At the World Health Organization (WHO) Essential Medicines and Health Products Department, Jennifer is a consultant for regulatory systems strengthening and access to diagnostics in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. She previously served as Head of Quality, Clinical and Regulatory Affairs at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) and Head of Quality Management Services/ Senior Project Leader at the Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH).

During her 30+ years in research and development of medicines, vaccines and in-vitro diagnostics, for non-communicable and infectious diseases, Jennifer has collaborated with numerous biopharmaceutical companies, academic partners, humanitarian organizations, UN agencies, Ministries of Health and donors including Roche, Médecins Sans Frontières, DNDi, Global Fund and GAVI. Her work has taken her to over 60 countries; several in post-conflict zones.

At FIND, Jennifer established and led the Clinical Trial Unit, supporting multiple disease portfolios/programs: malaria, hepatitis C, pandemic preparedness, anti-microbial resistance, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases. At the Swiss TPH, she was involved with complex, high-profile projects, including development of an Ebola vaccine, a multi-drug resistant TB trial in Uzbekistan and evaluation of mass drug administration to treat lymphatic filariasis in Indonesia, Haiti and Papua New Guinea. From 2009-2013, Jennifer completed eight UN-WHO missions to Liberia overseeing the final trial of a drug to treat River Blindness, which was FDA approved.

Passionate about teaching and humanitarianism, Jennifer founded a research capacity building organization dedicated to training laboratory technicians, healthcare workers and scientists. She teamed up with EVCO Africa to provide computers to remote villages and chaired the first Expand Your Horizons conference in Europe to introduce STEM careers to girls.

Jennifer is a doctoral candidate at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine where her research is on the ethics of biobanking during pandemic outbreaks. She holds an MPH from Erasmus University Rotterdam and a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota.

Having lived in 5 countries and 8 US states, her home is in the Rhône-Alps region of France, near Geneva, where she enjoys playing with her giant Leonberger puppy, hiking, snowshoeing, skiing and appreciating art, cheese and wine with friends.

Natasha Kermani (EWS class of 2006) is an Iranian-American filmmaker currently living in Los Angeles, and the co-founder of Illium Pictures. Natasha’s credits include horror-satire feature film LUCKY (SxSW ‘20) and science-fiction feature film IMITATION GIRL (FrightFest ‘17). Kermani has also directed a variety of commercial content for clients including Genesis, NYDJ, Thinx, Microsoft, ThirdLove, Vox Creative, and Condé Nast Entertainment. She is currently repped by Bec Smith and Julien Thuan at UTA and Marc Manus with WorldBuilder Entertainment. Outside film and television, Natasha is a violinist and composer who enjoys playing live shows with local bands and ensembles.

Assistant Surgeon General, U. S. Public Health Service
Health and Human Services (HHS)
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Dr. Estella Z. Jones is the first minority female veterinarian in the U.S. Public Health Service to be promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral (RADM) and the role of Assistant Surgeon General, which is equivalent to the rank of Brigadier General in other uniformed services. As Deputy Director of the Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats, Office of the Chief Scientist, Office of the Commissioner at FDA, RADM Jones provides strategic and executive direction on programs that continually combat global health threats. She safeguards the development and availability of critical medical countermeasures to mitigate and respond to public health emergencies involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and emerging infectious disease threats, such as Ebola virus outbreaks, pandemic influenza, Zika virus and SARS. RADM Jones advises and supports the Assistant Commissioner for Counterterrorism Policy at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to aid with the coordination of FDA’s Medical Countermeasures Initiative, a significant component of broad government programs to increase and improve the Unites States’ capacity to prepare for and improve government responses to public health emergencies. She advises and supports the U.S. Surgeon General on policy and procedures for responses to public health emergencies.

RADM Jones has effectively established many sustainable countermeasure programs to support the preclinical review of crucial data such as the National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research with the Fort Detrick Biodefense campus, Achieving Data Quality and Integrity in Maximum Containment Laboratories with the University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston National Laboratories (UTMB GNL), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Integrated Research Facility (IRF) and Achieving Data Quality and Integrity in Clinical Trials Involving High-Consequence Pathogens,” recently adding the University of Nebraska Medical Center / National Ebola Training and Education Center as collaborators, offering hands-on, contemporary, virtual-reality training to students and stakeholders in the nation’s largest constructed biocontainment unit.

