About
The UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health's Advisory Council features a team of distinguished leaders, executives and friends from across North Carolina and the United States who provide strategic input to the leadership of the Gillings School. Council members also provide insights, ideas and resources in developing collaborative initiatives and connecting the School to innovative public-private partnerships. In addition, council members serve as ambassadors of the School and share its commitment to making a positive and significant impact on the lives and health of people across North Carolina, throughout the U.S. and around the world.

Members


Marcia Angle

Dr. Marcia Angle

Marcia A. Angle, MD, MPH ’87 (maternal and child health)
Retired Public Health Physician
Durham, N.C.

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Marcia Angle is an environmental advocate and preventive medicine physician, who has published and worked in the area of international reproductive health. She was the medical director at IntraHealth, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, for two decades. In North Carolina, she served as medical director of the Orange County Health Department and taught environmental epidemiology at Duke University’s School of the Environment.

Angle currently serves on the board of directors of three nonprofit organizations: E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, Nature and Culture International and the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Angle earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University, a Doctor of Medicine degree from Duke University, and a Master of Public Health from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.


Dr. Nicole Bates

Dr. Nicole Bates

Nicole Bates, DrPH ’08 (health policy and management), MPH ’00 (health behavior)
Director, Strategic Partnerships & Initiatives
Pivotal Ventures
Seattle, WA

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Dr. Nicole Bates is an executive leader and impact-driven strategist with 20 years of experience designing original portfolios, building cross-sectoral partnerships, and activating public and political networks to generate support, policies and financing for health and development priorities — in the U.S. and abroad. She currently serves as the director of strategic partnerships & initiatives at Pivotal Ventures, an incubation and investment company founded by Melinda French Gates, and leads the company’s efforts to build a well-resourced and active ecosystem of individuals and organizations working together to advance social progress.

Dr. Bates joined Pivotal Ventures after more than a decade at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she led the foundation’s global advocacy and communications strategy for child health, including global immunization and polio eradication. She previously served as the director for government relations at the Global Health Council and deputy director for public policy at the Center for Community Change. Nicole began her career at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a presidential management fellow and worked for Senator Edward Kennedy on domestic policy. She earned both doctorate and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She completed undergraduate studies with high honors at the University of Virginia.


Dr. Leah Devlin

Dr. Leah Devlin

Leah Devlin, DDS, MPH ’84 (health policy and management)
Gillings Professor of the Practice
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health
Chapel Hill, N.C.

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Dr. Leah Devlin has more than 40 years in public health practice in North Carolina including 10 years as the Wake County health director and 10 years as the state health director for North Carolina. Dr. Devlin has served as a professor of the practice at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health from 2009 until her retirement in 2023.

Among other board experiences, Dr. Devlin is a board member of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Delta Dental of North Carolina, and she serves on the Gillings School of Global Public Health Advisory Council and as trustee of Campbell University. She just stepped down from the position of chair of the CDC Foundation Board after serving there for 11 years.

In other roles, Dr. Devlin served as a consultant for the Research Triangle Institute, International, the Milbank Memorial Fund, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She is the recipient of the UNC Distinguished Alumni Award and the School’s Harriett Barr Distinguished Alumni Award.

 


Subhash Gumber

Dr. Subhash Gumber

Subhash Gumber, MD, PhD, FACG
Former Medical Director
Raleigh Medical Group Gastroenterology
Cary, N.C.

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Subhash Gumber is a physician and entrepreneur. He was medical director of Raleigh Medical Group Gastroenterology for 20 years and oversaw its growth to be the largest gastroenterology private practice with five endoscopy centers in the Research Triangle region. He has served on the North Carolina Medical Board, the Raleigh Medical Group Board and the North Carolina Indian-American Physicians Board, and he is a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Global Leadership Council. His interests include music and travel.

Gumber received a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, completed his residency in internal medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and recieved training in gastroenterology and hepatology at Harvard Medical School. Prior to attending medical school, he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in biochemistry at Washington State University and worked at Brandeis University. He is board certified in gastroenterology and hepatology.


Donald A. Holzworth

Don Holzworth

Donald A. Holzworth, MS, Chair
Executive in Residence
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health
Chapel Hill, N.C.

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Don Holzworth serves as the executive in residence at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health as well as chairman of the School’s Advisory Council. He is also chairman of the Health Decisions Inc., a women’s health clinical research organization. He serves on the board of Veritas Collaborative, a specialty behavioral hospital system serving patients with severe eating disorders, and on the board of UNC’s Senior Alliance Accountable Care Organization. He was the 2018 recipient of Triangle Global Health Champion award.

