Meet the ASCH candidates 2024-2027!

ASCH President Candidates

Bio: Neil Murphy

I currently work at Southcentral Foundation in the OB/GYN department. I had previously worked in Bethel from 1985-87, Sitka from 1987-90 and have worked at Alaska Native Medical Center since 1993. I have been a member of the ASCH since 1987. I served as President, 2000-2008, President-elect 1998-2000, and Vice President 1995- 1998. I am currently serving as the Historian for the ASCH Board, as an Honorary Board member. I have been on the Board of Directors for the Albrecht Milan Foundation and served as Treasurer, since 1998. As such, I have managed the Jens Peder Hart Hansen Memorial Fund since its inception in 2001. The Albrecht Milan Foundation is currently doing business as the Arctic Health Foundation. I began my involvement with the IUCH Council in 1998. I served as President 2003 – 2006, Vice President, 2000-2003 and was an ASCH representative to the International Council, 1998 – 2006. I was awarded the John A. Hildes Medal in 2012. I have been involved in ICCHs since 1987. I was the ICCH Proceedings Senior Editor for both ICCH13 and ICCH15. I was Co-Chairman of ICCH13 in Novosibirsk and was on the Planning Committee for both ICCH10 and ICCH15 in Anchorage and Fairbanks, respectively. I was a Scientiﬁc Editor for the International Journal of Circumpolar Health from 2000 – 2006. I have been a peer reviewer since that time. I have been involved in research about diabetes mellitus, especially as it pertains to circumpolar populations and pregnancy. I have been involved with monitoring human papillomavirus disease, as well as implementation of HPV vaccines. I have been involved in tobacco cessation research, especially in pregnant women. I have also published on the history of the circumpolar health movement.

ASCH Vice President Candidates

Bio: Patricia Cochran

Patricia Cochran, Inupiaq Elder, was born and raised in Nome, Alaska. She has been an Arctic Researcher and Educator for more than 50 years. Ms. Cochran serves as Executive Director of the Alaska Native Science Commission (established in 1994), an organization that brings together research and science in partnership with Alaska Native communities. She formerly served as Administrator of the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies and on staﬀ of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Ms. Cochran also served as Chair of the 2009 Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change and was Co-Chair of the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Network on Climate Change. She is the past Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, an international organization representing 160,000 Inuit of Alaska, Canada, Russian and Greenland; former Chair of the Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat to the 8-nation Arctic Council; and Arctic Representative to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Ms. Cochran currently serves as Former Chair and Treasurer of the American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian Caucus of the American Public Health Association, President of the Arctic Health Foundation, Board Member of the Alaska Forum on the Environment, Senior Consultant to the Permafrost Pathways Project, Senior Consultant to the Rising Voices Changing Coasts Hub, Member of the Robert Wood Johnson National Advisory Committee for Health and Climate Solutions, and a Member of the American Academy of Sciences Accelerating Climate Action Commission. Ms. Cochran lectures and writes for national and international audiences and most importantly, she is “mom” to dozens of students throughout the Arctic, and “aana” or grandmother to 3 beautiful granddaughters with whom she hopes to spend more time if she ever retires!

Bio: Iain Miller

My name is Iain Miller and I would like to take this opportunity to be considered for a position on the board of the ASCH. Through involvement on the board, I anticipate promoting research, engaging varied stakeholder groups, and raising awareness about circumpolar health issues and the residents of the region. I have been a member of the organization since my undergrad at the University of Alaska and served as the student member to the board for 2 years, which included attendance at the International Congress on Circumpolar Health 2018. Following a graduate school stint at the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, I returned to Alaska. I am on course to graduate with a Masters of One Health from the University of Alaska Fairbanks next spring. I currently live in Fairbanks with my family and am excited about this opportunity to further my involvement with the ASCH! Thank you for your consideration.

