Panel Participants

Dr. Mirta Roses, Director, Pan American Health Organization, is the fourth Latin American and the first woman to head the world's oldest international health agency. A physician and surgeon by training, she specialized in the epidemiology of infectious diseases and public health. She joined the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in 1984 as head of the surveillance unit in PAHO's Caribbean Epidemiology Center (CAREC). Later on, she served in the Dominican Republic as the PAHO/WHO representative and from 1992 to 1995 as the PAHO/WHO representative in Bolivia. In 1995 she was named Assistant Director of the organization becoming the first woman to hold that position. In 2002, Dr. Roses was elected Director and as such serves as Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the Americas. She has two honorary doctorate degrees, as well as several decorations among which the Order of the Liberator Bolívar and the Order of Public Health of the Presidency (both from Bolivia), as well as from Ecuador, Peru, and Nicaragua.

Mario Kreutzberger, Host, Internationally known television personality. Creator and host of Sábado Gigante, the longest running variety program created and hosted by the same individual, our host is known internationally as "Don Francisco." In 2001, Mr. Kreutzberger launched a weekly primetime talk show on the Univision Network, "Don Francisco Presents," He has won numerous industry awards, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is featured in the U.S. Museum of Television and Radio, and has received an honorary degree and been decorated by the Chilean government. In addition, Mr. Kreutzberger is a philanthropist. He hosts an annual telethon in Chile that has raised over USD $150 million and benefits disabled children by building hospitals for their treatment. The United Nations has named him an Ambassador to UNICEF for his work with children and he is currently the Vice President of the U.S. Muscular Dystrophy Association. In 2005, Mr. Kreutzberger was presented a special Emmy Award in honor of his contributions to Spanish-language television, and in 2006, he was honored by the Congress of the United States for his 44 years on TV and his efforts to bridge the gap between the North American and Latin American cultures.

Dr. Enrique Jacoby, Regional Advisor on Nutrition, Unit of Non-Communicable Diseases, PAHO, is a medical doctor with a Master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Jacoby serves as PAHO's focal point in the anti-obesity campaign. Some activities related to his present post are: The organization of the Regional conference on the implementation in the Americas of the WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, Costa Rica, April 2006; Co-Principal Investigator of a research project The evaluation of the impact of the urban built environment on the physical activity level of Bogotá residents; and the development of the PLANUT software, that can help nutrition experts develop dietary recommendations that maximize nutrition while keeping cost low, takes into consideration local food prices. His technical expertise also extends to the design and evaluation of public health nutrition programs; good quantitative and qualitative analytical skills and extend expertise in the development of public health communication campaigns. Before joining PAHO Dr. Jacoby was Principal Investigator at the Instituto de Investigación Nutricional (IIN) in Lima, Peru and consultant to the Office of Epidemiology, MOH, Peru. He was also visiting researcher in the Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine UC at Davis, California, 1995-97.

Dr. Julio Licinio, Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami. Dr. Licinio became chairman of the department in May 2006, where he is also Professor of Psychiatry Medicine/Endocrinology, Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology and Physiology & Biophysics. Previously he was Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine/Endocrinology at UCLA, where he directed the UCLA Center for Pharmacogenomics & Clinical Pharmacology, the UCLA Graduate Training Program in Translational and Clinical Investigation (K30) and the UCLA Mentored Clinical Pharmacology Research Scholars Program (K12); he was also Associate Program Director of the UCLA General Clinical Research Center. Dr. Licinio has been formally trained in medicine-endocrinology, psychiatry, and molecular neurobiology. He has over 190 scientific publications and one patent. He is founding editor of the journals Molecular Psychiatry and The Pharmacogenomics Journal. He is the co-editor, with Dr. Ma-Li Wong, of "Pharmacogenomics: The Search for Individualized Therapies", which was the first book on its topic, and of "Biology of Depression: From Novel Insights to Therapeutic Strategies", the only new textbook on depression in the last 25 years.

Dr. Juan Rivera, Founding Director, Center for Research in Nutrition and Health, National Institute of Public Health, Mexico. Dr. Rivera is also Professor of Nutrition at the School of Public Health in Mexico, Adjunct Professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Rivera has a masters and a doctorate in the epidemiology of nutrition from Cornell University. Dr. Rivera has published more that 130 scientific articles, chapters in books and books. He has made more than 300 presentations at scientific conferences. His main areas of research focus on undernutrition, malnutrition and obesity. Dr. Rivera also researches the development and evaluation of programs and policies that raise the level of nutrition in the general population. Dr. Rivera was the Director of Nutrition and Health at the Nutrition Institute of Central America and Panama (INCAP). In 1999 he was President of the Health Sciences Committee of the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT). He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the Mexican Academy of Sciences, the Latin American Nutritional Society and the American Nutritional Society.

Lic. Roberto Slim, Member, Board of Directors, Grupo Carso. Since 1987, Mr. Slim has held several positions with Grupo Carso, a company with diverse commercial and industrial enterprises in Mexico and Latin America, and with Telmex, the leading telecommunications enterprise in Mexico. Most of his positions have been in the area of marketing, publicity and communications. Mr. Slim has had the responsibility for the design, launch, identification and positioning of such brands as LADA, TELMEX, TELCARD, TELBIP, ARGOS, ZOOM.TV, GURPO CARSO, EIDON, ARGOS, CALINDA, UNINET, WEBLAND and most recently, IDEAL, CICSA, and the creation of the image for the new airline company VOLARIS, among others. Since 2005, he has been coordinating the marketing and publicity efforts for the Agreement of Chapultepec that proposes greater employment, education, health, infrastructure, safety and economic growth in Mexico and has been signed by more than a million people from all walks of life. Currently, he is the General Director of Hoteles Calinda, Grupo Carso's chain of six hotels. Mr. Slim has a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Anáhuac in Mexico.

Dr. Derek Yach, Director, Rockefeller Foundation Program on Global Health. Prior to assuming his post at the Rockefeller Foundation, Dr. Yach was professor of Public Health and head of the Division on Global Health at Yale University, and a former executive director with the WHO. While at WHO, Dr. Yach was instrumental in getting governments, non-governmental organizations and industry to place tobacco control, nutrition, and mental health on their agendas for action. Among his many activities, Dr. Yach has authored or co-authored numerous articles, including, "Rising to the global challenge of the chronic disease epidemic," The Lancet, October 2006, "Global Chronic Disease", Science, 2005; "Politics and Health", Development, 2004; "The World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: implications for the global epidemics of food-related deaths and disease", Journal of Public Health Policy, 2004; and "Globalization and the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases: the neglected chronic diseases of adults", The Lancet, September 2003. He is also co-editor of the online journal Globalization and Health. Dr. Yach has a master's degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and a medical degree from the University of Cape Town.