Invited Speakers & Agenda

Kao Kalia Yang

The Impossible Happens in the Life of the Refugee Everyday

A local, independent bookstore will be onsite to sell copies of Kalia’s book and Kalia has graciously offered book signings for attendees!

Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses audiences and genres. She is the award-winning author of the memoirs, The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and Where Rivers Part. Yang co-edited the groundbreaking book, What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color. She is a librettist for the The Song Poet Opera (commissioned by the MN Opera). Her children’s books, A Map Into the World, The Most Beautiful Thing, The Shared Room, Yang Warriors, From the Tops of the Trees, and The Rock in My Throat center Hmong children and families who live in our world, who dream and hurt and hope in it.

Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the Year, the Heartland Bookseller’s Award, and garnered four Minnesota Book Awards.

Yang is McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow.

Professor Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish MSC, OOnt, MD, MPH, M. Hon. LLD., Litt D., D. Sc., D.H.L

Beyond Never Again: Embracing Hope and Courage in the Global Refugee Crisis

Prof. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian Canadian physician and an internationally recognized human rights and inspirational peace activist devoted to advancing health and education opportunities for women and girls in the Middle East. He has dedicated his life to using health as a vehicle for peace, and, despite all odds, succeeded, aided by a great determination of spirit, strong faith, and a stalwart belief in hope and family. He is a man who walks the walk and who leads by example.

Prof.  Izzeldin Abuelaish was born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. Through his work, he has experienced firsthand the impacts of conflict in countries like Palestine, Egypt, Israel, Uganda, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. His experience working as both an insider and outsider to conflict has led him to believe that doctors are particularly well-poised to serve as peacemakers, based on the moral doctrine of their profession. His work as both a healthcare practitioner and a peace advocate build on this philosophy and mobilizes health as a tool for peace. Prof. Abuelaish believes that medicine and health can be an engine for the human peace. Health and medicine are human equalizer, socializer, harmonizer and stabilizer. He continues to advocate for justice, health, peace, and human rights worldwide.

Prof. Abuelaish has overcome many personal hardships, including poverty, violence, and the horrific tragedy of his three daughters’ and niece’s deaths in the 2009 Gaza War. He continues to live up to the description bestowed upon him by an Israeli colleague, as a “magical, secret bridge between Israelis and Palestinians” and in the world. He is now one of the most outspoken, prominent, and beloved researchers, educators and public speakers on peace and development in the Middle East.

Prof. Abuelaish has been nominated five times for Nobel peace Prize, and he is fondly known as Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi and the “Martin Luther King of the Middle East”, having dedicated his life to using health as a vehicle for peace. Despite all odds, he has succeeded remarkably; aided by a great determination of spirit, strong faith, and a stalwart belief in hope and family. The Belgian Parliament named him the “Martin Luther King of the Middle East”. Again in 2016, Mr. Jean Marc Delizee from the Belgian Parliament nominated Dr. Abuelaish for the 2016 Noble Peace Prize and remarked that “Our world has more than ever need peace ambassadors such as him, of men and women capable of building bridges and links between people and between peoples.”

Many influential figures within the diplomatic community have spoken exaltingly of  Prof. Abuelaish’ work. In his nomination for the Sakharov Prize, Dr. David Naylor, then President of the University of Toronto, called Prof. Abuelaish a remarkable ambassador for peace and an exemplar of forgiveness and reconciliation.  The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering spoke of him in his speech in Strasbourg, Germany at the opening of the exhibition “From Hebron to Gaza”. President Barak Obama referred to him as an example of strength and reconciliation in his address on May 19th, 2011.  when he discussed the possibility of peace within the Middle East. And the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to cited Prof. Abuelaish in his speech Walk for Solidarity: Kindness and forgiveness are not signs of weakness but strength. It needs more courage to be nice and make peace than to be angry and want revenge.

Prof.  Abuelaish’ impact on peace-seeking communities is exceptional. He is an internationally renowned speaker, having spoken at the Canadian House of Commons, the American Congress, the Chilean Senate, and Parliament, the European Parliament at Place Du Luxembourg in Brussels, the State Department, Forum 2000 in Prague, and many more. Dr. Abuelaish has also spoken at academic institutions and organizations in Canada, the United States, Europe, Africa, and Australia  and Asia.