RADM Jones concomitantly serves as the Co-Chair of FDA’s newly created Animal Welfare Council under the direction of the Office of the Chief Scientist, while maintaining biosafety level 4 certification as Chairperson for the NIAID IRF Animal Care and Use Committee. She previously worked for the World Health Organization’s Institute for Primate Research in Nairobi, Kenya, as well as in industry, the NIH, the HHS Office of the Secretary, FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, helping to develop non-cage containment housing for multiple primate species. RADM Jones previously held a dual faculty appointment at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in both Comparative Medicine and Anesthesiology, aiding with the discovery of the p-53 deficient cancer mouse model with Dr. Alan Bradley and her late mentor, Dr. Charles Montgomery. At BCM, she worked with the famed late heart surgeon, Dr. Michael DeBakey, who pioneered many coronary surgical innovations. Upon returning to the Commissioned Corps, she worked with the Department of Defense and the Pentagon on the Military Advisory Panel on joint service parity policies and represented the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Subcommittee for Disaster Reduction.

RADM Jones graduated from high school at the Emma Willard School for girls in Troy, New York in 1976, where she enjoyed singing and playing piano, giving concerts to help sponsor her expenses to participate in Operation Crossroads Africa. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Animal and Poultry Sciences at Tuskegee University in Alabama, and then went on to earn her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Louisiana State University in 1989. RADM Jones maintains modern clinical and surgical skills by working as a busy relief veterinarian in the northern Virginia area. She was selected as the official on-site clinical veterinarian for the 2019 American Veterinary Medical Association Convention.

RADM Jones represents FDA Executive Leadership on the Federal Level Working Group responsible for Congressional level reporting on behalf of the FDA Commissioner for the HHS Tick-borne Disease Working Group (TBDWG) established under Section 2062 of the 21st Century Cures Act, which is tasked with providing expertise and reviewing HHS efforts related to all tick-borne diseases, to help ensure interagency coordination, minimize overlap, and examine research priorities. She served as the co-Chair of the 2018 TBDWG Subcommittee for Pathogenesis, Transmission and Treatment, followed by a Co-Chair assignment for the 2019 Rickettsial Disease Subcommittee. She also served as the FDA focal point to help implement the NIH led Reform of Animal Research Regulations established under Section 2034(d) of the 21st Century Cures Act.

RADM Jones has deployed for a variety of public health emergencies to include the terrorist attacks of 911, the 2001 Anthrax attacks, Hurricane Katrina and the most recent CoVID19 pandemic. She has received numerous awards and decorations, including a Distinguished Service Medal, a Presidential Citation, the HHS Secretary’s Badge, Crisis Response Service Awards, Veterinary Responder of the Year, Commendation Medals and numerous Citations. During her off-duty hours, she can be found mentoring potential future veterinarians, teaching her service dogs to maintain their Advanced Good Canine Citizenship skills so they can continue their work of visiting chronically ill patients and nursing homes. In August 2020, she was honored with a Diplomate certificate from the American Veterinary Epidemiology Society. She was recently selected as the 2021 commencement speaker for The Madeira School, a private, day and boarding college-preparatory school for girls in McLean, Virginia.

Joshunda Sanders is an author & educator. Her work has appeared in Oprah Daily, TIME Magazine, Poets & Writers, The New York Times, Oxford American and many other publications. She writes a monthly newsletter about the writing life & books you can subscribe to here. She is the creator & host of a BookTube channel, Black Book Stacks

She has been the recipient of writing residencies, fellowships or awards from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Lambda Literary, Bronx Council on the Arts, Hedgebrook, VONA and the Key West Literary Seminars. In 2018, she was awarded the competitive Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) Award for excellence in fiction. She has been a speaker at Ohio State University, Princeton, JusticeWorks, NYCPride’s Human Rights Conference, South by Southwest Interactive, Bard and more. She has taught writing and journalism at the University of Texas Austin and The New School.