Holzworth is the former founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Constella Group, a leading global provider of public health policy and implementation and clinical development services, operating in more than 60 countries. The company was sold to SRA International in 2007. He was also the founder and chairman of Expression Analysis Inc., a genomic services company, which was sold to Quintiles (now IQVIA) in 2012. He also served as executive chairman of a UNC spinout, Bivarus Inc., a patient-centered analytics company sold to Press Ganey in 2018.

Holzworth earned a Bachelor of Science in systems analysis and a Master of Science in environmental science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He also has advanced graduate training in biostatistics from North Carolina State University.


Richard Kelly

Richard Kelly

Richard D. Kelly, MBA, BSPH ’81 (health policy and management)
Former Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Nutriati, Inc.
Executive in Residence, University of Richmond Robins School of Business
Richmond, VA

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Richard Kelly’s career has spanned three decades in the consumer products, healthcare and manufacturing sectors. An effective leader as a Fortune 50 executive, management consultant and startup entrepreneur in the food and agricultural sector, he has led both large-scale and early stage organizations. He serves as executive in residence at Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond, mentoring students in both leadership and entrepreneurship. Kelly is a board member for both private and public food and wellness companies and advises CEOs in the areas of finance, strategy, operations and innovation. He serves on the Executive Board of Directors of World Pediatric Project, a nonprofit linking worldwide pediatric surgical, diagnostic and preventive resources to heal critically ill children in developing countries. His current passion is to improve wellness by making healthier food choices available and affordable.

Kelly is the former CEO and co-founder of Nutriati, Inc, a plant-based food ingredient technology company that helped leading brands and food manufacturers develop great tasting, healthy products with its patent protected proprietary processes that does not require water. Nutriati was acquired by Tate & Lyle PLC of London in April of 2022. Prior to founding Nutriati, he served as CEO of Worldwide Sourcing Advisors LLC (WSA), an advisory firm he founded to provide procurement, supply management and business development expertise to public, private and not-for-profit organizations. WSA’s clients included food & beverage, packaging, and life science companies. Kelly also served as a vice president at consumer products giant, Altria Group. Under his leadership, Fortune 50 Altria Group was ranked as a leading company by the AT Kearny’s Assessment of Excellence in Procurement and Supply Management™. Kelly co-sponsored the Altria Worldwide Strategic Sourcing Team which involved synergy activities with Kraft, General Foods, Oscar Mayer, Miller Brewing, St. Michelle Winery and Philip Morris International. A thought leader and speaker in the area of supply management and partnerships, he was a contributing author to the acclaimed book Next Level Supply Management Excellence: Your Straight to the Bottom Line Roadmap. He was responsible for the Altria’s supplier diversity program and involved in numerous ESG initiatives. He was a key architect in developing corporate support for the development of the University of Richmond Minority Business CEO Leadership Program to enhance minority businesses success.

Kelly earned a Master of Business Administration from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a Bachelor of Science with honors in health policy and management from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.


Stacie McEntyre

Stacie McEntyre

Stacie McEntyre, MSW, LCSW, CEDS, F.iaedp
Founder
Veritas Collaborative, LLC
CEO
Couplet Care inc.
Apex, N.C.

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Stacie McEntyre is the CEO of Couplet Care inc., a University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health spin-out postnatal infant bassinet designed to reduce the risks of infant drops, maternal pain and nursing inefficiencies.

In 2011, as CEO and president, Stacie co-founded Veritas Collaborative, a specialty health care system for the treatment of eating disorders. Today, Veritas Collaborative is a national health care system for the treatment of eating disorders and has served over thousands of male, female and other-gendered patients and their families with 600+ employees in three southeastern states at the inpatient, residential and partial hospitalization levels of care.

Prior, she founded Carolina House, a well-respected residential eating disorders program in Durham, N.C., after recognizing the need to fill an important gap in service for college-age students after serving as the eating disorders specialist for Duke University Counseling and Psychological Services. She currently serves as VP on the Board of Directors for The Caring House in Durham and is member of the Rotary Club of Downtown Durham. Stacie is a passionate advocate for equitable access to behavioral health and health care services.

 


Lee Phillips

Lee Phillips

Lee (Leyan) Phillips, MA
Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder
Bluedoor Group
Chapel Hill, N.C.

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Lee Phillips is a seasoned innovator and brand strategist with 30 years’ experience in Europe, the U.S. and Asian markets. He has previously worked in senior marketing roles for global brands including Vodafone and Harrods and has led creative agencies in Tokyo, London and Miami. For the past 15 years, he has specialized in the health sector, leading branding and consumer product innovation projects for organizations including U.S. healthcare giant Humana, global telehealthcare company Tunstall, and major U.S. health systems and providers.

Phillips is an expert in consumer engagement and behavior change marketing and pioneered population health management programs in the UK’s National Health Service, where his exploits saw him inducted into the CorpComms 100 Club, an organization that recognizes the top-performing corporate communicators in the UK. In addition to co-founding Bluedoor Group, a digital health innovation and growth agency based in Chapel Hill, N.C., he is a co-founder and fellow of The Institute of Healthcare Design Thinking, and a co-founder of the nonprofit Digital Health Institute for Transformation (DHIT).

