Berkley Center

David Barstow is executive director and board president of EMPACT Africa, an organization that trains local church leaders in sub-Saharan Africa to fight the stigma against AIDS. A computer scientist turned AIDS activist, he is the author of HIV and AIDS in 2030: A Choice Between Two Futures (2019).

Rebecca Linder Blachly is the director of government relations for the Episcopal Church. She previously served as senior policy advisor for Africa in the U.S. Department of State's Office of Religion and Global Affairs, advising the secretary of state and State Department officials on religious dynamics, the role of religious leaders, and communities in Africa.

Jenny Dyer is the founder of the 2030 Collaborative, which provides consulting and outreach services to non-profit and private organizations dedicated to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, and a lecturer in the Vanderbilt School of Medicine's Department of Health Policy. Previously, she worked as national faith outreach director for the DATA Foundation and the ONE Campaign.

Gloria Ekpo, M.D., is the senior technical advisor for HIV and AIDS at World Vision International and has accumulated over 30 years of clinical and public health experience in HIV/AIDS issues, maternal child health, family planning, community health research, and program management. Before she worked at World Vision, she was the technical officer for pediatric HIV for the USAID/BASICS project.

Jimmy Kolker is a visiting scholar for Georgetown's Center for Global Health Science and Security. He previously was assistant secretary for global affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2011-January 2017), U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso and Uganda, deputy global AIDS coordinator for the Office of the U.S. Global Aids Coordinator, and chief of UNICEF's AIDS section.

Mark P. Lagon is chief policy officer at Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He is also adjunct professor, Centennial Fellow, and Distinguished Senior Scholar in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. Lagon previously was president of Freedom House and served as U.S. ambassador-at-large, directing the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, leads the center’s work on religion and global development. She is also a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, teaching diverse courses on the ethics of development work and mentoring students at many levels. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, an NGO that works to enhance bridges between different sectors and institutions. In September 2022, she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Marshall has five decades of experience on a variety of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world’s poorest countries; one way she shares her expertise is through her blog Faith in Action. She was a World Bank officer from 1971 to 2006, and she led the World Bank’s faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006. Marshall is a member of the Working Group on Child Rights and Family Values and the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, both part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Maeve McKean was executive director of the Georgetown University Global Health Initiative until her passing in April 2020. A public health and human rights lawyer, she helped launch the City University of New York's Center for Immigrant, Refugee, and Global Health and was the first ever senior advisor for human rights within the State Department's global AIDS program under the Obama administration.