In addition to speaking to live audiences, Prof. Abuelaish has been interviewed extensively by leading journalists and prominent personalities, including Christiane Amanpour, Anderson Cooper, Sir David Frost and Zeinab Badawi, and has appeared on prominent media outlets such as BBC News Hard Talk, Fox News Channel (FOX), CNN, Al Arabiya News, London’s The Telegraph, ABC, TVO, The Globe and Mail, The Economist, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Boston Globe, People Magazine.

Prof. Abuelaish’ book, I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, an autobiography of his loss and transformation, has achieved worldwide critical acclaim. Published in 2010, (currently in 23 different languages), and inspired by the loss of his three daughters – Bessan, Mayar, and Aya – and their cousin Noor to Israeli shelling on January 16th, 2009, the book has become a national and international bestseller. It has also become a testament to his commitment to forgiveness as the solution to conflict and the catalyst towards peace.

Elis Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureat said about the book I Shall Not Hate: This story is a necessary lesson against hatred and revenge.

President Jimmy Carter said: in his book, Dr Abuelaish has expressed a remarkable commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation that describes the foundation for a permanent peace in the Holy Land.

The daily telegraph: A great work of insight and compassion that tries to point the way towards peace and reconciliation… If there is to be peace in the Middle East, it will come through men and women of the giant stature and epic capacity for forgiveness.

Sunday times: A remarkable study of compassion, and of daily life in the Gaza Strip

Prof. Abuelaish believes that hatred is a chronic, contagious, and destructive disease. He focuses his research to promote awareness about the impact of hatred on health and wellbeing, and how to prevent spread of this destructive disease through positive resilience, tolerance, compassion and reconciliation.

Prof. Abuelaish’ extensive list of awards and honors include countless national and international awards including 18 honorary doctorate degrees, The order of Ontario, The Meritorious Service Cross, and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, The Governor General’s Medallion,  The PAHL Peace Prize, the World Citizenship in Action Award, presented by the Canadian Branch of the Registry; the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award of Canada; the Foundation P&V Citizenship Award; the Calgary Peace Prize; the Lombardy Region Peace Prize, the Stavros Niarchos Prize for Survivorship; Prof. Abuelaish has been named one of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants; one of the 500 Most Powerful Arabs; and one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategies Centre in Jordan for five consecutive years. He was one of three finalists for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Prof. Abuelaish has also been named one of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants; one of the 500 Most Powerful Arabs; and one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategies Centre in Jordan for five consecutive years.

Prof. Abuelaish has founded Daughters for Life a Canadian charity, in memory of his daughters and to honor his commitment to women’s empowerment.  Daughters for Life that provides young women in high school and university the opportunity to pursue higher education so that they can become strong agents of change and advocates of peace; functions of women’s vital  role in improving the quality of life throughout the Middle East and the world at large.

Currently, Prof. Abuelaish lives in Toronto where he is a Full Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. He remains deeply committed to his humanitarian activism in addition to his roles as a charity leader and inspirational educator.

Alexander Tenorio, MD

Neurotrauma Along the US-Mexico Border and the Importance of Physician Advocacy

Alexander Tenorio, MD, is a fifth-year neurosurgery resident at UC San Diego Health. He is the son of Mexican Immigrants with particular interest in caring for vulnerable populations. Dr. Tenorio’s academic interest focuses on analyzing health care disparities within neurosurgery, particularly immigrant populations. He has worked extensively to increase awareness of the rise of traumatic injuries at the United States-Mexico border . His advocacy work has included collaborating with human rights organizations and advocating to legislators and government officials at the local, state, and federal level. He recently testified at a Congressional hearing as an expert witness on the humanitarian consequences of our current border infrastructure.

