The people of LiV are committed to working toward the betterment of the human condition. Click on the tabs below to learn more about us.
Who We Are
The Founders
The co-founders of LiV came together through a shared passion for social entrepreneurship and health education.
Lauren Westervelt, MPH, Executive Director
Ms. Westervelt earned her MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health with a graduate certificate in social entrepreneurship at Kenan-Flagler Business School. Ms. Westervelt has extensive experience working and traveling internationally. In 2008, Ms. Westervelt worked with Soluciones Comunitarias, an internationally recognized company noted for introducing the micro-consignment model to improve the lives of the rural poor. In this position, she trained and supported small-scale entrepreneurs in Guatemala. Most recently, in her position with Ipas, an international NGO that supports women’s sexual and reproductive rights, she was responsible for developing a draft toolkit for health professionals aimed toward improving young women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services globally.
Jessica Feingold, MPH, Director of Business Strategy
Ms. Feingold received her MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health, where focused her studies in sexual and reproductive health and social enterprise. She is proud to be an Associate on the Partnerships Team at Ashoka's Changemakers. Ms. Feingold is also the Communications & Strategy Specialist at Dance 4 Peace, a social venture that promote peacebuilding skills through dance and creative movement. In the past, Ms. Feingold was a grant recipient from the Deshpande Foundation, an India-based private family foundation that funds social enterprise incubation, for her work in engaging men as champions of sexual and reproductive health, violence prevention, and gender equality.
Daniel Cothran, MPH, Treasurer
Mr. Cothran also earned his MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health. He currently works for John Snow, Incorporated as a Program Officer on the AIDSTAR-One project, a global HIV and AIDS knowledge management project. In that position, he works on various knowledge management-related tasks, including web design and development, graphic design, and social media and communications. He has also been involved in technical work on issues ranging from family planning and HIV service integration to voluntary medical male circumcision for HIV prevention. His international professional experience includes projects in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda.
The Board of Directors
Daniel Cothran, MPH
Mr. Cothran earned his MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health. He currently works for John Snow, Incorporated as a Program Officer on the AIDSTAR-One project, a global HIV and AIDS knowledge management project. In that position, he works on various knowledge management-related tasks, including web design and development, graphic design, and social media and communications. He has also been involved in technical work on issues ranging from family planning and HIV service integration to voluntary medical male circumcision for HIV prevention. His international professional experience includes projects in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda.
Jessica Feingold, MPH
Ms. Feingold received her MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health and focused her studies in sexual and reproductive health and social enterprise. Currently, she is a Women's Health Associate at Global Health Strategies, an international consulting firm that focuses on communications and advocacy around issues in global health. Ms. Feingold is also the NYC Director of Dance 4 Peace, a social venture that teaches peace education through dance and creative movement. In the past, Ms. Feingold was a grant recipient from the Deshpande Foundation, an India-based private family foundation that funds social enterprise incubation, for her work in engaging men as champions of sexual and reproductive health, violence prevention, and gender equality.
Bobbi Wallace, MPH
Barbara Wallace is Director of Corporate, Foundation and Global Partnerships for UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. She came to UNC in 2008 after working with CARE USA, a global nonprofit based in Atlanta, where she was most recently senior director of foundation development and previously the director of the CARE-CDC Health Initiative and senior technical advisor for HIV/AIDS. Her public health work in CARE included HIV/AIDS, TB, maternal and newborn health, safe water, avian influenza, and early childhood development. She also served as director of HIV/AIDS and Infant and Child Health for the state of Georgia, deputy director of public health in the British National Health Service, director of the Jersey Child Care Trust in the Channel Islands, and the first coordinator of the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ global HIV/AIDS program in Geneva. She is a 1971 graduate of Syracuse University and received her MPH from UNC Chapel Hill in 1979.
Lauren Westervelt, MPH
Ms. Westervelt earned her MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health with a graduate certificate in social entrepreneurship at Kenan-Flagler Business School. Ms. Westervelt has extensive experience working and traveling internationally. In 2008, Ms. Westervelt worked with Soluciones Comunitarias, an internationally recognized company noted for introducing the micro-consignment model to improve the lives of the rural poor. In this position, she trained and supported small-scale entrepreneurs in Guatemala. Most recently, in her position with Ipas, an international NGO that supports women’s sexual and reproductive rights, she was responsible for developing a draft toolkit for health professionals aimed toward improving young women’s access to sexual and reproductive health services globally.
The Board of Advisors
Dr. Marian G. McCord
Dr. McCord is an Associate Professor with appointments in the Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry, and Science at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA, the Joint UNC/NCSU Department of Biomedical Engineering in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, NC, USA, and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. McCord is the Director of Global Health Initiatives for NCSU. She received her Sc.B. in Biomedical Engineering at Brown University, and an M.S. in Bioengineering and Ph.D. in Textiles and Polymer Science at Clemson University. Dr. McCord has 16 years experience in development and characterization of protective and medical textiles, and has been active in consulting for the medical device industry. Recently, she spent one year working in research and development of hemostatic wound dressings with a small business in RTP (Entegrion, Inc.), and completed her first book (Gad and McCord, Safety Evaluation in the Development of Medical Devices and Combination Products, Informa, 2008). Dr. McCord sees her research field as "textiles as interventions" - i.e., textiles that prevent or treat disease, or improve human health and well-being. Some of her global health related projects include non-chemical insecticidal bednets and low cost hemostatic bandages. She is a scientific advisor to Sustainable Health Enterprises, a social venture dedicated to meeting the needs for safe and affordable sanitary products for women in the developing world. Dr. McCord has been the co-Director of the Atmospheric Plasma Laboratory at the College of Textiles at NCSU for 10 years, and is a co-founder of Katharos, Inc., a company that with license technology developed to provide phosphate filtration solutions for end-stage renal disease patients.
