2020 Alumni Award Winners

Lola Adeyemi, MD, MPH '08

Founder, Mentoring Her

Global Achievement Award

Lola Adeyemi, MD, MPH, MLA, is a physician by profession but an entrepreneur by design. Whether starting her own preventative health company, launching a healthcare technology app, or beginning a social impact company that empowers young women to pursue their dreams and reach the highest heights, she pursues her passions of improving people’s lives and their communities. 

As the chief operations officer and co-founder of Magna Carta Health, she is changing the game in preventative healthcare in Nigeria. In her role, she bridges healthcare gaps and increases access to healthcare with the aid of technology. Magna Carta Health currently serves 15,000 patients a year and counting.

Adeyemi’s latest entrepreneurial pursuits include building an app that helps doctors better serve communities by increasing access to care and launching a new platform, Mentoring Her, that connects female mentees. Mentoring Her is a social networking platform that uses machine learning to virtually connect female mentors with mentees to create relationships that significantly increase their potential.

In addition to her MPH from JHSPH, Adeyemi received her medical degree from Olabisi Onabanjo University in Nigeria and an MLA from Harvard University.

Indu Bhushan, PhD '96, MHS '93

CEO, Ayushman Bharat: National Health Protection Mission

Global Achievement Award

Indu Bhushan, PhD, MHS, has a professional career spanning 37 years across a multitude of sectors. He is an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology-Banaras Hindu University (IIT BHU) and IIT Delhi, and is a chartered financial analyst. After serving in the Indian Administrative Service for nine years, he worked as Senior Economist with the World Bank Group before moving to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). 

While at the Asian Development Bank, he served as Director General, East Asia Department; has held multiple positions including Director General, Strategy and Policy Department; and has led ADB’s engagement with China, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan, including management of $12.6 billion portfolio comprising 113 projects. Bhushan administered and provided oversight to sectors like energy; environment; natural resources and agriculture; transport; public management; financial sector and regional cooperation; and urban health and education. He also supervised ADB’s resident missions in China and Mongolia. 

Currently, Bhushan serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB – PMJAY), massive health assurance scheme of the Government of India, also referred to as “Modicare.” This is the largest fully government funded health assurance scheme in the world and covers  more than 500 million people for secondary and tertiary care. He is also supervising the implementation of the National Digital Health Mission, which seeks to establish an interoperable digital health infrastructure across the country.

Robert Carr, MD, MPH '85

Chief Medical Officer, Kumanu

Distinguished Alumnus Award

Robert Carr, MD, MPH, FACPM, is dedicated to training population-minded physicians and is passionate about fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration toward the goal of improving the health of the patient through policy practice, capability, and innovation.

He began his career as a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force Aerospace Medicine and as part of the Surgeon General's Office of Disease Surveillance & Health Promotion. He moved to his second career in public health with GlaxoSmithKline, where he worked for 25 years in leadership roles including HIV research and clinical diagnostics. Since his retirement from GSK in 2014, Carr has led and taught in an executive master's program in health system administration at Georgetown University. He has most recently taken on the role as chief medical officer of Kumanu, a precision well-being technology company.

Carr is also the immediate past president of the American College of Preventative Medicine, the professional society for physicians dedicated to preventative medicine and population health. This organization of more than 2,700 members from academia and government, aims to promote preventative medicine in order to improve the health of individuals and communities.

Recently, Carr has expanded his consistent philanthropy to include the creation of the Carr Family Humanitarian Student Scholarship which will support MPH students in perpetuity. Additionally, Carr has given back to the School through his service as a member of the Bloomberg School's Health Advisory Board for five years, and recently resumed his service to the board.

Natalie Draisin, MPH/MBA '15, KSAS BA '10

North American Office Director and United Nations Representative, FIA Foundation

Outstanding Recent Graduate Award

Natalie Draisin’s commitment to road safety emerged from a tragedy. As an undergraduate at Hopkins, her friend was killed by a drunk driver while walking to school. Natalie became determined to prevent others from dying on the roads as they exercised their right to an education. She advocated for breathalyzers in cars to prevent drunk driving and formed a coalition including Baltimore DOT, MADD, and Hopkins, to make campus streets safer. 

