Ultrasound as an R& D Product Specialist for three years before joining Philips Healthcare in 1998.
While at Philips, Sue held positions as Senior Product Specialist, Training Manager, and Global Training and Education Program Manager for General Imaging and Women’s Healthcare. As the Global Training and Education Program Manager, Sue managed a team of technical writers to produce international training material for Philips Ultrasound products. This included customer education CD/DVDs, web training, and hands-on classroom training.
Sue became a member of Imaging the World in early 2008. In August 2008, she was part of the Belize Field Test team. Sue is currently, an ITW training team member.
Sue lives with her husband in Issaquah, Washington. She enjoys gardening, bicycling, and loves to cook for family and friends.
GroupHelen Feltovich became interested in global healthcare while working as a secretary for an Infectious Disease doctor who sent her on a research mission to rural Brazil. One afternoon, in a hospital where no one understood her protests because of the language barrier, she was mistaken for a medical resident and ushered into a room where she delivered a couple of babies. After she recovered from the shock, she was hooked on maternal healthcare and returned to the University of Iowa to pursue an M.D. and M.S. in Public Health. In 2003, after an Obstetrics & Gynecology residency at Oregon Health & Science University, she did her Maternal-Fetal Medicine (high-risk obstetrics) fellowship at the University of Vermont, where she met Brian Garra. She is now a clinical MFM with Intermountain Healthcare in Utah and is also research faculty in the Medical Physics and Obstetrics/Gynecology Departments at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research involves development of ultrasound technology for cervical microstructural evaluation, to understand and develop novel approaches to preterm delivery. As an obstetrician, she sees what marked change simple ultrasound diagnosis at the point of care can bring about, which is why she is so happy to be a part of Imaging the World. Helen lives in Park City, UT with her husband, two daughters and puppy, Blue.
Catherine Forrester completed her Bachelors of Science in Nursing from the University of British Columbia, working as a Clinical Lead/ Trainer in Pediatric Intensive Care at B.C. Children’s Hospital. Following she completed her Masters in Business Administration at the Ivey School of Business, in London, Ontario. She was a consultant in Health care for several years, eventually joining the Richmond Health Services Organization to lead the Administration of Patient Care, and becoming the Director of Strategic Initiatives, focused on Clinical Practice Improvement, Information Systems Implementations, and regionalization initiatives. In 2002, she joined 3M Health Information Systems in Salt Lake City, Utah where she held positions in marketing, ran a business unit and led the Health Care Division roll out of Six Sigma as a Black Belt and Design for Six Sigma Marketing lead. In 2005, she joined McKesson Medical Imaging Group in the product management group for the Radiology PACS. She is a lead in Radiology reporting and workflows and is currently focused on initiatives related to imaging analytics and appropriateness. Catherine lives in Vancouver B.C. with her husband and 3 sons enjoying the West Coast lifestyle with lots of camping, sailing and skiing.
Mr. Frank completed his bachelor’s degree at Makerere University, Kampala, majoring in organizational studies and philosophy. Following this he started working for a private company in Kampala as a sales executive, Gromup Uganda Limited.
He comes from a family of 5 kids in a rural region of northern Uganda called Dokolo and is a member of the Langi tribe. Currently he lives in Kampala. Collins has been consulting for imaging the World in Uganda since September, 2009, and is the co-leader of the ITW Logistics Team directing the pilot project based in Kamuli District.
Dr. Jakobovits is Vice President in the McKesson Medical Imaging Group, where he manages the Horizon Study Share solution line. Formerly, he was the founder and President of Vivalog Technologies, which was acquired by McKesson in May 2008. Dr. Jakobovits is the creator of MyPACS.net, the largest medical image sharing community on the web, visited by 70,000 radiologists and other medical professionals every month. Dr. Jakobovits received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington, and is an affiliate professor with the University of Washington Department of Radiology and the Structural Informatics Group.
Dr. Jakobovits has over thirty publications in the fields of knowledge representation, clinical data modeling, and multimedia management. He has received several million dollars of NIH Small Business Innovative Research grants, and serves as a reviewer for the NIH Center for Scientific Review.
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Frank graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College with a triple major in physics, mathematics, and engineering. While at Dartmouth, he was a Proctor Scholar and received citations for academic excellence in comparative literature, atomic physics and quantum mechanics, and real analysis. After co-teaching a course in digital electronics at Dartmouth, Frank was a research and design engineer and project leader, designing ultrasound equipment and electronics for more than ten years. Frank has been the vice president of R&D and chief scientist for a medical device company. As a designer of ultrasound, he has lectured across the country to sonographers, physicians, engineers, and students. Frank authored the Ultrasound Physics and Instrumentation, 4th Edition and its Independent Learning Program, produced multiple educational videos, created Exam Simulation programs, as well as the analysis algorithm method and apparatus for evaluating educational performance. He has also served on the faculty for the Society of Vascular Technology and is credited with several ultrasound and medical device patents, trade secrets, and publications.
Inspired by the scope and mission of ITW, Monica Ramsey joined Imaging the World in May 2009 as the Development Group Leader.
From 1990 through 2001, Monica was founder and CEO of U|P Creative Inc. an award winning group of marketing companies that specialized in branding and high tech marketing consulting. In 2001 Monica moved into the world of public broadcasting as a Director of Development and marketing consultant for Seattle’s KEXP and NPR. As a marketing consultant for NPR stations she worked nationally to help brand and fundraise for local stations and was a national speaker for innovative fundraising and community engagement. Monica moved on to the PBS side of the industry as the Executive Director of Development and on air host for KCTS 9 with an emphasis on community building and advocacy. In this position she was responsible for over $21 million dollars of revenue annually.
Monica has served on many different non-profit boards and currently is a founding board member for The Gift of Giving Foundation. She has a BA from the University of Washington and lives in Seattle with her husband and two children. She enjoys anything that has to do with snow, water, books, writing and food.
Matthew R. Rielly was born in Walsall, England. He received a B.Sc. degree in physics with astrophysics from the University of Leeds England, in 1994 and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Bath, England in 2001.
His research centered on both theoretical and experimental investigations of nonlinear propagation of ultrasound through tissue mimicking media.
He joined Philips Healthcare, Bothell, WA in 1999 where he currently manages a systems engineering group in the Philips Ultrasound R&D group. His team’s main responsibilities include defining product architectures, creating system design specifications and review and approval of system requirements, and feature design specifications.
During his time at Philips he has also been a project manager responsible for ultrasound applications on premium ultrasound products. He is also involved in cross business research portfolio management and has authored several patents relating to ultrasound system design and transducer design.
Matthew Rielly has also been an active participant in international standards committees relating to ultrasound output and control, serving on both IEC TC87 and IEC MT34.
Shadrack Picho is from Kampala, and received his Bachelors in Arts (Hons) from Makerere University with a major in Communications and a minor in Organizational studies.
In 2004, he worked as a team leader, doing research for 3A Strategic Management Consultancy LTD. In 2005, he conducted research for World Food Program (WFP) monitoring communities, visiting health facilities in Kapchrowa district and educating mothers about child nutrition.
Shadrack joined Imaging the World in 2009 as a Logistic Team Leader in Uganda. He enjoys traveling and making friends with people from diverse cultures.