Bio: Lisa Schwartzburg

Having previously served as Secretary from 2018 through the end of 2019, I am very familiar with the important eﬀorts of this society as I worked closely with other oﬀicers to help conduct the Arctic Health Sciences Seminar & Annual meeting; regular oﬀicers’ meetings; and keeping the membership roster and board members up to date. Today, with the great working knowledge developed under the skilled leadership of previous fellow oﬀicers—I would like to put myself forward for the Vice-President position. In circumpolar research, I tend to look through a holistic lens, seeking better knowledge of connections among community, social determinants, environment, and varied ways of knowing. I gained this perspective, in part, from my involvement with ASCH in 2009 as the recipient of ASCH’s Jens Hart Peder Hansen Award. I travelled to ICCH14 and presented for the ﬁrst time in Yellowknife, NWT CA. And many ICCH congresses since. While ASCH Secretary, I wanted to help other ASCH members feel that support and comradery among circumpolar health researchers and professionals—as I do now. I would appreciate the opportunity to work toward this goal again, as ASCH Vice-President. I will stand beside and -in for the President as needed; and with other ASCH oﬀicers, the Board and members, as we continue to strive for excellence in circumpolar health—with our counterparts across circumpolar regions. As an Assistant Professor of Health Sciences at UAA, I teach Social and Cultural Determinants of Health, Environmental & Global Health, Program Evaluation, and Senior Seminar in Health Policy to undergraduate students in UAA’s Health Sciences program. I am also leading a team on a state-funded project to assess a doula-assisted violence prevention to reduce maternal mortality; while also Principal Investigator on an NIH-INBRE-funded project to lay groundwork in communities tackling maternal mortality by helping to facilitate Community Advisory Boards focused on maternal health in their area. And I am proud to be a frequent reviewer and occasional author for the International Journal of Circumpolar Health. My PhD is from UAF in Interdisciplinary Studies through the Cross-Cultural Studies program, focusing on Rural and Indigenous Health Policy. I hold a BS in Agriculture, majoring in Plant & Soil Sciences; and an MS in Agricultural Economics, majoring in Rural Sociology, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

ASCH Secretary Candidates

Bio: Ruby Fried

Dr. Fried is an assistant professor of Health Science within the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies. Her work focuses on identifying the social, nutritional, cultural and economic underpinnings of health outcomes in terms of both risk and resilience. Dr. Fried’s research includes examining the intergenerational impacts of traditional or subsistence foods among Alaska Native mothers and children, traditional food security, and other mixed methods projects related to food environments and health disparities with a commitment to active and meaningful community-driven research. Dr. Fried grew up in Alaska, and prior to coming to UAA she earned her PhD at Northwestern University and has worked on health-related projects in the Chicago area, the Philippines and in Ecuador. Dr. Fried spends her free time skiing, hiking, berry picking and otherwise enjoying all that Alaska has to oﬀer.

Bio: Iain Miller

ASCH Treasurer Candidates

Bio: Tom Hennessy

I have been in the Society since 2000 but have never been on the Board. I have participated in many of the Society’s local annual scientiﬁc symposia and have presented at ﬁve International Congress on Circumpolar Health (ICCH) meetings. I was the Co-chair of the Scientiﬁc Program Committee for the 2012 Congress that ASCH hosted in Fairbanks and was a section editor for the Proceedings. Next summer, the next ICCH will be held in Yellowknife, NWT. I want to work with the Board to strengthen our local scientiﬁc community and to support ASCH members who wish to participate in the Yellowknife meeting. I worked as a medical epidemiologist for CDC for 25 years until 2019. For most of that time, I was the Director of CDC’s Arctic Investigations Program, the infectious diseases ﬁeld station in Anchorage. For ﬁve years, I was the US Representative for the Arctic Human Health Experts Group, an advisory group of the Arctic Council. I also served on the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee to track and integrate US Arctic science research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked as an advisor to the University of Alaska and led a UAA team that supported the Anchorage Health Department. I am mostly retired now but am honored to be an Aﬀiliate Professor of Health Sciences at UAA. I am a graduate of Antioch College (BS), the Mayo Medical School (MD), Emory University (MPH) and CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. I completed residency- trained in both Family Medicine and Preventive Medicine.

