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Contributors ryan Alaniz, PhD (sociology), MA (Latin American studies), grew up on a farm on the central coast of California. The son of a Mexican-American father and white mother, Ryan’s interest in bridging cultural understanding and economic opportunity started when he was young. At fourteen, on a trip to build homes for the impoverished in Tijuana, Mexico, Ryan saw the disparity of wealth between the two nations; this encouraged him to address poverty in Latin America, and to find ways to effect positive change while bringing lessons of social health back to the United States. After college, Ryan volunteered at Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos orphanage from 2001 to 2002. It was there that he was inspired to start the Fútbol Project, a nonprofit that provides soccer equipment to orphaned and underprivileged children after they complete a service project for their community. It was also where he decided the future trajectory of his life: teaching in higher education. Ryan believes that informing university students, who he enthusiastically calls “future leaders of the world,” about their privilege empowers them to find ways to effect positive change. In this way, he attempts to motivate students to bridge the ivory tower with the dirt roads, and to learn theory by engaging in praxis. Many of his former students are now volunteering throughout Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Ryan is assistant professor at California Polytechnic State University, a Fulbright Ambassador, and a board member of Restorative Partners. He has published with United Nations University and the Social Science Research Council, and is finishing a manuscript titled How to Be a Conscientious Gringo: Twelve Ways to Effect Change in Yourself and the World. His current academic research investigates the long-term social health (for example, trust, low crime, and participation) of post-disaster planned communities . More specifically, Ryan focuses on seven Honduran communities eleven years after Hurricane Mitch (1998), highlighting not only how residents and sponsoring ngos work together to create community, but the interactions and contradictions that are born from this process. When asked about his development philosophy, Ryan usually refers to the fishing analogy. “It is good to give a person a fish. And we know it is even better to teach him or her how to fish. Engaged academic research provides the tools for us to examine why the person did not have a fish in the first place, and then address that issue. Our role as committed scholars is to understand when and how to accomplish all three.” Natasha M. Archer, MD, was born in Queens, New York, to Haitian emigrants. She was raised in a strong Catholic household in Queens. As a child, Natasha never traveled to Haiti but always had an interest in her parents’ home country. She went to Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, where she majored in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. She also worked as a tutor for New Haven youth, and a biology tutor for Yale College underclass members as part of the Science, Technology and Research Scholars (stars) program.| 239 240 | Contributors After graduating, Natasha pursued further teaching opportunities as a Yale-China teaching fellow; her interest in working in resource-limited settings began while she was teaching English as a teaching fellow in Changsha, Hunan. There, she first witnessed the social and political barriers to delivering healthcare to the disempowered. While still in China, Natasha applied to medical school and matriculated at Yale University School of Medicine in 2002. The atmosphere at Yale was both encouraging and instructive. At this time she began volunteering with Concerned Haitian Americans of Illinois (chai) in CapHa ïtien, Haiti, where she helped to develop and maintain three clinics. After her first medical mission and first trip to Haiti, Natasha enrolled in the Directed Independent Language Study (dils) at Yale that allowed her to study Haitian Creole in order to better communicate with her patients. She returned to Haiti annually throughout medical school. From this experience, Natasha realized her responsibility as a physician to challenge the current health system within which she now worked, and to develop healthcare strategies that not only are accountable to the people they serve, but also address the broader social forces that perpetuate disease. Natasha moved to Boston as a resident in the combined Harvard Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program and the Global Health Equity Residency Program. Through the Global Health Equity Residency Program, Natasha has spent the majority of her time abroad at Partners in Health sites in Haiti. Immediately...

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