Dr. Tenorio earned his medical degree from UC San Francisco School of Medicine and undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Paul B. Spiegel, MD MPH 

Humanitarian Assistance in Gaza: Public Health Strategies and Interventions – And Lots of Politics

Dr. Spiegel, a Canadian physician and epidemiologist by training, is one of the few humanitarians in the world that both responds to and researches humanitarian emergencies. He is internationally recognized for his research on preventing and responding to humanitarian emergencies, and more recently broader issues of migration. Beginning in 1992 as a Medical Coordinator responding to the refugee crisis for the “lost boys of Sudan” in Kenya, Dr. Spiegel has responded to and managed numerous humanitarian crises in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East for over 30 years. Most recently he managed the emergency response for WHO in Afghanistan (Nov/Dec 2021) and in Europe for the Ukrainian refugees (Mar/Apr 2022). 

Dr. Spiegel is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health and Professor of the Practice in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH). Before JHSPH, Dr. Spiegel was the Deputy Director of Program Support and Management and the Chief of Public Health at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He previously worked as a Medical Epidemiologist in the International Emergency and Refugee Health Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, a Medical Coordinator with Médecins Sans Frontières and Médecins du Monde in refugee emergencies, and has been a consultant for numerous international organizations including the Canadian Red Cross and WHO.

Anisa Ibrahim, MD, FAAP

Hardship and Hope; A Provider’s Journey in Refugee Health

Anisa Ibrahim, MD, FAAP is a UW Clinic Associate Professor of Pediatrics and the medical director at Harborview Pediatrics Clinic. Dr Ibrahim’s specific clinical interests include caring for and outreach to immigrant and refugee populations, specifically those with medical or social complexity. Dr Ibrahim is a strong advocate for community focused work and partnerships. Nationally, she serves on the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health, health equity boards, and the Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers Refugee Review Board.

Patricia F. Walker, MD & William Stauffer, MD MSPH FASTMH

Patricia F. Walker, MD

Dr. Patricia Walker is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, and served as the Medical Director at HealthPartners Center for International Health in Minnesota for 23 years, an internationally recognized refugee and immigrant health clinic. She also served as Dept. Chair for HealthPartners Travel and Tropical Medicine Center for 31 years. She attended Mayo Medical School and Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, where she received a Graduate Travel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Internal Medicine.

Dr Walker has published multiple articles, commentaries and book chapters on refugee and immigrant health, and co-edited a medical textbook published in  2007, “Immigrant Medicine”, the first of its kind. She helped establish and served as the Associate Medical Director of the Global Health Pathway at the University of Minnesota, focusing on educating the next generation of clinicians in refugee and immigrant health, tropical and travel medicine.

Her clinical research focuses on best practices in refugee and immigrant health, as an investigator at for the CDC’s Newcomer Centers of Excellence. She designed an EMR best practice alert to remind clinicians to screen for hepatitis B based on country of origin, and served as a leader in HealthPartners health disparities work which received the US CMMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) award in recognition of their pioneering efforts to reduce health disparities for diverse communities.

Her work was profiled in the Lancet in February, 2017. Patricia Walker: pioneer in refugee health – The Lancet

Most recently, in September, 2019, she received the Mayo Alumni Association Humanitarian Achievement Award for her lifelong work with refugees and immigrants.

She received her Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a CTropMed from ASTMH and CTM from ISTM. She speaks Thai and Cambodian, is passionate about best practices in care for refugees, and enjoys teaching tropical medicine, learning from people all over the world and international adventure travel. Dr. Walker is a Fellow in the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and served in 2017 as President of ASTMH.

