The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health marked the official opening of the Gill-Lebovic Center for Community Health in the Caribbean and Latin America with a luncheon and symposium Friday.
The center was established by a gift from veterinarian, Holly Gill, and James Lebovic, a professor of political science and international affairs at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, to improve health outcomes, train students and health professionals and create sustainable models for healthier communities in the region. Their gift to start the center is the largest such contribution by GW faculty.
The celebration, titled “A Story to Be Told,” had as its centerpiece, the love story of Holly Gill and James Lebovic and their travels throughout the Caribbean and Latin America initially as tourists and then to provide veterinary care in communities where it was not otherwise available. The event was attended by representatives from the Pan American Health Organization, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank and members of the Embassies of Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and others in the region, GW deans, faculty and public health students.
“I’ve been in academia a long time, and it’s very rare—in fact, in my experience, unprecedented—that a leader of our faculty would make such a commitment,” said GW President Mark S. Wrighton in thanking Gill and Lebovic for “their extraordinary generosity.”
Their gift, Wrighton said, “added to this school both distinction and distinguishability. The university will be far better, better known and higher in quality and impact.”
The idea for the center evolved from a 2019 meeting between the couple and Milken Institute SPH Dean Lynn Goldman that was set up by former GW provost Forrest Maltzman. “I was taken by their commitment to the people they had met in the Caribbean and Latin America,” Goldman said, “and deeply moved and enthralled by their stories of working in Haiti. Jim and Holly, their love and devotion for those animals, their humanitarian commitment to them, and for the people who loved those animals, was truly special.”
Goldman noted that the new center will boost the work of Milken Institute SPH faculty who are already committed to working with communities in the Caribbean and Latin American region. “It’s unique to have a center that is focused on healthier communities across a region instead of a specific health issue in any one specific country,” Goldman said.
Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz, associate professor and vice chair of the Milken Institute SPH Department of Prevention and Community Health, has been selected as the inaugural director of the center, whose faculty and staff, Goldman stressed, would facilitate community ownership from the ground up, engage community leaders and advocates in understanding what their needs are first and then partner with leaders to build solutions that serve and support the research.
Lebovic shared a story with attendees of how he and Gill met in 1988, six years after he joined the GW faculty.
“In my head, I was this super cool kid from LA with a Ph.D. in international relations,” he said. Gill had completed degrees in biology and veterinary medicine and was directing an animal hospital in Northern Virginia.
They married and traveled to regions relatively close to the United States because her work as a veterinarian necessitated short trips. Still, he said, they visited almost every major country in the Caribbean, including Haiti, as well as Central America. As Gill got more help in her veterinary practice, the couple’s forays spread to include South America, North Africa and Southeast Asia.
They have not returned to Haiti since the COVID-19 pandemic but have donated the funds, in the district in which they worked, to create a goat cooperative, to distribute essential food items to needy people and to cover the school expenses of a number of children including a young girl, who spent whole days watching them work.
Lebovic said his wife’s and his biggest regrets are that their parents weren’t here to see their continued work. Gill’s mother was a nurse epidemiologist and her father worked on the railroad in Alabama. Lebovic’s father was a Holocaust survivor and his mother escaped Japanese occupation.
“They were wonderful people. Our parents are what this represents," he said. "What our two families had in common was the desire for a better life through education. I’d like to think that some good came from all of their suffering. Having their last name on the center, Gill and Lebovic, is nothing they could have ever imagined.”
After a short break, guests returned to the Milken Institute SPH Convening Center for a symposium conducted by Center Director Rodriguez-Diaz, who invited faculty and staff to share stories about their work and experience in the Caribbean and Latin America.
“Many of us understand our region, respect our communities and enjoy the beauty of our people, the diverse topography, the food, and we also enjoy our cultures,” he said. “Our region is known to have strong oral traditions expressed through many forms, poetry, prayers, jokes, and storytelling.”
As a native Puerto Rican, he said he initially became involved as a docent doing missionary work in the Dominican Republic on the border with Haiti, which “exposed me for the first time to a foreign community that welcomed me” and led to becoming a health educator, predominantly with socially vulnerable populations, including people who experienced incarceration, sexual and gender minorities, and people with problematic use of drugs.”
Across the room, Gill-Lebovic Center staff, students and former students offered accounts of experiences in the Caribbean and Latin America, among them Ana Maria del Rio-Gonzalez, an associate professor in prevention and community health and associate director for training and capacity building, who spoke of working with transgender women at high risk of HIV and violence; Donaldson Conserve, associate director for research and development and an associate professor in the Milken Institute SPH Department of Prevention and Community Health, who grew up in Cite du Soleil, a poor community in Haiti; and Carlos Santos-Burgoa, professor of global health and director of the Milken Institute SPH Global Health Program, whose well known study of the impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico found a much higher rate of mortality than initial reports.
In closing remarks, Rodriguez-Diaz, laid out the fundamental goal of the center to place resources and build capacity where people struggle to be healthy that would set priorities based on the One Health approach.
“One Health is a collaborative, multi sectorial and transdisciplinary approach, working at the local, regional, national, and global levels to achieve optimal health outcomes by recognizing the interconnectedness between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment,” Rodriguez-Diaz said.
