US Team
Elena Deem, Ph.D.
Director of Educational Programs
Elena Deem, PhD, has extensive experience in education, having taught for institutions that range from Andean non-profits to universities in the United States. With her team, she developed our ¡Soy Capaz! education program and oversees all education and training in the Peruvian jungle towns and villages we serve.
Eva Clark, MD, PhD, CTropMed
Associate Medical Director
Dr. Eva Clark is an Assistant Professor with dual appointments in the Department of Medicine (Section of Infectious Diseases) and the Department of Pediatrics (Section of Tropical Medicine) at Baylor College of Medicine. She received her MD and PhD degrees from the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham, Alabama, where she investigated natural humoral immune responses to several different Plasmodium falciparum vaccine candidate antigens at a study site in Iquitos, Peru.
Subsequently Dr. Clark completed a Fogarty International Fellowship in southern Bolivia focused on Trypanosoma cruzi epidemiology, treatment, and biomarkers. In 2013 she moved to Houston to pursue a combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency program at Baylor College of Medicine, followed by an adult Infectious Diseases fellowship also at BCM.
Currently, Dr. Clark provides inpatient and outpatient Infectious Diseases care within the Harris Health System, with a focus on HIV and Tropical Medicine. She is also co-leader of the US Chagas Disease Providers’ Network and the Associate Director of Medical Education at BCM’s National School of Tropical Medicine. Her research interests include the epidemiologic, immunologic, and clinical consequences of tropical infectious diseases on the development of chronic diseases in underserved communities.
Dr. Robert Fulton
Director of the Oral Health Program
Bob Fulton, DDS, is retired after 40 years of dental practice in Ohio, USA. Dr. Fulton is a member of the American Dental Association and the Academy of Dentistry International. He is the recipient of the American Dental Association’s Meritorious Service Award for International Dentistry.
Additionally, he is an editor emeritus of the international Journal of Global Oral Health and co-chairs the oral health section of the Internal Medicine Department of Northeast Ohio Medical University, where he is an associate clinical professor.
Dr. Fulton undertook his first Amazon Promise trip in 2000.
Richard Rohrer, M.D.
Director of Clinical Preceptorships
Chief, Transplant Surgery; Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine, Rick got his start in global health while working in Africa and Asia. After a long career in transplant surgery he has circled back to his origins in global health working with both Amazon Promise in Peru since 2010, and Tufts 4th year medical students in Nicaragua.
Sally Smith
Director of Traditional Medicine Program
Sally Smith is a board-certified nurse practitioner with experience in rural, emergency, hospital and family medicine. As director of the Traditional Medicine Program for Amazon Promise, she promotes Amazonian healing modalities as potent and sustainable healthcare resources for local communities.
Sally has a background in shamanic studies, traditional plant medicine and ceremonial work and has studied with Mestizo, Shipibo, Wixarika and North American teachers.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish from the University of Puget Sound, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Washington and a Master of Science in Nursing from South University.
Sally resides and owns a business in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Susan Woodward
Communications director
Susan is a widely published journalist and communications strategist with a passion for social and environmental justice. She has dedicated her career to writing about the issues she cares about. (For the Los Angeles Times, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others.) On Earth Day 2021, Susan launched a new podcast about our kinship with animals. Sentient Planet gives voice to non-human animals and the humans who are working to defend and preserve them in this time of climate crisis, biodiversity loss and mass consumption.