An entrepreneur at heart, Lee is on the board of several start-up companies in the health sector advising them on their product development and commercialization strategies. He serves as executive director of the Lampidis Cancer Foundation and also co-founded the first conveyor-belt sushi bar chain in the UK in 1994.

A fluent Japanese speaker, Lee holds a master’s degree and bachelor’s degree (with honors) in oriental studies from Cambridge University in the UK. Following a brief appearance on Masterchef, he is now a frustrated chef whose culinary genius is completely lost on his two sons.


Laura Helms-Reece

Dr. Laura Helms Reece

Laura Helms Reece, DrPH ’00 (biostatistics)
Chief Executive Director
Rho
Chapel Hill, N.C.

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Laura Helms Reece is chief executive officer of Rho, a contract research organization specializing in high-quality medical research in conjunction with their partners in the public and private sectors. Prior to being named chief operating officer in 2006, Helms Reece acquired a broad range of work experiences at Rho, including serving as director of regulatory affairs, associate director of biostatistics, and senior statistical scientist.

After receiving Doctor of Public Health degree in biostatistics, Helms Reece was a senior statistical scientist supporting phase I–III clinical trials in oncology at AstraZeneca. She has also worked at GlaxoWellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) as a statistical consultant designing studies and performing analyses for market research.

Helms Reece is a Phi Beta Kappa and Beta Gamma Sigma graduate of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. She earned a Master of Public Health and Doctor of Public Health in biostatistics from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health (now the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health).


James Rosen

James Rosen

James H. Rosen, MBA, MSPH ’07 (health policy and management)
Chief Executive Officer
READDI, Inc.
Chapel Hill, N.C.

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Jimmy Rosen is chief executive officer of READDI Inc., a new organization created to pursue novel antiviral drug development in advance of the next pandemic. READDI was initiated as a collaboration among the University of North Carolina (UNC)-Chapel Hill, the UNC Eshelman Institute for Innovation and the Structural Genomics Consortium, and plans to expand its programs and partnerships to include philanthropic organizations, industry leaders and innovators around the world.

He is the former president and chief executive officer of Artizan Biosciences. He previously served as deputy director, program-related investments, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He was previously a partner on Intersouth’s life sciences investment team. He began with the firm as an intern in 2005 while pursuing his graduate degrees, joined full-time in 2007 and became a partner in 2009. Prior to joining Intersouth, he spent 15 years in clinical, research and financial positions in the health care and biotechnology sectors.

Rosen’s research experience includes programs at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, the National Cancer Institute and Duke University Medical Center and its Comprehensive Cancer Center. He also managed and monitored clinical trials at a privately held contract research organization, which led to FDA-approved products. Rosen spent several years as an equity research analyst at Brean Murray & Co., covering biopharmaceuticals, genomics, generics, drug delivery and medical device companies. Prior to his research and Wall Street functions, he spent five years in emergency medical services as a mountain search and rescue and ambulance medic.

Jimmy serves on numerous boards and advisory committees, including the Board of Visitors for North Carolina Central University, the board of Florida BIO, and the oversight committee for the Duke-Coulter Translational Partners Program. He is also a frequent lecturer at Duke, UNC and NCSU. In 2010 Jimmy was awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship for which he designed and executed a program to evaluate the prospects for health care innovation in China and Southeast Asia.

Jimmy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University and a Master of Business Administration from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business where he was a Carolina Venture Fellow and recipient of the Frank Hawkins Kenan Award for Excellence. He received a Master of Science in Public Health from the UNC School of Public Health (now the UNC Gillings School of Global Pubilc Health).


Virginia Sall

Virginia B. Sall
Co-Founder and Director
Sall Family Foundation
Cary, N.C.

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Virginia Sall is a co-founder and director of the Sall Family Foundation. She has studied and worked in not-for-profit organizations for over 30 years. Her focus is on complex local-to-global organizations addressing global health and poverty, conservation and the environment — especially where these intersect to support healthy, sustainable lives for people in the developing world.

Sall currently serves on the board of directors for CARE USA, Environmental Defense Fund and World Wildlife Fund as well as the board of advisors for the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. She is a co-founder of Cary Academy, an innovative middle and high school in North Carolina. Sall volunteered for La Leche League to help mothers in her community breastfeed their babies; she also served on the board of La Leche League International, chaired the organization and represented La Leche League International at the United Nations. She has served on the board of the School of Nursing Foundation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sall has worked as a systems programmer, software developer, technical consultant and statistical software trainer. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in physics from Rice University and studied biostatistics at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

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