Our Team
Paul Farmer,
Founder
Our founder, Paul Farmer, died suddenly on February 21, 2022 while doing what he loved most–working with students and seeing patients in Rwanda. Dr. Farmer was a co-founder of Partners In Health (PIH, 1987), an international nonprofit organization that provides direct health care services, supports the building and strengthening of local health systems and undertakes research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty. Dr. Farmer began his lifelong commitment to Haiti in 1983 when still a student, working with villages in Haiti’s Central Plateau. Over the past twenty five years, PIH and its partners have expanded operations to twelve sites throughout Haiti, as well as eleven other countries around the globe. The work has become a model for health care for poor communities worldwide: Dr. Farmer and his colleagues in the U.S. and abroad pioneered novel community-based treatment strategies that successfully show that quality health care can be delivered in resource-poor settings.
Dr. Farmer held an M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was a University Professor, Harvard’s highest distinction for a faculty member. He also served as Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was a widely published author of numerous books and articles on health and human rights and social inequality. He was the subject of Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder’s bestseller Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, which chronicles the development of Dr. Farmer’s work in Haiti and beyond.
Dr. Farmer served as United Nations Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti (2009 -2012). In this role, he supported Special Envoy President Clinton and the people of Haiti in implementing the Government of Haiti’s priorities for the recovery effort following the 2010 earthquake. In December 2012, Dr. Paul Farmer was appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as the UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community Based Health and Aid Delivery. In this capacity, he worked closely with all key partners and provided guidance based on his experience building models of community-based medicine. He also helped galvanize support for the elimination of cholera in Haiti, and used the data gathered from the Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti to advise on lessons learned and how those can be applied in Haiti and other settings. In addition, in partnership with UNDP, Dr. Farmer’s team at the United Nations tracked donor pledges, commitments and disbursements toward Ebola recovery in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Mano River Union. After a decade serving as Special Adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Paul Farmer created the Science of Implementation Initiative (SII) to build upon the work of his UN office.
Dr. Farmer was the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association, the Outstanding International Physician (Nathan Davis) Award from the American Medical Association and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award.” He was a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Abbey Gardner,
Executive Director
Abbey Gardner is the Executive Director of the Science of Implementation Initiative (SII). From 2013-2019, Ms. Gardner co-led Paul Farmer’s UN office, the Office of the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Community Based Health and Aid Delivery. Prior to this appointment Ms. Gardner served as Senior Policy Adviser at the Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti, under the leadership of Dr. Paul Farmer and former President Bill Clinton.
Ms. Gardner previously served as Executive Director of the Baltic-American Partnership Fund, where she established and managed all facets of a $15 million 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation jointly funded by USAID and George Soros’ Open Society Institute aimed at strengthening civil society in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Ms. Gardner also served as the Regional Director for Russia at the Open Society Institute. She worked to develop and oversee a broad portfolio of development programs with an annual budget of $100 million. Earlier in her career, she held the position of Deputy Director of the International Science Foundation, a Soros funded initiative to support basic science researchers in the former Soviet Union with a budget of $100 million under the leadership of the Chairman of the Board Nobel Laureate James Watson.
Ms. Gardner has an undergraduate degree in Russian Studies from Amherst College, and a masters degree in Russian Area Studies from Georgetown University. She was the co-editor of Paul Farmer’s book, Haiti After the Earthquake which was published in June 2011.
Jehane Sedky,
Adviser and Former Co-Director
Jehane Sedky is the Executive Director of the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights at Harvard University. She is a seasoned senior executive with an excellent record in leadership roles, providing strategic guidance and support to influential leaders such as former US President Bill Clinton, former UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy and the late Harvard University Professor Dr. Paul Farmer. Her expertise spans a wide spectrum of responsibilities, including leading major initiatives, strategic program development for social impact, fundraising, media, and communications. Renowned for exceptional leadership and people management skills, Ms. Sedky excels in unifying teams toward common goals. Notably, she served as President Clinton’s senior advisor and head of office during his tenure as UN Special Envoy for Haiti and, earlier, as his spokesperson and speechwriter for his role as the UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery. Additionally, she served as head of office for the late Dr. Paul Farmer’s UN team, and later as the Co-Director of the think tank he founded, the Science of Implementation Initiative. With a background in international relations and human rights law, Ms. Sedky values cutting edge research and how to translate scholarship into practice.
Prior to her work with President Clinton and Dr. Paul Farmer, Ms. Sedky played a pivotal role as senior strategic advisor to UN Assistant Secretary-General responsible for countries in crisis. In this chief of staff role, Ms. Sedky was instrumental in shaping the strategic direction and overall program strategy of a 200-person global operation.
Ms. Sedky has authored a book on children and armed conflict and a chapter in Paul Farmer’s book Haiti After the Earthquake. In addition, the primary research she led at the United Nations and later at the Science of Implementation Initiative has been cited in Paul Farmer’s books and various articles. Earlier in her career, Ms. Sedky served a stint at CNN International and later led the UNICEF child protection media strategy and Global Media Relations team responsible for spearheading the organization’s child rights messaging across 150 country offices.
Raised in Egypt, Ms. Sedky speaks four languages and is the proud mother of three. In her free time, she leads a youth group that supports the homeless in Cambridge, Massachusetts and volunteers for Partakers, an organization that provides mentorship to formerly incarcerated individuals.
Jennie Weiss Block,
Adviser
Dr. Jennie Weiss Block served as chief adviser to Dr. Paul Farmer from 2009 – 2022.
Working closely with Dr. Farmer, Dr. Block assisted in the relief and recovery efforts in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, including the creation of a center for displaced and unaccompanied children.
Dr. Block has been a consultant to disability and not-for-profit organizations for thirty-five years specializing in organizational development, advocacy, strategic planning, start-up and project management, policy development, board governance and grant writing.
A long-time disability rights advocate, she was actively involved in the deinstitutionalization and community inclusion movement. She is the author of Project Neighborhood, a publication on community living for people with disabilities. Following Hurricane Andrew in 1992, she worked with the Florida Developmental Disabilities Planning Council to develop and implement a comprehensive, statewide disaster preparedness training program for people with disabilities, service providers and policy makers and is the author of six publications on disaster preparedness for people with disabilities. In 2005, Dr. Block led the disaster relief and recovery efforts for the Southern Dominican Province in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
She is the co-founder of the Jay Weiss Center for Social Medicine at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami and serves on the board of the Congar Institute for Ministry and the Catholic Theological Union.
Dr. Block lives in Miami and New York. She has three fine children, and four adorable grandchildren.