” World Neighbors: the challenges and opportunities of international development in rural marginalized communities.”
Kate Schecter, Ph.D., joined World Neighbors as the new President and CEO in June of 2014. She is responsible for managing World Neighbors programs and operations in 13 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In her previous position, she worked for the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) for 14 years. As a Senior Program Officer at AIHA, she had responsibility for managing health partnerships throughout Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Through her work with over 35 partnerships addressing primary healthcare, chronic disease management, hospital management, maternal/child health, Tuberculosis, blood safety and HIV/AIDS, she has extensive experience successfully implementing AIHA’s health partnership model.
Before joining AIHA, Dr. Schecter worked as a consultant for the World Bank for three years (1997-2000), specializing in healthcare reform and child welfare issues in Eurasia and CEE. She taught political science at Tel Aviv University in Israel for a year (1992) and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for four years (1993-1997). She has written extensively about the Soviet socialized healthcare system including, Social Capital and Social Cohesion in Post-Soviet Russia (M.E. Sharpe, 2003), a chapter in Russia’s Torn Safety Nets: Health and Social Welfare in Post-Communist Russia (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), and an entry on Chernobyl for Scribner’s Encyclopedia of Europe 1914-2004, (2006). She also has made three documentary films for PBS about the Former Soviet Union.
Dr. Schecter holds a Ph.D in political science from Columbia University in New York and an M.A. in Soviet studies from Harvard University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has served on the Board of Children’s National Advocacy and Public Policy, Inc. of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. since 2010.