Today, she continues to focus on the leading killer of youth—road traffic. As director of the North American Office and the United Nations Representative for the FIA Foundation, she leads activities across the Americas, and advances evidence-based solutions for safe, sustainable mobility globally. At the UN, Draisin advocated for the inclusion of road safety in their Sustainable Development Goals and leads efforts to prioritize safe and healthy journeys to school. She also secured support from congressional representatives to encourage the World Bank to require stronger safety measures in their $5 billion of road funding. 

As a speaker at forums including the United Nations, World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank, Draisin connects data with personal stories to spur leadership, secure resources, and garner support. She founded Vision Zero for Youth with National Center for Safe Routes to School and enabled the creation of the New Mobility Initiative at Hopkins. She places children at the center of the political agenda through collaboration with partners such as the World Health Organization, Save the Children, UNICEF, and the CDC.

Robert Gilman, MD

Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Professor of Medicine; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Heritage Award

A member of the faculty since 1975, Robert Gilman, MD, has given 45 years of service to the University. In that time, he has mentored hundreds of students and research fellows. His longtime work in Peru has strengthened the brand of JHSPH – leading to a steady stream of students who have trained at Hopkins and returned to Peru to form a strong alumni network. 

Gilman is currently a faculty member at the School of Medicine and JHSPH, where he is also one of the directors of the Institute of Tropical Medicine. His tenure at Hopkins has also been accompanied by meaningful financial support of the Bloomberg School. Gilman is also a member of the faculty at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, where he is engaged in ongoing infectious diseases research. 

Prior to joining Hopkins, Gilman worked with the U.S. Public Health Service, and served as an assistant professor at the University of Maryland Hospital. He was also the chief of infectious disease at Wyman Park Hospital. 

His current research focuses on disease control, and his many scientific contributions include the development of microscopic-observation drug-susceptibility, a rapid tuberculosis diagnostic technique as well as investigative work on Chagas disease, Cyclospora cayetenesis, Helicobacter pylori, and neurocysticercosis. Gilman’s career has also included research in management and training for tropical disease prevention and interventions; community-based clinical trial for drugs; and climate factors associated with infectious disease in developing countries. He is committed to improving health outcomes in developing countries, and his research and teaching legacy have left an indelible mark on the U.S. and South America.

Duane Gubler, ScD '69

Emeritus Professor and Founding Director, Emerging Infections Diseases (EID); Signature Research Programme at Duke NUS Medical School, Singapore

Distinguished Alumnus Award

Duane J. Gubler, ScD, is Emeritus Professor and founding Director of the Program in Emerging Infectious Diseases which is affiliated with the Duke University-Graduate Medical School in Singapore. He earned his ScD degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 1969 under the guidance of acclaimed professor Lloyd E. Rozeboom. Gubler spent his entire research career investigating mosquito-transmitted diseases, especially dengue/dengue hemorrhagic fever. He has extensive research experience in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, tropical America, and elsewhere in the world with over 350 publications on both dengue and other vector-borne tropical diseases. Gubler served as Director of the Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, National Infectious Diseases Center for the CDC in Colorado for 15 years, and was founding Chief of the CDC’s Dengue Branch for nine years. He has served as a consultant/advisor on numerous WHO committees. He is Past President and Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Myint Htwe, MBBS, DrPH '92, MPH

Minister of Health and Sports, Republic of the Union of Myanmar

Distinguished Alumnus Award

Myint Htwe, MBBS, DrPH, MPH, is a public health professional with a long history of service in the health sector. In April 2016, he was appointed Union Minister of Health and Sports by the new Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in 2016. Htwe works to enable all of Myanmar’s citizens to enjoy longevity of life and to ensure all have the opportunity to live free from diseases. To accomplish this, Htwe oversees dissemination of health education, proliferation of disease prevention activities, and the provision of treatment of prevailing diseases. 

