For Release: May 27, 2008
Contact: DMS Communications 603-650-1492
UNICEF Advisor to Speak at Dartmouth Medical School Class Day
Dr. Stephen Atwood
Hanover, N.H.—International public health expert Dr. Stephen Atwood will deliver the keynote address at the Dartmouth Medical School Class Day on June 7.
The DMS ceremony celebrates medical and graduate students receiving degrees at Dartmouth College's 2008 commencement exercises. It begins at 11 a.m. in the College's Leede Arena, John W. Berry Sports Center.
Senior student speakers are MD candidate Andrew C. Saunders, and microbiology and immunology PhD candidate Micah J. Benson.
Atwood is the UNICEF regional advisor for health and nutrition in East Asia and the Pacific. Based in Bangkok., he works with UNICEF staff in countries throughout the region to strengthen programs for women and children, focusing on equity and children's rights to access quality health care.
Trained as a pediatrician, he has helped introduce new approaches for maternal, newborn and young child survival linked to improved nutrition, water and sanitation, and expanded immunization and infection treatment programs. His short-term assignments to countries in urgent need have included UNICEF Indonesia director of emergency operations in Banda Aceh after the 2004 tsunami and advisor to UNICEF Timor Leste in Dili during that country's conflict in 2006.
Atwood graduated from Dartmouth College in 1968 and DMS in 1970, then completed his MD at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1972). This year, Dartmouth honored him for his contributions with a 2008 Social Justice Award, the Lester B. Granger '18 Award for Lifetime Achievement.
More about the commencement week activities is available on the DMS graduation page.
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