Energize the Chain

Board of Directors

Dr. Harvey Rubin, MD, PhD

Director

Dr. Harvey Rubin is Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania with secondary appointments in the Departments of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Computer and Information Sciences. His research on the basic biology of tuberculosis and the mathematical modeling of complex biological systems has been funded by the NIH, NSF, DARPA and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Discovery. He has published over 90 papers in peer reviewed journals as well as numerous scientific reviews and book chapters.

Dr. Harvey Rubin served on a number of national and international scientific review panels including the NIH, NSF, NASA Intelligent Systems Program, DARPA, and The Medical Research Council, South Africa. He was a member of the United States National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) and the Department of Defense/National Academy of Sciences Biological Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

Dr. Harvey Rubin is the Director of University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response (ISTAR). ISTAR is dedicated to identifying, analyzing and solving policy, scientific and technical issues that contribute to regional, national and international security.

Dr. Kent Smetters, PhD

Director

Dr. Kent Smetters is the Boettner Chair Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His recent research has focused on incomplete markets, investment risk management, and the interaction of finances and public entitlement programs.

Previous positions include the Congressional Budget Office (1995 to 1998), the Kaiser Visiting Professor of Economics at Stanford Economics Department (2000-2001), and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the United States Treasury (2001-2002). He has published academic articles in leading journals, including American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and The Quarterly Journal of Economics. He is often cited in major media outlets.

Dr. Kent Smetters received his PhD in Economics from Harvard University.

Areef Kassam

Director

Areef Kasaam is a Senior Programme Manager for Green Power for Mobile and is responsible for developing and delivering the programme products and services that are tailored to supporting telecommunications operators in the decision of deploying renewable energy to power remote base station sites. Areef comes from an engineering background and has 8 years of telecommunications experience in emerging markets.

He spent 4 years in Afghanistan working with Telecom Development Company Afghanistan T/A Roshan.

Areef received his BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Alberta and is currently pursuing an MBA from the London Business School.

Judah Levine

Director

Judah Levine is the Chief Executive Officer of HIP Consult, Inc., an independent, internationally-oriented management consultancy with a specialization in emerging markets.  His responsibilities include day-to-day management of the firm, new business development, strategic initiative delivery, and thought leadership.  With an extensive background in strategic planning, commercial development, technology innovation, and management for organizations in both developed and emerging markets, Judah enjoys assisting clients to conceptualize, qualify, and pursue ambitious investment projects and to analyze and solve complex operational problems.  Previously, he served as Vice President of International Business Development for Teligent, New Markets Manager of Arbinet, and Consultant with A.T. Kearney's Communications and High-Tech Practice.

Judah received his MBA from the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan), MA in Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the Rackham Graduate School (University of Michigan), and BA in Government and Certificate of Arab Studies from Georgetown University.

Dr. Aravind Menon, MBBS, MPH

Executive Director of Programs

Dr. Aravind Menon is the Executive Direction of Programs at Energize the Chain. He has programmatic experience in community-based health interventions, public-private partnerships, and health research management in India and South Africa. His research interests include maternal and child health, adolescent reproductive health, and global public health partnerships, with a focus on developing countries. He was educated in India and speaks five South Asian languages.

He has worked previously as a physician in an Indian public hospital and as Director of a large-scale reproductive health intervention for married adolescent girls in central India. He most recently spent one year in South Africa as an NIH Fogarty Fellow at the rural HIV research clinic of CAPRISA, a UNAIDS collaborating center located at the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic. He also got married there on World AIDS Day, thereby doing his little bit to promote stable monogamous relationships.

Aravind is currently a doctoral student in family and reproductive health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. At Energize the Chain, he coordinates public health research and planning operations. He is passionate about the project's immense potential to broaden access to high quality preventive health services in poor rural communities.

Raghavan Anand

Executive Director of Operations

Raghavan Anand is a Product Manager and founding team member at Blue Jeans Network, a cloud-based videoconferencing startup. Before Blue Jeans, Anand has served in various engineering roles at NVIDIA Corporation and a few video related startups.

Anand also serves as the Chief Financial Officer at One Million Lights, a nonprofit that distributes solar lights around the world. He is also currently on the Board of Directors at Mindful Schools, a nonprofit focused on transforming education in the US.

Anand has also served on the Board of Directors of Asha for Education, as their President and CEO and as their National Director for Projects, leading an organization of over 1000 members that donates over $3 million to India annually towards the education of underprivileged children. He also served on the Board of Directors of the NVIDIA Foundation.

Anand is currently an MBA candidate at the Wharton School. He received an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Leadership Team

Alice Conant

Fundraising Coordinator

Alice Conant graduated from Phillips Academy Andover and is currently an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania studying engineering and global health. She has previously worked as a coordinator for both colon cancer and obesity studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the Claremont Graduate University School of Community and Global Health. She has been coordinating EtC research and development since the summer of 2010 and is a founding member of the non-profit. In the spring of 2011, Alice personally met with Bill Gates to present the work of Energize the Chain!

Tommy Fu

Senior Research and Partnerships Coordinator

Tommy Fu is an MD/MBA student at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, studying supply chain operations.  Currently, he coordinates all business/medical logistics for Energize the Chain.