ASCH General Board Member Candidates

Bio: Anita Moore-Nall

Dr. Moore-Nall is an Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana where she started in August, 2023. She was a Postdoctoral Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellow based out of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Alaska Operations Office, from October 2021 – August 2023. She assisted with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 and Office of Research and Development Regional Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (RESES) Research Project to address the health impacts of waste in rural Alaska. Anita is an enrolled member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Tribe of Montana. Anita completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) in the Division of Population Health from 2018-2021. Anita taught Environmental Health and Circumpolar Health Issues at the university. Her research was focused on how the environment/place can affect people’s health. Her PhD was in Earth Sciences, Geology option, from Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. She focused part of her PhD on Medical Geology looking at mercury and lead in the Big Horn River and uranium in home wells on the reservation. She continues to collaborate with the EPA project and connections that she has made in Alaska. Anita is happiest when adventuring outdoors skiing, hiking and trail running.

Bio: Neil Murphy

I currently work at Southcentral Foundation in the OB/GYN department. I had previously worked in Bethel from 1985-87, Sitka from 1987-90 and have worked at Alaska Native Medical Center since 1993. I have been a member of the ASCH since 1987. I served as President, 2000-2008, President-elect 1998-2000, and Vice President 1995- 1998. I am currently serving as the Historian for the ASCH Board, as an Honorary Board member. I have been on the Board of Directors for the Albrecht Milan Foundation and served as Treasurer, since 1998. As such, I have managed the Jens Peder Hart Hansen Memorial Fund since its inception in 2001. The Albrecht Milan Foundation is currently doing business as the Arctic Health Foundation. I began my involvement with the IUCH Council in 1998. I served as President 2003 – 2006, Vice President, 2000-2003 and was an ASCH representative to the International Council, 1998 – 2006. I was awarded the John A. Hildes Medal in 2012. I have been involved in ICCHs since 1987. I was the ICCH Proceedings Senior Editor for both ICCH13 and ICCH15. I was Co-Chairman of ICCH13 in Novosibirsk and was on the Planning Committee for both ICCH10 and ICCH15 in Anchorage and Fairbanks, respectively. I was a Scientiﬁc Editor for the International Journal of Circumpolar Health from 2000 – 2006. I have been a peer reviewer since that time. I have been involved in research about diabetes mellitus, especially as it pertains to circumpolar populations and pregnancy. I have been involved with monitoring human papilloma virus disease, as well as implementation of HPV vaccines. I have been involved in tobacco cessation research, especially in pregnant women. I have also published on the history of the circumpolar health movement.

Bio: Tom Hennessy

Bio: Patricia Cochran

Bio: Jennifer Meyer

Thank you for the opportunity to submit a statement of interest for a board member position with the American Society for Circumpolar Health (ASCH). My public health practice and research have focused primarily on equity in oral health, vaccine conﬁdence, communicable disease control and prevention, health promotion, and rural development domestically and abroad. I have served twice as the President of the Alaska Public Health Association (a state aﬀiliate for the American Public Health Association), as well as board member among other groups such as the Make A Wish Foundation. Most of my career has been spent in public health and nursing venues. I graduated from the University of California Davis in 1994 and served in the U.S. Peace Corps from 1995-1997 as an HIV Prevention and Control Volunteer in Thailand. I earned a second Bachelor’s if Science degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in 2000. Upon completing a Masters of Public Health degree in International Health and Health Services, I worked in Bethel Alaska as an Itinerant Public Health Nurse, which allowed me to experience ﬁrst-hand the challenges of remote water service and sanitation. In 2009, I assumed a bipartite position for the University of Alaska Fairbanks, College of Rural and Community Development, Kuskokwim Campus, as an Assistant Professor of Allied Health. In pursuit of research opportunities after earning my Ph.D. in Public Health from Walden University, I accepted a tripartite position as an Assistant Professor of Health Science with the University of Alaska Anchorage. I currently provide graduate instruction in an accredited Master of Public Health program. Courses taught include Misinformation and Public Health, Global Health, Program Evaluation, Public Health Emergencies and Disasters, among others. As a public health scholar and researcher with direct practice and ﬁeld experience in rural and remote Alaska, I have continued to focus on issues aﬀecting population health in the Circumpolar North. Based on my background I am well positioned to support the ASCH in achieving its mission.

Thank you! If you have any questions please email asch.circumpolar.usa@gmail.com.

Meet Your Board Candidates

Meet the ASCH candidates 2024-2027!