William Stauffer, MD MSPH FASTMH

Dr. William Stauffer is formally trained in public health, internal medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine and infectious diseases.  He is currently on LOA from the University of Minnesota and is a Professor of Medicine and Executive Field Director of AMPATH-Kenya, and Stephanie and Craig Brater Professor at the Indiana University of Center for Global Health, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine.  Dr. Stauffer has been a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Disease and International Medicine, at the University of Minnesota where he is the Director of Human Migration and Health at the Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility in the School of Public Health. A Guest Researcher with CDC, he served as the Lead Medical Advisor for the Immigrant, Refugee Migrant Health Branch in DGMH from 2005-2019, where he spearheaded refugee health guidance and worked on other issues involved in human mobility and health. He is also co-PI of the National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants and Migrants (NRC-RIM).   NRC-RIM was a lead public health response to COVID in the US in RIM populations and, more recently, for responding to the Afghan and Ukrainian refugee situation.  He founded the UMN Global Medicine Program and UMN/CDC Global Health Course. He has worked extensively overseas in clinical medicine education, research and in public health in more than a dozen countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle east.  He works extensively with IOM/United Nations Migration Agency/IOM and founded and works on the IOM-University of Minnesota Collaborative.  He has also acted/acts as an advisor to the European Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization. His research areas have included refugee and immigrant health issues, infectious disease surveillance, diagnostics, neglected tropical diseases, evaluations of public health programs, and examining drug costs and impact on patient.

Faith Akovi Cooper, MPA

Not on our Watch: Redefining the Refugee Health Journey

Faith Akovi Cooper is an influential refugee advocate and leader with a professional background in humanitarian assistance, global health, and international development sectors spanning Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas.  She currently serves as Regional Director, US Southern Border Region in the IRC’s Resettlement, Asylum, and Integration (RAI) Unit. In this role she supports nine offices to ensure refugees acquire quality services to resettle.

Faith is a former refugee herself from Liberia.  She and her family escaped the brutal Liberian war and lived on two refugee camps before resettling in the U.S. She consistently advocates for women, children, and vulnerable populations, especially refugees.  She was recently appointed to the United States Refugee Advisory Board (USRAB) where she will contribute her lived expertise to create better and more equitable solutions for refugees and other forcibly displaced people.

Prior to joining RAI, Faith served as IRC’s country director in Liberia, where she oversaw all country operations, including the implementation of the USAID 36M Community Health Systems strengthening project. Other senior roles she has held include Africare’s Country Director, Ghana, and Liberia; Regional Advisor, West Africa Disaster Preparedness Initiative (WADPI) Ebola Preparedness Project for ECOWAS at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Ghana. She also served as Program Manager for the U.S government funded humanitarian assistance portfolio covering Pandemic Response and disaster preparedness programs at the Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine in Maryland, USA.

Faith holds a Master of Public Administration in Health Policy from George Mason University and dual B.A degrees in foreign languages and Criminal Justice from Radford University. She believes “to whom much is given, much is expected, thus her lifelong commitment to advocating for refugees.

Gaurab Basu, MD, MPH

Climate Change: Perspectives on Migration, Health Equity and Human Rights

Gaurab Basu, MD, MPH is a primary care physician and Director of Education and Policy at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE). He is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). His work focuses on the intersection of climate change, global health equity, human rights, medical education, and public policy.

Dr. Basu has developed and evaluated numerous innovative health equity curricular programs. He is the faculty director of the HMS Climate Change, Environment and Health curricular theme, co-founded the Cambridge Health Alliance Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy, co-directed the HMS social medicine curriculum, and co-directs the Climate Health Organizing Fellowship. He serves on the Harvard University Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability Standing Committee on Climate Education. Dr. Basu received the inaugural HMS Equity, Social Justice, and Advocacy Faculty Award and the HMS Charles McCabe Faculty Prize in Excellence. He has been a HMS Curtis Prout Academy Fellow and a Harvard Macy Scholar.

In 2021, Dr. Basu was named to the Grist 50 list of national climate leaders. In 2018, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation selected him to their Culture of Health Leadership fellowship. Dr. Basu advises the Massachusetts Governor’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) as a member of the Implementation Advisory Committee and the Climate Science Advisory Panel. He is a part of the city of Cambridge Mayor’s Climate Crisis Working Group and its Net-Zero Climate Task Force. His work has been featured by NPR’s All Things Considered, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, the BMJ, and Grist, among others.

Dr. Basu previously worked for numerous global NGOs including the Gates Institute, Partners in Health, the Child in Need Institute, and Last Mile Health. He is on the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Weather Channel’s climate program “Pattrn,” and on the advisory council of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and the Environmental League of Massachusetts. He served as one of the clinical leads of Cambridge Health Alliance’s COVID Community Management clinical services during the pandemic.