Htwe has spent over 16 years with WHO, serving in a variety of roles in the South East Asia Regional Office, including Regional Advisor for Research and Policy Cooperation and Director for Programme Management. Before he joined WHO, he was at the Ministry of Health, where he served as Chief of the Health Systems Research Unit and Chief of the International Health Division of the Minister’s Office. 

Htwe is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Myanmar Academy for Medical Sciences. He has held a number of key positions including Chair of the Preventive and Social Medicine Society of the Myanmar Medical Association, and Chair of the Ethics Review Committee of the Department of Medical Research at the Ministry of Health. In addition to his DrPH from JHSPH, Htwe has an MBBS and a Diploma in Preventive and Tropical Medicine from the Institute of Medicine (Myanmar) and an MPH from the University of the Philippines. He authored the book Reflections of a Public Health Professional for public health workers in developing countries.

Min-Ho Huang, MD, PhD, MPH '96

President, Show Chwan Health Care System

Distinguished Alumnus Award

A trained surgeon, Min-Ho Huang, MD, PhD, MPH, earned his MPH from JHSPH as part of the Taiwan Health Elite Program. The School established the program in 1994 to prepare many of the government’s leaders to oversee changes to Taiwan’s health care delivery. In 2013, he created an endowed scholarship in the department of Health Policy & Management in memory of his late father. 

Currently, Huang is president of the Show Chwan Health Care System in Taiwan, which he established in 1973, and named to commemorate his father. Huang oversees the system’s eight hospitals, which serve their communities with a commitment to ethical and multi-generational care. It is modeled after the Mayo Clinic in the US.

Huang also runs OmniHealth Group, a “total solution provider” in the sector of health care and medicine. OmniHealth Group has experience in practical management of medical institutions along with close collaboration with domestic and foreign healthcare systems on the foundation of an online virtual environment.

Huang is Chairman and Founder of the Asian Institute of TeleSurgery in Taiwan. The Institute mirrors IRCAD (Research Institute against Digestive Cancer), which pools digestive cancer research laboratories, a research and development department in computer sciences and robotics, and a training center in minimally invasive surgery.

Alefiyah Mesiwala, MD, MPH ’10

Chief Medical Officer, Humana Military

Woodrow Wilson Award

Alefiyah Mesiwala, MD, MPH ‘10, has dedicated her career to healthcare innovation and improved health outcomes for U.S. citizens. She was recently named Chief Medical Officer of Humana Military, serving six million beneficiaries and helping the military system shift to value-based care.

Mesiwala began her career as a medical officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and led the design and implementation of new payment reform models, such as accountable care organizations, and advised on delivery system reform priorities.

From 2015-17, Mesiwala served as Senior Policy Advisor on the White House National Economic Council under the Obama administration. In that capacity, she led on the President's healthcare team, advising and coordinating the Administration's activities on delivery system reform, healthcare innovation, and the Affordable Care Act. She was then named the Senior Medical Director for Value-based Care and Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Health Plan, the second largest provider-owned integrated delivery and financing system in the country.

Stephen Moore, MD, MPH '93

President and CEO, CarDon & Associates

Heritage Award

Stephen G. Moore, MD, MPH, has served as President and CEO of CarDon & Associates since 2000. Moore, an Indiana native, graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine. He trained at the Mayo Clinic in Internal Medicine and at Hopkins in Preventive Medicine, where he earned his MPH, and spent one year as chief resident. 

CarDon & Associates has a 40-plus year history of developing and managing communities for seniors in Indiana and Ohio. The company currently owns and manages 22 communities on 20 campuses. These communities offer skilled nursing and rehabilitation services, long term care, memory care, assisted living, senior housing apartments, and garden homes. 

Stephen and Julia Moore are the founding donors of The Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse. The Moore Center is an academic research center within JHSPH which is dedicated to applying the tools and methodology of prevention to the challenging social issue of the prevention of child sexual abuse. Moore has served as a member of the Bloomberg School’s Health Advisory Board for seven years and as the Board’s chair for five years. The Health Advisory Board provides critical guidance to School leadership. Moore has overseen the group’s evolution and growth as they serve as advocates and supporters of the School’s work and the field of public health. In addition to this commitment, he has also been a member of the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees for four years.