COPR Alumni
Class of 2010
Syed M. Ahmed
Term: 2006–2010
Dr. Syed M. Ahmed is the Director of the Center for Healthy Communities (CHC) at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he is also a Professor of Family and Community Medicine. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a diplomate of the American Board of Family Medicine.
Dr. Ahmed has 16 years of experience working with communities in Ohio and Wisconsin as a researcher on more than a dozen federal, non-federal, and foundation grants. As the Director of CHC, he works with very large constituencies, including minorities and the underserved, in Milwaukee. CHC was formed in 1997 to develop community-academic partnerships to improve health in Wisconsin communities. It has established numerous programs related to cardiovascular disease, cancer, substance abuse, and mental health. CHC conducts activities in rural parts of Wisconsin, as well as in Milwaukee, and it is developing programs with Latino communities.
Prior to joining the Medical College of Wisconsin, Dr. Ahmed was vice chair of research in Wright State University’s Department of Family Medicine and Director of the Alliance for Research in Community Health in Dayton. In Ohio, he was director of Reach Out of Montgomery County, a successful volunteer health care program that he founded in 1994 with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Through his educational, scholarly, and community work, Dr. Ahmed has made nationally recognized contributions to the fields of community health, community academic partnerships, and community-based participatory research. He has been an invited expert on community academic partnership and community-based participatory research at the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality and, most recently, at NIH. He has presented at a variety of national conferences and published numerous academic papers and book chapters focusing on the health care of underserved and uninsured populations.
Dr. Ahmed has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Award for Faculty Excellence in Professional Service from Wright State University, the Ohio Quality of Care Award from the State of Ohio, and the Humanism in Medicine Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Dr. Ahmed received degrees in medicine and surgery from the Sir Salimullah Medical College at Dhaka University in Bangladesh and a master’s and a doctorate in Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. He completed a residency and a fellowship in family medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Recently, Dr. Ahmed was a scholar at the National Public Health Leadership Institute, a highly regarded training program funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Linda Crew-McNamara
Term: 2006–2010
Ms. Linda Crew-McNamara is a nurse manager, community leader, researcher, advocate, public speaker, and person living with a chronic illness. Ms. Crew was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus in 1996. She served as Director of the Joseph F. Sullivan Center, an academic nurse-managed health center at Clemson University, from 1994 to 2006.
Ms. Crew has significant leadership, community development, and project management experience. She has been the principal investigator or project director on numerous interdisciplinary grants to provide primary and preventive health care to medically underserved populations. She has presented at numerous professional conferences in the United States and abroad.
Under her leadership, the Sullivan Center expanded its community health care outreach program using a mobile health van and a team of medical professionals. The Center has received numerous awards for its work promoting minority health issues, improving the health status of minority populations, and eliminating health disparities. These awards include the South Carolina Office of Minority Health Access to Care Award, the South Carolina Rural Health Association Award of Merit for Excellence in Research, a State Health Plan Prevention Partners Award for Collaboration, the South Carolina Best Chance Network Provider Facility of the Year Award, and the South Carolina Migrant Health Innovative Programs Award.
Ms. Crew has served as a management consultant to BMW and the School of Nursing at Radford University. She was a semifinalist for the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows Program in 2004. In 2002, she received the Excellence in Writing Award from the South Carolina Nurses Association and Arthur L. Davis Publishing Company.
Ms. Crew has worked closely with the Latino population in South Carolina since 1991. She created a culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate campaign to increase awareness of breast cancer and the need for early detection.
In addition to Ms. Crew’s career in health care management, she worked at Michelin North America for eight years. As a group personnel and employee relations manager for diverse employee groups, she honed communication, leadership, and project management skills. Ms. Crew completed her undergraduate degree in nursing at Jacksonville State University. She earned an M.B.A. from Clemson University and is a graduate of the Johnson & Johnson/University of California, Los Angeles Health Care Executive Program, an intensive leadership program.
Ann-Gel S. Palermo
Term: 2006–2010
Ms. Ann-Gel S. Palermo has worked in the area of community-based public health for the past decade, with a principal focus on issues related to social determinants of health using a community-based participatory research approach. Since 1999, Ms. Palermo has served as the chair of the Harlem Community & Academic Partnership (HCAP), a diverse partnership of representatives from community and academic organizations committed to identifying social determinants of health and implementing community-based interventions in Harlem. HCAP evolved out of the CDC-funded Harlem Urban Research Center, a partnership developed to establish credibility in the Harlem community, demonstrate a true commitment to improving the health of its residents, and create a platform from which to address local health issues. When core funding ceased, Ms. Palermo led a major transition to reinvent the collaboration so that it could continue its important work as HCAP. HCAP is located at the Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies at the New York Academy of Medicine.
Ms. Palermo also serves as a board member of the East Harlem Community Health Committee and is chair of the board of directors for the Manhattan-Staten Island Area Health Education Center. She is a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine as well as a member of its Institutional Review Board..
Previous community research by Ms. Palermo includes analyses of diabetes care in East Harlem and of coverage for Medicare recipients. In addition to her public health activities, Ms. Palermo is the Associate Director of Operations at the Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs at New York City’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing and managing programs in the areas of community relations, medical education and training, and research to improve the health of all populations by diversifying the health care workforce and influencing health policy and research.
Ms. Palermo earned a Master of Public Health degree (majoring in health policy) from the University of Michigan in 1999. She is currently a doctoral student in public health at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
James S. Wong
Term: 2008–2010
Deceased
Dr. Jim Wong was a Senior Product Strategist at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and held a variety of development and management positions at technology companies including IBM and Siros Technologies. His expertise was in defining and launching new products and balancing customer input with development capabilities to create successful products for targeted markets.
Dr. Wong was a survivor of congenital heart disease (tetralogy of Fallot) and, in 2003, joined the board of directors of the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA). He held the positions of chair of the organization’s Internet Committee, Vice President, and Board Chair. During his time on the board, ACHA's membership and budget grew more than 15-fold. Dr. Wong worked with medical professionals, ACHA staff, and volunteers to plan conferences, improve service to members, and initiate the development of a national disease registry.
Dr. Wong received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and held two U.S. patents in optical data storage and photolithography. A resident of San Jose, California, he was an avid skier, golfer, and photographer. He also retained a lifetime fascination with the application of technology to improving people's lives.
