Board of Directors - Biographies

Monica Fletcher MSc, BSc (Hons), RGN, RSCN, HVdip, PGCE

Chief Executive and President

Chief Executive and President of the Board of Directors, is a nurse by training.  She has a Masters in Health service Management and Policy and university level teaching in pediatrics, public health and education. Her focus over the past 10 years has been healthcare policy and administration, serving at Director level to multiple health authorities in London and the City of Birmingham, England.  She worked as a freelance consultant with the National Health Service, focusing on primary care development, integration of care, change management and organizational development.   Just prior to joining the NRTC, she worked as the Co-Director of Primary Care for London, working for the Department of Health to implement government health policy.

Prof Martyn Partridge MD, FRCP

Vice President

Professor of Respiratory Medicine in Imperial College, London, NHLI Division based at Charing Cross Hospital and Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician to Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust.  His research interests are in the delivery of effective respiratory healthcare.  He is (Honorary) Chief Medical Advisor to Asthma UK and Vice President of the National Respiratory Training Center US.  He has recently completed 3 years as Chairman of the British Thoracic Society.  He is a member of the clinical steering committee of London Ambulance Service and a member of the Joint Committee on Higher Medical Training Specialist Advisory Committee in Respiratory Medicine.  He is Head of the Undergraduate Final Year for the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College.

Wesley Burks MD

Professor and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Burks research is funded by many sources including the National Institutes of Health, the pharmaceutical industry and private foundations. He has published in many distinguished journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine and has authored and coauthored more than 130 articles and numerous chapters and abstracts. He is on the Executive Board of the AAAAI and is the Co-Director of the Duke Clinical Research Unit for the Duke Translational Medicine Institute.

Noreen Clark PhD

Noreen M. Clark is the Myron E. Wegman Distinguished University Professor, Director of the Center for Managing Chronic Disease, Professor of Health Behavior & Health Education, and Professor of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine. From 1995 - 2005 she served as Dean of the School of Public Health. Dr. Clark is interested in systems, policies and programs that promote health, prevent illness, and enable individuals to manage disease. She has served in numerous leadership positions. She has served as chair of the Behavioral Science Section of the American Thoracic Society, as a member of the Pulmonary Diseases Advisory Committee for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and as a member of the Institute's Advisory Committee on Prevention, Education, and Control. Dr. Clark is a member of the Coordinating Council of the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program and its Science Base Committee. She has chaired the American Lung Association (ALA) Technical Advisory Group on Asthma, and the Lung Diseases Care and Education Committee. She has served on both the board and council of the ALA.She has published over 125 scientific articles related to public health and disease management. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. More on Dr. Clark's current research can be found at http://centerformanagingchronicdisease.org/

Dennis Doherty MD

Dr. Dennis E. Doherty, M.D., FCCP, is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of Medical Services at the Lexington Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine and Medical Director of Respiratory Care Services at the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center. Dr. Doherty has been Principal Investigator on over 35 grants from the NIH, Veterans Affairs, American Lung Association, and other granting organizations for basic science and clinical studies, and he has published over 100 articles, abstracts, and chapters on the subjects of acute lung inflammation, chronic lung inflammation, obstructive lung disease, and pulmonary fibrosis. He has also conducted several clinical research studies in the areas of asthma, COPD, and pulmonary fibrosis. He is the Chairman of the National Lung Health Education Program (NLHEP), a fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians, President of the Kentucky Thoracic Society and Chair-elect of the American Thoracic Society Council of state Chapter Representatives of the Thoracic Societies in the U.S., Board member of the American Lung Association of Kentucky, and a member of the American College of Physicians, American Thoracic Society, American Association for Respiratory Care, US Pharmacopeia, Central and Western Societies for Clinical Investigation, and the American Society for Cell Biology. Dr. Doherty's recent honors include receiving the 2002 National Telly Award- Category: for the Best Medical Education Video- 'COPD: New Concepts in Disease Management; the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) Guidelines and Changes in Management Concepts, and the 2005 National Telly Award: Finalist- Medical Education "COPD Impact CD".

Kurtis Elward MD

Assistant Professor of Research in Family Medicine at the University of Virginia, Medical Director for Quality Improvement at Southern Health Services, Inc and a Family Physician.  Dr. Elward is the past President of the Virginia Academy of Family Physicians and serves on the AAFP Commission on Science, the National Asthma Education and Prevention Panel as well as its Guideline Implementation Panel and JCAHQ Child Asthma Care Advisory Panel. He served as faculty for the AAFP National Asthma Collaborative; a clinical care quality collaborative with over 70 physicians. He is the lead author on the AAFA's Asthma Resource Guide. Dr. Elwards research interests include exercise in asthma and underlying pulmonary dynamics, process improvement and change management at the practice level, translational research and disease triggers and clinical exacerbations of asthma.

Maureen George PhD, RN, AE-C

Coordinator of the Comprehensive Asthma Care Program, University of Pennsylvania (U of P), Philadelphia.  Medical Center.  Dr George has worked as an advance practice nurse in lung disease since 1986, having served exclusively in the asthma program since 1991.  In 2003, she received her doctorate in nursing from the U of Pa.  She was the recipient of the National American Lung Association Dissertation Grant Award in 2001, as well as pre-doctoral and post-doctoral Individual National Research Service Awards from the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2002 and 2004.  She is the immediate Past-President of the Association of Asthma Educators and lectures extensively on issues related to asthma care and education and has 19 original abstracts, 10 peer-reviewed articles, 1 book chapter and 3 monographs published in these areas.

Cynthia Kelly MD

Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Vice Chair for Research at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Division Director of Allergy/Immunology at the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk, VA.   She serves as an Associate of the Center for Managing Chronic Disease at the University of Michigan.   Dr. Kelly’s research interests and publications include community health promotion and disease prevention in the field of pediatric asthma.   She is the medical director for Allies Against Asthma, an asthma health promotion coalition in the Hampton Roads.  Her work has been funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the NIAID, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and local foundations.   Dr. Kelly is an active speaker at professional conferences and community forums on the topic of pediatric asthma.

Monica Kraft MD

Dr Kraft is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Duke Asthma, Allergy and Airway Center at Duke University Medical Center.   Dr Kraft completed her fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and joined the faculty as the Director of the Carl and Hazel Felt Laboratory for Adult Asthma Research and Medical Director of the Pulmonary Physiology Unit at National Jewish Medical and Research Center from 1995-2004.  She then joined the Duke faculty to direct the Duke Asthma, Allergy and Airway Center in 2004.  In addition to patient care and teaching, Dr Kraft has published extensively in the area of adult asthma.  Specifically, her research interests include the role of infection and asthma, the role of the distal lung in asthma and airway remodeling.  Dr Kraft’s work has appeared in such journals as the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Journal of American Medical Association, the Lancet and Chest.  Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and The American Lung Association.  Dr Kraft has also received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, awarded by President Clinton at the White House in 2000. 

James Stout MD, MPH

Jim Stout is a Professor of Pediatrics and Adjunct Professor of Health Services at the University of Washington.  He is a co-founder of the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality, a non-profit organization headquartered in Boston.  He also leads a quality improvement program based at the University of Washington that collaborates with NICHQ.  Through these organizations, he works on a variety of local and national projects with the common aim of improving the quality of children's health care. Dr. Stout has a long-standing interest in improving asthma care.  He is currently disseminating a computer-based training tool developed at UW's Child Health Institute, known as "Spirometry Fundamentals". Dr. Stout is a pediatrician at the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic, affiliated with Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, where he directs their Asthma Clinic, and provides direction for its quality improvement programs