Bob Stevens, MA, MBA
Bob Stevens has spent his career in health care marketing. He is the President of Health Centric Marketing Services in Durham, North Carolina. Before starting Health Centric, Bob worked in health care product brand management, hospital administration, and physician practice management. He began teaching health care marketing in 2001. He has taught executive MHA and MPH students at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and MBA students at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Bob also teaches in the Health Care MBA Program at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt. He has written a textbook with co-authors Philip Kotler and Joel Shalowitz, Strategic Marketing for Health Care Organizations. The first edition was published by John Wiley / Jossey Bass in 2008, and the second edition is currently being updated. Bob received Master of Business Administration degree from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He also earned a Master of Arts degree in English from Duke University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Colgate University.
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Josh Levine
Josh Levine is a founder and president of Callix Research, Inc., an intellectual property and invention company based in Carrboro, North Carolina. He has six U.S. patents issued or pending in the fields of packaging, medical diagnostics, therapeutics, and pharmaceutical technology. His invention for "a method and apparatus for performing hematological analysis using an array-imaging system" is licensed to QBC Diagnostics, Inc., and will enter the market later this year. At his studio, CALLOSCOPE, he designs and builds inventive art works which combine aspects of art, science and invention. He also consults for not-for-profits interested in developing innovations in global health technologies.
Doug Baker
Douglas Baker is an entrepreneurial and dynamic business leader with over 20 years of experience. During that time he has successfully lead and managed emerging growth companies through strong organic expansion, domestic and international joint ventures, strategic and limited partnerships, and revitalization. Doug’s corporate leadership focuses on people development, increasing the customer base and sales opportunities while maintaining sound financial direction. Prior to launching Kryosphere, Doug was President and Chief Operating Officer of HumanCentric Technologies, a product development and design services firm, where he led the Company through strong growth and operations revitalization. Previous to this position, Doug was President of Constella Clinical Informatics (member of the Constella Group) and was the Chief Operating Officer at Rho, Inc., two emerging growth contract research organizations. He has provided leadership at the Board of Directors and senior management levels; developing strategic sales and marketing programs, guiding strategic infrastructure development, and building and leading successful management teams. His track record reveals he is innovative and creative, and has a coaching leadership style which has consistently produced rapid revenue growth, strengthened equity value, and streamlined operating costs while increasing profitability. Doug holds a degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is active in the community providing guidance and support to many organizations at various times including the Association for Corporate Growth, the University of North Carolina Kenan Flagler Business School, the Pathfinders Program of the Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the Tammy Lynn Center for Developmental Disabilities, the A. E. Finley YMCA, the Helping Hand Mission, and the North Carolina Zoo. He is member of various local and national organizations, has been certified by the Director’s College of the National Association of Corporate Directors, holds membership in industry specific organizations, and has presented at industry conferences as an invited speaker.
Consultants
Rashmi Agrawal
Ms. Agrawal holds a BE in Engineering from the University of Mumbai. She is currently a first-year MBA student at Wake Forest University with finance and consulting as career concentrations. Prior to business school, Ms. Agrawal worked with as SAP Consultant with Larsen & Toubro Infotech. She has extensive consulting experience with companies such as Chevron and P&G and has lived in Cape Town, and California.
Lindsay Bever
Ms. Bever graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2011 with a BA in Global Studies and French. She has worked on health education projects in Morocco with USAID and Benin with CARE International and hopes to continue her career in the reproductive health field.
JD Brannock
Mr. Brannock earned his BS in Physics from the University of North Carolina. He has nearly three years of experience working with small startup ventures in various stages of development. He was a founding member and shareholder of Syzgy Optics, a technology-based company founded under the new Carolina Express License. He will attend the Michigan Ross School of Business in the fall to study entrepreneurship.
Ann-Janette (A.J.) Fuentes-Twombly, MBA
Ms. Twombly graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in 2000, with a B.A. in English. In 2001 A.J. began working at the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee until the fall, when she joined the Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer. During her time at State A.J. served in Istanbul, Turkey; Kabul, Afghanistan; and at the United Nations in New York. In 2009 A.J. resigned and began pursuing an MBA at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Following her graduation in May 2011, she will be joining Goldman Sachs in New York.
Meng Li, MBA
Ms. Li holds a BA in Economics from Smith College and is currently a second-year MBA student at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focusing on marketing. Prior to business school, she worked for The Whelan Group, a consulting firm in New York City that provides fundraising strategy and business planning services for nonprofits. After graduation, Meng will be joining Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies as an Associate Brand Manager.
Samantha Osborne
Ms. Osborne earned hear B.A. in Sociology and Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During her undergraduate career she was involved in a number of projects focused on youth. Most notably, she partnered with several students to write and illustrate a children’s book for Burmese refugees in Chapel Hill. In the future, she plans to use her education to help others communicate in more meaningful ways.
Donald Ware
Mr. Ware holds a BA in Mathematics with a concentration in finance from the University of Virginia. He is currently a first-year MBA student at Wake Forest University where he is studying finance and business analytics. Prior to business school, Mr. Ware worked with the Clark Builders Group. He has extensive travel experience as he has traveled to 40 states and 22 countries.
Bryon Zandt
Mr. Zandt earned his BS from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. While a student, he helped found the non-profit Nourish International, and worked as the organization's Director of Marketing & Technology after graduation. Mr. Zandt is currently working on a startup named Pokeit, which offers statistical analysis tools to online poker players. He is a consultant for LiV.
Staff
We have no staff at this time. All the work that LiV carries out is made possible by in-kind support from people like you.