Leadership Council
Jennifer L. Bennet, Executive Director
Jennifer Bennet has dedicated her 25 year career to growing organizations with a focus on social and economic justice. She came to the Family Van in 2005 as Executive Director with the goal of building the organization’s capacity and effectiveness.
Prior to joining the Family Van, Ms. Bennet served as Chief Development Officer at the Center for Women and Enterprise where she grew the organization’s revenue streams to include major donors, foundations and government sources. Ms. Bennet also founded the Community Entrepreneurs Program which successfully trained hundreds of low-income women in basic business, economic literacy and life management skills they need to launch their own micro-enterprise.
Ms. Bennet’s diverse background also includes positions in operations, community relations, business development, management and crisis intervention at both for profit and non-profit organizations. She holds a certification in mediation from UMass Boston and a Bachelor of Arts in women’s history from Williams-Smith College.
Nancy E. Oriol, M.D., Leadership Counsel President
Dr. Nancy Oriol founded The Family Van in 1992. She is currently the Dean of Students and an Associate Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, and also the Director of Faculty Development for the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Dr. Oriol graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1979, and trained in anesthesia at the Beth Israel Hospital from 1984-1997. She has served as the Director of the Division of Obstetric Anesthesia, and was a member of the National Task Force that established the Practice Guidelines for Obstetric Anesthesia.
Dr. Oriol has received numerous accolades for her work, including several Harvard Medical Student Teaching Awards, the YMCA Black Achiever’s Award, the Massachusetts Medical Society Special Award for Public Service, the Dr. Louis Sullivan Award for contributions to the delivery of quality health care to black men, and the New England Women’s Leadership Award in Health.
In her role as founder of the Family Van, Dr. Oriol received the Pri-Med 15th Anniversary Award and the 2006 Mobile Healthcare Leadership Award.
Deborah Prothrow-Stith, MD
Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith is among the nation's pre-eminent leaders in addressing violence as a public health issue. Her interest in violence as a public health issue developed when she was a fourth year student at Harvard, where she first learned that homicide was the leading cause of death for young black men in America. It became her mission to make violence in our society a public health issue. Since the early 1980s, she has led strategies to counteract children's and adolescents' socialization toward violent behavior.
Dr. Prothrow-Stith currently serves as the Associate Dean for Faculty Development and the Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of the Practice of Public Health at the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. She holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and has received ten honorary doctorate degrees, the 1993 World Health Day Award, the 1989 Secretary of Health and Human Service Award, and a Presidential appointment to the National Commission on Crime Control and Prevention.
W. Michael Byrd, MD, MPH
An acknowledged authority on the medical and public health histories of African Americans, Dr. W. Michael Byrd is a board certified obstetrician gynecologist whose career has been concentrated in academic medicine and health policy.
His primary interest focuses on the health policies and concerns affecting African American and other disadvantaged minorities in the United States health system. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Health Care. Dr. Byrd was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service in the US Army Medical Corps on active duty in Vietnam. He continues to work with the US Congress, NMA, the Summit Health Coalition, the CBC Health Policy Task Force, the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control, and the IOM.
Dr. Byrd is currently an instructor and senior research scientist in the Division of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health and serves as a consultant physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. He is also the lead author of the book An American Health Dilemma, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Linda Clayton, MD, MPH
Dr. Clayton is a gynecologic oncologist-obstetrician gynecologist who is concentrated in academic medicine and health policy and management. She primarily focuses on health policy and concerns impacting African American and other disadvantaged minorities in the U.S. health system.
She is currently Associate Medical Director for the division of medical assistance of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, an instructor and senior research scientist in the Division of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health, and an instructor and staff physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston.
A widely published author—including the Pulitzer-Prize nominated An American Health Dilemma—Dr. Clayton also serves as a consultant and visiting faculty with the National Cancer Institute, the National Medical Association (NMA), and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Dr. Clayton has testified before the US Congress on African American and disadvantaged health matters and serves as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust and resource person for the Office of Minority Health and Indian Health Service. She was an NMA-CBC representative on the Clinton Health Reform Task Force.