He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, with a bachelor of arts in international relations. He received his medical degree from the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. Dr. Basu was a Sommer Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he studied human rights and received his masters in public health. He completed his internal medicine residency training at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School.

Isra Chaker

Building Creative Global Coalitions: Mobilizing to Save Refugee Mothers and Babies

Isra Chaker is a Syrian-American civil rights activist, humanitarian advocate, and public speaker. She currently serves as Senior Campaign manager at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), where she is a strategic leader, fostering innovation and creativity, and leading a cross-organizational team of volunteers and staff to deliver winning campaigns. She also serves as a key thought partner to the National Director of Campaigns and Crisis Response in developing and winning AIUSA’s Campaigns.

Previously, Isra served as a Campaign Strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and as the Senior Refugee, Migration and Protection Campaign Lead at Oxfam America. In these capacities, she led campaigns on issues including immigrant, refugee and asylum seeker rights, racial justice, and discriminatory policies such as the Muslim Bans.

One of her infamous projects that went viral in 2017 was bringing refugees to President Trump’s childhood home in Queens, New York to share their experiences and their “American Dream”.

She is an appointed Ambassador for One Young World (OYW), a global forum of young innovative leaders and has served as a speaker at their annual OYW Summit in London (2019), and Manchester (2022). She is a Public Advocate for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency USA (UNRWA) for her invaluable contributions in raising awareness and funds for their projects supporting Palestine refugees.

In addition, Isra was recognized as an Icon for the “We The Future” campaign by Amplifier, which recognizes ten young activists from across the United States in their leading work on current social justice issues affecting humanity. Isra was chosen to represent the refugee and immigration justice theme, known as “We the Future, will not be Banned”. She is the only Muslim in the campaign, and art work of Isra as well as a curriculum she designed to break down the stereotypes and misconceptions of Muslims, refugees and immigrants was taught to over 400,000 students in schools across the United States in the 2019 academic year.

Isra has been interviewed and featured on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, NowThis, AJ+, ABC News, Al Jazeera, CNN, the Associated Press, VICE News, the Washington Post, etc.

Isra has been invited to speak at the United Nations, major global conferences, and a multitude of local organizations and university campuses across the United States and world. Her story of choosing a life of purpose to shatter stereotypes of Muslim women because of islamophobia and discrimination she endured growing up Muslim in America, is the reason she is a powerful, eloquent and successful public speaker and engaging over 250,000 people on her social media platforms.

David Fitter, MD & Drew Posey, MD MPH (CDC)

Immigrant, Refugee, and Migrant Health Branch Update

David Fitter, MD 

Dr. Fitter is Director of NCEZD’s Division of Global Migration Health (DGMH).

Dr. Fitter previously served as the chief for the Immunization Systems Branch at the Center for Global Health. During the COVID-19 response, he served in several roles including as principal deputy incident manager and co-led the Vaccine Task Force, where he oversaw efforts to ready public health departments for the distribution, storage, and administration of vaccines. That important work included the implementation of data-sharing systems that tracked vaccination campaigns down to the ZIP code level, helping get vaccine doses to people in remote areas.

Dr. Fitter joined CDC in 2011 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, working mainly in Haiti for the Emergency Response and Recovery Branch, serving later as medical officer and team lead. From 2016–2019, he took on two lead roles in Haiti, as country director and as program director for the Division of Global Health Protection. Dr. Fitter has deployed for CDC to emergencies in countries across Africa, including in the 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak. When the Syrian civil war escalated in 2013, he deployed to neighboring Turkey to support an international polio vaccination campaign in northern Syria and efforts to control disease outbreaks common in crisis regions.

