Eric K. Noji, MD, MPH, MBA, DTM&H(Lon), FRCP(UK)hon, FACEP

Dr. Eric K. Noji is an emergency physician with over 25 years of experience working internationally, primarily in the poorest countries where he has served as Senior Technical Advisor, Team Leader, Program/ Project Manager, and consultant on numerous occasions to solve a wide variety of medical and public health problems for government agencies, NGOs, and international organizations such as USAID, WHO, UNICEF, and the World Bank. Most of his assignments overseas were in response to large-scale public health emergencies such as natural disasters, epidemics, and situations where violent civil conflict has forced communities to leave their homes resulting in catastrophic humanitarian crises as we are currently witnessing in Syria and Iraq. Such disasters have taken Dr. Noji all over the world, including assignments in northern and sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Balkans, the Middle East from Lebanon to Afghanistan, China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Rim, and for almost a year he provided medical care to communities in the vast Siberian tundra, most of which were located well above the Arctic circle. These regions had become almost completely isolated following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Almost always, his work took him to the most dangerous of places under the most difficult of circumstances, in the most austere environments and most inhospitable of conditions. During these years, Noji developed several technological innovations to care for emergency affected populations that many now consider visionary. He subsequently summarized this work in a series of groundbreaking publications that revolutionized medical care in disaster situations and were influential in establishing public health standards for emergency health personnel. In 2005, Dr Noji was recognized for his pioneering work in establishing much of the scientific basis for public health responses to disasters and other humanitarian crises when he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies of Science. Election to the Institute of Medicine is generally considered the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a physician in the United States. Although Dr. Noji retired from Federal service in 2008 after more than 20 years as a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control, he continues to provide his keen insights regarding global risk intelligence strategies, catastrophic risk management solutions, evolving humanitarian trends, newly emerging global health threats and enterprise crisis management strategy to senior government officials at the highest levels, relevant UN and international organizations, influential foundations and philanthropic groups, universities and respected think tanks, global corporations and financial institutions and nongovernmental organizations with the strongest track records for doing the best work. He has recently co-founded an organization whose core work is to strengthen corporate, government, university and nonprofit organization partnerships to strengthen disaster preparedness, response, recovery, reconstruction and resilience. But what he is most proud of continues to be his tireless (and highly successful) efforts to raise awareness and money for people and groups whose work he passionately believes in, primarily those organizations working to strengthen the education and health of children with very special needs who are homeless, abused, starving, illiterate, left orphaned or destitute by natural disasters, or physically and emotionally traumatized by war. A native of Hawaii, Professor Noji is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford, and completed his medical studies, graduate work and residency training at the University of Rochester, the University of Chicago and the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. "...I live and work on the edge - the views are breathtaking, the experiences deep and satisfying and the learning is limitless...."