Previously, Tommy completed clinical work in both South America and Asia and has training in emergency medicine and wilderness critical care.  As a bioengineering undergraduate student, Tommy founded and led a microfinance 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.  He received his B.A. in Sports Medicine from Rice University and plans to receive his M.D. from the University of Texas at Southwestern Medical School in 2013.

At age 5, Tommy got to chose his own name so naturally, chose to be the White Power Ranger!

Brittany Lin

PR and Outreach Coordinator

Brittany Lin also acts as the webmaster and secretary for Energize the Chain.  She works on the New Products and Solutions team at Google in Mountain View, CA. Previously, she worked as an account manager at an energy consulting company, PowerAdvocate, in Boston, MA.

While at Harvard, she served as the co-president of Harvard Model Congress, a 501(c)(3) non-profit governmental simulation program for high school students around the world, and as the treasurer and internship coordinator for Harvard China Care, another student group whose mission is to improve the lives of orphans in China.

Brittany received her B.A. from Harvard University where she majored in economics, minored in government, received a language citation in Chinese (Mandarin), and, most importantly, roomed with Katherine Sancken (see below) for all four years of college.

Chandan Mishra

Senior Research and Partnerships Coordinator

Chandan Mishra is a Senior Manager at Enterprise Cloud Business Unit at Cisco Systems, leading provider of network equipments. Chandan joined Cisco through the acquisition of Andiamo Systems, a storage networking startup. Before Andiamo Systems, Chandan was involved in couple of other internet and computer networking startups. Chandan has also been associated with Accretia Capital, a mid-market private equity firm, where he has evaluated investments in healthcare service sector.

Chandan has served on the board of directors of Community Technology Alliance Group (CTA Group). CTA Group’s mission is to use technology to help homeless and at-risk individuals.  Chandan also has interest in environmental and other social impact issues.

He receive his BTech in Computer Science from IIT Kanpur in India and plans to receive his MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012.

As an avid music fan, Chandan can whistle to any music tune.

Nicholas Saidel

Legal Counsel

Nicholas Saidel is Assistant Director of the Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis & Response (ISTAR) at the University of Pennsylvania. At ISTAR, Nicholas Saidel has authored published materials on issues ranging from the Arab-Israeli conflict to global health security.

As a Fellow at The Foreign Policy Research Institute's Center on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Homeland Security, Mr. Saidel researched and wrote extensively on topics associated with defending the United States against terrorist attacks. Mr. Saidel has also worked on Capitol Hill as a Legislative Aide to Congressman Robert A. Brady. 

He received his J.D. from Georgetown University and his M.A. in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. Mr. Saidel received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in Political Science with a focus on Middle East Affairs.

A true Renaissance man, Nicholas enjoys playing guitar, singing, lifting weights, and moon walking for his friends and colleagues alike. He has also volunteered at a Palestinian kindergarten in Bait Hanaina.

Katherine Sancken

Grants Coordinator

Katherine Sancken graduated from Harvard University, where she earned an A.B. in Environmental Science and Public Policy and a minor in Health Policy.  At EtC, Katherine provides support for fundraising efforts, grant writing, and administrative operations, among other activities. Katherine traveled to Mombasa, Kenya, in March 2011 to represent EtC at the East Africa GSM Association summit, a congress for mobile operators.

Katherine lives in Washington D.C., where she works at Avalere Health, an advisory company focused on healthcare business strategy and public policy.

Moments after EtC's presentation at the GSMA conference in Kenya, Katherine's appendix ruptured! After 8 days in the Mombasa Hospital, Katherine is now proficient in Swahili (not quite)! Jambo!

Tracey L. Strange

PR and Outreach Coordinator

Tracey L. Strange is a consultant at OECD and has participated in projects including future studies, sustainable development, health, and innovation. She is the blog manager of the OECD Insights blog.

Tracey works on a range of topics related to strategic risk analysis, sustainability and health.  She received a MA in Romance Languages and Literature from Harvard University.

She does not walk around town with headphones or earbuds, because when she hears her favorite music, she has to dance and this can be embarrassing in public.

Board of Advisors

Sanjay Kapoor

Advisor

Sanjay Kapoor is the Deputy CEO at Bharti Airtel Limited.

Friends of EtC

Popovic Dragoslav

Popovic Dragoslav is the Senior Health Advisor at UNICEF New York.

Cynthia Figueroa

Cynthia F. Figueroa is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Congreso. She  previously served as the Deputy Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia's Department of Human Services and is a former Eisenhower fellow.

Vijay Kumar

Vijay Kumar is a UPS Foundation Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the Deputy Dean, Education of Penn Engineering.

Dr. Ali Jadbabaie, PhD

Ali Jadbabie is the Co-director of the Singh Program in Market and Social Systems Engineering and a Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Computer and Information Science (SEAS), and Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Steve Landry

Steve Landry is the Vaccine Program Manager at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Justin Mandly

Justin Mandly is currently a MBA candidate at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. 

Strive Masiyiwa

Strive Masiyiwa is a Zimbabwean born businessman and cellphone pioneer, founding Econet Wireless.

David Taverner

David Taverner is the Director of Mobile and Development Intelligence at GSMA. 

Ken Trujillo

Kenneth I. Trujillo is a member and founder of the firm, Trujillo, Rodriguez & Richards, LLC, and has been a member of Congreso's board since 1990.

Dr. Walter L. Straus, MD, MPH

Dr. Walter Straus is the Global Director for Scientific Affairs - Vaccines at Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co, Inc.