Certificate in Global Health Faculty

Dr. Chiwoneso Tinago

Dr. Chiwoneso Tinago

Dr. Chiwoneso Tinago is the Program Director of the Certificate in Global Health. Dr. Tinago is a tenured Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences where she is the Internship Coordinator and teaches both undergraduate and graduate classes. Dr. Tinago chairs the College of Health Sciences Global Health Research Team and the Global Initiatives Committee. She leads global health research studies exploring structural environmental influences on health among adolescent girls and young women in south-east Africa and the U.S. through emic and community-based participatory methods. She is the director of the Uganda Service-Learning Program and the faculty advisor for the WCU Global Health Ambassadors, Delta Omega Beta Xi Chapter, and the World Health Assembly Simulation conference participants who have participated in conferences in the U.S., UK, and Canada. In the certificate program, Dr. Tinago teaches HEA 200: Introduction to Global Health.

Dr. Heather Edelblute

Dr. Heather Edelblute

Dr. Heather Edelblute is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences. She studies migration and health with a focus on mental health and maternal and child health for Mexican- and African-origin migrants. She has led research studies and conducted fieldwork in Mexico for more than 11 years. Over her academic career, she has led study abroad programs in Costa Rica/Nicaragua, Bosnia/Croatia, and Mexico and worked on State Department partnerships with Russian educators. Through this work, she has developed relationships with faculty and staff at Ecolodge San Luis (Costa Rica), Universidad de Guadalajara (Mexico), and University of Zagreb (Croatia). Dr. Edelblute also serves as a Steering Committee member on the Spanish in Healthcare program at WCU.

Dr. Michelle O'Connor Kensey

Dr. Michelle O'Connor Kensey

Dr. Michelle O'Connor Kensey is a tenured Associate Professor of Nursing. She has experience as a faculty lead in study abroad courses in South Africa, providing students with clinical experiences in federally funded hospitals and clinics to provide maternal child nursing care to women and families of marginalized populations in the Townships of Cape Town, ZA. She also co-teaches a study abroad service-learning trip to Honduras to promote global health awareness through clinical practicum immersion. She has volunteered as a faculty advisor of a Student Government Association, Global Brigades WCU Chapter, a new organization at WCU. Dr. Kensey has experience developing the Sustainability Certificate at WCU. Through personal volunteerism, she has provided medical care through various global organizations in Mexico, Guatemala, and in rural Native American populations in the US to improve healthcare disparities among underserved populations.

Dr. Kimberly Johnson

Dr. Kimberly Johnson

Dr. Kimberly Johnson is a tenured Associate Professor of Nutrition who has researched and taught courses in global nutrition, is a member of the CHS Global Initiatives Committee, and member of the Global Health Research team. Dr. Johnson serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, reviewing global research linked to nutrition and health in food systems.

Dr. Patricia Davidson

Dr. Patricia Davidson

Dr. Patricia Davidson is a tenured Professor of Nutrition and is a registered dietitian and certified diabetes care and education specialist. She is active in the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics on various task forces including the development of practice guidelines (Evidence Analysis Library) and serves on the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialist research committee. Her research centers on pedagogical approaches for enhancing student learning including simulation and online learning. She has experience as a faculty co-lead for a study abroad course in Perugia, Italy and development and teaching Sustainable Food Systems course. Dr. Davidson is a member of the sustainability council and has experience developing a course included in the Sustainability Certificate Pathway at WCU.

Dr. Harry Holt

Dr. Harry Holt

Dr. Harry Holt is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences. Dr. Holt’s background in the health care industry started with working with the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. He gained expertise in the physician practice management, marketing, and operational functions of satellite family health centers that delivered care to Clinic patients. With the health care consulting firms Ernst and Young and Cap Gemini Ernst and Young, he worked with hospitals throughout the United States in improving their operations and their efficiency. He worked with physicians, hospitals, and health insurance companies to find ways to improve the quality of care delivered to patients while also enabling hospitals to operate efficiently and generate sufficient revenue and profits to be financially healthy. He delivered health care consulting services to clients served by Ernst and Young located in South America, the Middle East, and Western Europe. His research focuses on financial and operational performance of hospitals, health systems, and physician groups.

