Master of Public Health Specialized in Health Systems Administration and Global Health Leadership

Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Haifa

E-mail: atursinai@univ.haifa.ac.il

Professional Summary

Ph.D. Tel Aviv University, The Eitan Berglas School of Economics

Research interests

Health Economics, Health Policy, Health Inequality, Economics of Ageing, Financial Gerontology, Social Economics, Labor Economics.

Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Haifa

E-mail: meraz@netvision.net.il

Professional Summary

Maya Peled-Raz, PhD, MPH, LLB is a lecturer in the University of Haifa School of Public Health. She is also an adjunct lecturer at the Zaida School of Nursing at Haifa’s Bnei-Zion Medical Center and a clinical ethicist and IRB member at Bnei-Zion Medical Center. She received her law degree and PhD from the University of Haifa and her MPH from the Boston University School of Public Health.

Research interests

Health law, bioethics, public health law, research ethics, children and families and the health care system

Professor of Global Health, International MPH, University of Haifa

E-mail: rschuster@aol.com 

Professional Summary

Richard Schuster, MD, MMM, FACP, FRCP (Edin) is a Professor of Global Health in the School of Public Health at the University of Haifa.  He is the former Co-Director and Co-Founder of the International MPH at the University of Haifa.  He is also a former Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Global Health at the University of Georgia in the US.  Prior to the University of Georgia, he held the first endowed chair, the Oscar Boonshoft Chair of Health Systems Management, at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in the United States. He was also director of the Center for Global Health Systems, Management and Policy, and MPH program director at the Boonshoft School of Medicine. He received his BA Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania, his MD from the University of Rochester, and a Master of Medical Management (MMM) from the Tulane University School of Public Health. He completed a residency and served as Chief Medical Resident in Internal Medicine at the University of Rochester in the US.  He is board certified in internal medicine and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in the US and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

Research interests

Global health systems, implementation of practice guidelines, cardiovascular risk factor reduction, health care disparities, physician office microsystems, leadership development

Associate Professor, Head of Physical Activity, Exercise, and Health specialization , School of Public Health, University of Haifa.

Adjunct Assistant Professor, College of Public Health, University of Georgia

Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, College of Public Health, University of Georgia

E-mail: sznitman@research.haifa.ac.il

Professional Summary

Prof.  Sharon Sznitman is originally from Norway. Prof. Sznitman received her B.A. in sociology from the University of Manchester and her M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Stockholm University.  She then completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Annenberg Public Policy Centre at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2010 Prof.  Sznitman joined the School of Public Health at the University of Haifa where she currently is an Associate Professor and head of Physical Activity, Exercise and Health specialization.

Research interests

Dr. Sznitman’s most recent research mainly focuses on medical cannabis use and policies in Israel and in cross-national contexts. Her research focuses on how both medical and recreational users use cannabis to ease mental and physical pain. Her research also focuses on reaching a better understanding for how public attitudes influence medical cannabis policy development and implementation in Israel and abroad, and in turn how medical cannabis policies (mainly through the media) influences the general population and its attitudes not only to medical cannabis but also recreational cannabis use. Medical cannabis policies are developing rapidly in many jurisdictions across the world, with implications for public health, business and policy. Dr. Sznitman’s research provides an important platform from which these expected effects can be determined and how societies may best respond.

Co-Director of the MPH specialized in Health Systems Administration & Global Health Leadership Program, School of Public Health, University of Haifa

E-mail: sfreeman@staff.haifa.ac.il

Professional Summary

Shirra Freeman, Ph.D. is the Co-Director of the International MPH specialized in Health Systems Administration & Global Health Leadership program. She is an economist working at the intersection of environment and health. Prior to joining the University of Haifa’s School of Public Health, she was an Environmental Knowledge Translation specialist with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. She also served as the coordinator of sustainability programmes for the Municipality of Haifa and is a long-term research Fellow with the Recanati Institute of Marine Studies.

Research interests

Environmental Health, Behavioural economics, Decision science, Knowledge mobilization.

Director of the MPH specialized in Health Systems Administration & Global Health Leadership Program, School of Public Health, University of Haifa

 Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Haifa

E-mail: tbenporat@univ.haifa.ac.il 

Professional Summary

Tair Ben-Porat (PhD, MPH) is currently the director of the international MPH program. Dr. Ben-Porat’s broad research interests include understanding the combination of biological and psychosocial factors, patient’s behavior (in particular dietary and nutritional behavior), and their roles in obesity and weight loss, as key information to develop and test innovative personalized therapies and behavioral interventions for people living with obesity and related chronic conditions. She previously managed the obesity and metabolic bariatric surgery (MBS) nutritional therapy for patients with severe obesity at Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center (Jerusalem, Israel), and has been a main/co-investigator and collaborator on a considerable number of studies in the fields of obesity, health behavior and nutrition. Dr. Ben-Porat serves as the Director of the obesity and MBS forum of the Israeli Dietetic Association (ATID), and was previously the Chair of the Integrated Health Committee of the European chapter in the International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders (IFSO-EC). Through these, she has further been able to reach healthcare professionals and significant stakeholders and translated her work into clinical guidelines.Dr. Ben-Porat’s FRQS (Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé)-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the Montreal Behavioral Medicine Centre and Concordia University (Montréal, Canada), was focused in personalized nutrition and obesity-related mechanisms and interventions, using patient-oriented research frameworks.

Research interests

Obesity and related chronic diseases, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), Human nutrition and metabolism, behavioral health interventions for obesity and NCDs, maladaptive eating behaviors, clinical trials, evidence-based medicine and evidence synthesis studies.

Adjunct Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Haifa

Head of Environmental Health and Occupational Hygiene specialization

E-mail: eamster@post.harvard.edu

Professional Summary

Yonah Amster, MD, MPH is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Haifa School of Public Health. He's also the Head of Environmental Health and Occupational Hygiene specialization and  WHO Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health director.

Research interests

Occupational injuries, determination of environmental and occupational causation, toxic exposures including heavy metal toxicity, pesticide exposures, and evaluation of building related illnesses.

A senior lecturer at the University of Haifa School of Public Health.  

E-mail: ynov@univ.haifa.ac.il

Professional Summary

Dr. Yuval Nov, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa School of Public Health.  He received his B.Sc. from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D from Stanford University.

Research interests

Biostatistics, operations research in biotechnology and healthcare, stochastic modeling