Drew Posey, MD MPH 

A native of Marietta, Georgia, Dr. Drew Posey, is the Chief of the Immigrant, Refugee, and Migrant Health Branch at CDC.  This branch broadly deals with medical screening and overseas public health interventions for immigrants and refugees before they come to the United States as well as post-arrival activities.  Before becoming the Branch Chief, he was Team Lead of the Medical Assessment and Policy Team, a multidisciplinary team which manages the U.S. screening program for immigrants and refugees, both overseas by panel physicians and domestically by civil surgeons.  Dr. Posey is trained in Family Practice and also sees tuberculosis patients at the Fulton County Board of Health in Atlanta, Georgia.

Oballa Oballa

Oballa Oballa was born in Gambella, Ethiopia and grew up in a Kenyan Refugee Camp. He moved to America in December 2013, searching for a better education and a better life.

Oballa graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in social work from the College of St. Scholastica and an Associate degree in Human Service from Riverland Community College. As a student leader at Riverland Community College, Oballa led an effort to open the first food pantry to support students at Riverland College, work that became a model for other community colleges across the state.

He continued this effort when he was elected the president of LeadMN, a statewide student association representing the 180,000 community college students in Minnesota. In 2019, Oballa worked with a bi-partisan group of state legislators to pass the Hunger Free Campus Act, which provides a roadmap that colleges can follow to address this epidemic of food insecurity on campuses.

The act has been a success at motivating colleges to take serious steps to address these issues with 26 colleges being designated Hunger Free.

Oballa has been recognized as a positive change agent in the Austin community by bringing young and old people together.

He brought about change as the first refugee and person of color to ever sit on the Austin City Council in November 2020.

Governor Walz recognized Oballa’s leadership, and he appointed him to a two-year term on the Minnesota State Board of Trustees, which oversees all 38 state colleges and 7 universities.

In 2020 Oballa was awarded by the Minnesota Department of Human Service an Outstanding Refugee Young Leader Award.

In 2021 Oballa had the opportunity to meet with President Joe Biden.

Oballa currently works at Hormel Foods as a Sr. Team leader in the Dry Sausage department.

Outside of work, Oballa loves road trips, cooking and playing soccer.

Kelly Gauger, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration

Kelly Gauger is one of two Deputy Directors in the Office of Refugee Admissions.  As such, she oversees three teams in PRM/A: overseas program management, domestic resettlement, and strategic analysis and planning.  Her work includes development of PRM’s $1 billion+ budget for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and oversight of PRM’s worldwide overseas refugee processing infrastructure and nationwide domestic resettlement network.  She supports the Office Director in directing efforts to rebuild and expand access to the USRAP and liaises with senior officials at USRAP partner organizations including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, UNHCR, IOM, and refugee resettlement colleagues in governments around the world.  Kelly joined PRM as a Presidential Management Intern in 1999 and served in a variety of positions in the Admissions office prior to becoming Deputy in 2011.

Kenneth Tota, Office of Refugee Resettlement

Ken is the Bureau Chief of the Refugee Program Bureau at the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at the Department of Health and Human Services.  He provides national leadership, management, and oversight to the United States Refugee Program, which promotes long-term self-sufficiency, integration, and well-being for refugees and other populations eligible for ORR benefits and services.  In his role, Ken oversees the development and implementation of policies, initiatives, procedures, funding, and the allocation of resources.  Ken is the primary point of contact for the national refugee resettlement efforts with other government agencies, governments, stakeholders, and the public. Since joining ORR in 2003, he served in many leadership roles as both Acting Director and Deputy Director of ORR overseeing both Unaccompanied Children and Refugee Program operations.

In these capacities, Ken has enhanced funding and services for refugees by focusing on the most vulnerable populations, expanding intensive case management, cash and medical assistance, behavioral health services, and services for women and youth.

He implemented several initiatives to increase the Refugee Program’s capacity and service delivery through enhanced programmatic monitoring, data collection, research and evaluation, partnerships, and the incorporation of lived experience into programmatic priorities.  Ken served as the ORR lead in response to Operation Allies Welcome, standing up health care services in 10 safe havens around the country and supporting critical resettlement services to over 77,000 Afghan evacuees processed to final destinations.

Before entering civil service, Ken was the Cuban Haitian Program Coordinator for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Washington, DC and Miami, Florida.

Ken has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the American University in Washington, DC.