Ellen serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the END Fund, working to see an end of the suffering caused by the most prevalent neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) – including river blindness, lymphatic filariasis, intestinal worms, schistosomiasis and blinding trachoma – affecting over 1.5 billion people. The END Fund is a collaborative platform for global philanthropic, corporate and individual donors to actively invest in a portfolio of NTD control and elimination programs through targeted investments in international and local NGOs, governments, health agencies, technical assistance, and research partners. The END Fund currently supports programs in almost 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
Previously, Ellen served as Operation Smile’s Senior Vice President for International Programs, managing programs to provide comprehensive care to children with cleft lips and cleft palates in over 60 countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. She also led Operation Smile’s global public policy, collaboration and advocacy efforts to promote essential surgery as an integral component of global health policy and programming. She also served as Director of International Operations for International Medical Corps (IMC), focused on international disaster response and delivery of medical care in complex humanitarian emergencies in over 20 countries. At IMC, she led the organization’s response to the East Asia Tsunami in 2004 and oversaw programs in places such as Darfur, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to humanitarian affairs, Ellen worked as a journalist in a variety of print, television and radio outlets.
Ellen holds graduate degrees in International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, with a focus on humanitarian affairs, and in Development Studies from the London School of Economics, with a focus on non-profit management and child rights. She has also done postgraduate studies in Conflict Resolution at Universidad de Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia.
Ellen currently serves on the board of the Legatum Institute, a think tank based in London focused on promoting policies that lift people from poverty to prosperity. She also serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Health Security Advisory Board and the Uniting to Combat NTDs Stakeholders Working Group.
She has a forthcoming book (January 2019), Under the Big Tree: Extraordinary Stories from the Movement to End Neglected Tropical Diseases (Johns Hopkins Press).