Dr. Melanie Vile

Dr. Melanie Vile

Dr. Melanie Vile is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences with nearly 30 years of experience in several aspects of global climate change research. The bulk of her research takes place in peatlands in northern Alberta, Canada, but has worked in these ecologically important ecosystems in Siberia, Fenno-Scandinavia, The Czech Republic, the Italian Alps, Scotland, and The Netherlands. Through this work, she has developed relationships with faculty and staff at the University of Alberta and Athabasca University (Canada), the Finnish Environmental Institute (Finland), the Czech Geological Survey (Czech Republic), the Water Resource Institute (Scotland), Radboud University, Nijmegen (The Netherlands).

Dr. Zeinab Baba

Dr. Zeinab Baba

Dr. Zeinab Baba is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences. She earned her doctorate in Community Health and Prevention from Drexel University in 2014 where she worked as an outreach educator for the Drexel University College of Medicine's Department of Surgery. Prior to joining WCU she worked as a Chronic Disease Epidemiologist in the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Delaware Division of Public health and as a research assistant and data analyst/programmer at the children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Baba has extensive experience managing and analyzing various healthcare datasets for pediatric and adult populations. Dr. Baba conducts quantitative and qualitative research focused on prevention, health disparities, mental health, and perceptions of health. Dr. Baba is particularly interested in the intersection of public health with other closely related fields (social work, migration, cultural anthropology, etc).

Dr. Linda Stevenson

Dr. Linda Stevenson

Dr. Linda Stevenson is a tenured professor in the Political Science Department. Her primary areas of teaching and research specialization are in comparative politics and international relations, with a focus in the region of Latin America, on topics related to democracy, equality, development and gender politics. In the 1980s she traveled to Haiti, Kenya, the former Soviet Union (Russia, Ukraine and Latvia), and Mexico for short periods, but long enough to observe and formulate questions about poverty, inequalities and how transitions to democracy can occur?! These questions and the myriad of answers continue to drive her as a global citizen and as a political scientist. In the early 1990s, she worked with a study abroad program in Cuernavaca, Mexico for five years, which led to my specializations on my professional path. She returned to Mexico for two years as a Fulbright Scholar to conduct my dissertation research on women in politics in the dynamic political context of a democratizing nation. As such, much of her work has focused on Mexican politics, and more recently in gender equity policies in Chile. More recently, in light of the growing Latino and immigrant population in the U.S., her work has shifted to teaching, research, and service about and with Latinos and immigrants in Pennsylvania, and the United States in general.

Dr. Susan L. Johnston

Dr. Susan L. Johnston

Dr. Susan L. Johnston is a tenured Professor of Anthropology and Sociology. She is a biological anthropologist. Her areas of specialty/interest are human health and disease, including health transition; the anthropology of food and nutrition; human adaptability; child growth and development; and native North America (especially the Plains region). She employs a biocultural perspective when considering questions or issues in these areas. To date, her research has focused on health and lifestyle change among Blackfeet Indians in Montana, with an emphasis on chronic disease epidemiology, food/nutrition, and reproduction, and more recently on food insecurity in the US suburbs and on the teaching of evolution. She is also a certified physician assistant and worked in clinical practice and teaching in that field for a number of years prior to earning her doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. She has been at West Chester University since the fall 1999.

Dr. Michael Di Giovine

Dr. Michael Di Giovine

Dr. Michael Di Giovine is a tenured Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. His interests lie in the intersection between heritage discourses, tourism, religion, food, and revitalization initiatives. A former tour operator possessing over a decade of experience with the tourism sector, Dr. Di Giovine is a founding member and the longtime Convenor of the Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group at the American Anthropological Association, where he served on the Nominations Committee and the Task Force on Cultural Heritage. He is the author of "The Heritage-scape: UNESCO, World Heritage and Tourism" (Lexington Books 2009), and nearly a dozen edited volumes and special journal issues. He is the Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, and the editor of Lexington Books’ Anthropology of Tourism: Heritage, Mobility and Society series and its corresponding webinar series. An internationally recognized scholar of tourism, heritage, pilgrimage and foodways, he has been featured on NPR, ABC Australia, The Economist, Boston Globe, La Cucina Italiana, and National Geographic, among other venues.