She currently teaches writing at Lehman College and as a Lead Instructor with The School of the New York Times.

In Summer 2019, her first children’s book, I Can Write The World, featuring Ava Murray, a Black girl journalist from the Bronx, was published by Six Foot Press. The next book in the series, A Place of Our Own, is scheduled for publication in 2022.

Her previous publications include How Racism and Sexism Killed Traditional Media: Why the Future of Journalism Depends on Women and People of Color and a memoir, The Beautiful Darkness: A Handbook for Orphans. She is represented by Elisabeth Weed at The Book Group.

Jenny Rao grew up in Mexico City, daughter of a Mexican mother and a British/American father. Feeling the absence of role models for women in Mexico at the time, Jenny decided to attend college in the U.S. From researching schools without a college counselor, to translating her teachers' recommendations into English, to taking SAT's without ever having seen a practice test, Jenny overcame the challenges and ultimately was accepted at Bates College, Maine.

Upon arriving, she signed up for the debate team in order to learn to think faster on her feet in English. In her senior year, she represented Bates at the World Parliamentary Debating Competition in Greece. This is a metaphor for Jenny's approach to her professional life: set a goal, determine what steps are necessary to accomplish it, and then raise the bar even higher to further challenge herself to achieve an ever-greater goal.

Upon graduation from Bates with a degree in Economics, Jenny joined Cambridge Associates, a consulting firm, in Boston. During her three years as a consulting associate, she honed her strategic and analytical skills. The world of finance, however, did not fulfill her deeper self, and she returned to teaching, as she had taught classical ballet in Mexico City. 

Although she loved her years in the classroom, teaching Spanish at a K - 9th grade day and boarding school for boys in the Boston area, she discovered that she missed the strategic and analytical pieces in her consulting job. She enrolled in a Master’s Degree program in Private School Leadership at the Klingenstein Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. 

Before arriving at Emma in July 2017, Jenny was the director of academic affairs at Garrison Forest, where she has combined classroom teaching, English, Spanish or Geography, with administrative work.

Page Hill Starzinger ‘76 Specializing in fashion and beauty, Page has been Copy Director at Vogue, Senior Writer at Estee Lauder, and Creative Director for Copy at Aveda. She is also a poet, whose second book, Vortex Street, was publishedby Barrow Street Books in 2021. Her first book, Vestigial, was selected by Lynn Emanuel for the Barrow Street Book Prize in 2013.

Her chapbook, Unshelter, selected by Mary Jo Bang as winner of the Noemi contest, was published in 2009. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Kenyon Review, Literary Imagination, Pleiades, Volt, and many others.

The Rev. Stephanie Chase Bradbury is Emma Willard School class of 1981, and received her B.A. in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia in 1985. After seven years working in finance and marketing, she felt called to change course and serve God in a different capacity. She attended Yale Divinity School from where she earned her M.Div. in 1995. She was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church and served churches in Connecticut, Maryland, and Massachusetts, as well as conducted missions work for three years in Klaipeda, Lithuania where she founded, and was pastor of, a new congregation. She is currently the Priest at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Wakefield, Massachusetts. She also serves as the founder and facilitator for the online Christian Sharing Group at the International Association of Near Death Studies. Stephanie is drawn to the bright overlap between matter and spirit, and how life in this reality is intertwined with the transcendent. Our lives, thoughts, and actions are precious to God, regardless of our religion or spiritual inclinations. Stephanie has two children from her first marriage, Duncan and Jax (EWS class of 2020), and is now married to Bill, also an Episcopal Priest, through whom she has two step-children and four grandchildren.

Keven Bellows is a writer, teacher, and student of poetry. Late Harvest is her third poetry collection, following The Blue Darter published in 2010 about her late husband, renowned journalist Jim Bellows. In Late Harvest, Keven writes about life as a widow, the challenges of aging, and at age 82, the “gathering in” of a lifetime of memories. She teaches poetry at UCLA Extension.