Cheryl L. Dorsey, MD, MPP
An accomplished social entrepreneur with expertise in health care, labor issues, and public policy, Cheryl Dorsey was named President of Echoing Green in May 2002. She is the first Echoing Green Fellow to lead this global nonprofit, which has awarded more than $27 million in start-up capital to over 450 social entrepreneurs worldwide since 1987.
Dorsey received her education at Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges where she earned a degree in history and science in 1985. In 1992, while training to be a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, she received an Echoing Green Fellowship. With it, she launched the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic health care and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods.
As a public policy innovator, Cheryl served as a White House Fellow from 1997-1998, serving as Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, advising the Clinton Administration on health care and other issues. She was later named Special Assistant to the Director of the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Labor Department, where she helped develop family-friendly workplace policies and spearheaded the labor secretary’s pay equity initiative.
Cheryl serves on the board of the Coro New York Leadership Center, City Year (national), DonorsChoose.org, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), and Freelancers Insurance Company, Inc., a for-profit insurance company and subsidiary of Working Today. She also serves as an advisory board member of the Action Tank for Social Entrepreneurs, America Forward, and the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation. Dorsey is a 2006 Henry Crown Fellow through the Aspen Institute, a 2007 Prime Mover Fellow through the Hunt Alternatives Fund, and a member of the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Visiting Committee.
Cheryl has received numerous awards and honors for her commitment to public service, including the Pfizer Roerig History of Medicine Award, the Robert Kennedy Distinguished Public Service Award and the Manuel C. Carballo Memorial Prize. She holds a B.A. in History and Science from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, an M.D. from the Harvard Medical School and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. She writes and speaks widely on minority affairs, social justice, social entrepreneurship, and maternal and child health issues.
Richard G. Mills, JD
Richard G. Mills, JD, is Dean for Operations and Business Affairs. Mr. Mills' areas of administrative responsibility include Information Technology, Countway Medical Library, the Center for Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Health Publications, Continuing Medical Education, Facilities, Physical Planning, Campus Operations, Human Research Subject Protection, Animal Research Subject Protection, and Microbiological Safety. Previously, Mr. Mills held the position of Associate Dean for Facilities and Planning at Harvard Medical School.
Before coming to Harvard in 2005, Mr. Mills was the principal of a strategic consulting firm. Prior to consulting, Mr. Mills worked as a Department Director and as Senior Staff Counsel at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Mr. Mills began his career as a litigation attorney at the Boston firm of Posternak, Blankstein & Lund. He received his AB from Hamilton College and JD from Boston University.
Joan Y. Reede, MD, MPH, MS
Dr. Joan Reede works to recruit and prepare minority students for jobs in the biomedical professions, and to promote better health care policies for the benefit of minority populations. In 2001, she became Harvard Medical School's first dean for diversity and community partnership. She is the first African American woman to hold that rank at HMS and one of the few African American women to hold a deanship at a medical school in the United States.
Dr. Reede has co-founded the Biomedical Science Careers Program at Harvard Medical School, and the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Brown Univeristy, an M.D. from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and a Master’s in Public Health and a Master of Science degree in 1992 from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Laura Weisel
Laura Weisel is the Director of Administration for the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, managing twenty-five professional and support staff and a $20 million annual operating budget. The department has a long and distinguished history of making significant contributions to our understanding of the fundamental causes, means of prevention, and treatment of infectious disease by studying the molecular bases of pathogenic viral and bacterial infections; and by expanding the basic understanding of bacterial viruses, fungi and animal cells.
Laura Weisel holds an M.P.P.M. from the School of Management at Yale University. She received a B.A. in Political Science earned with Honors, cum laude, from Williams College. Before coming to Harvard Medical School, Ms. Weisel served as Deputy Executive Director of Oxfam America in Boston and Deputy Director of WNYC in New York City.
