Julie M. Feinsilver

Julie Feinsilver "is a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Latin American Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service where she is writing a new book tentatively titled Medical Diplomacy: Fifty Years of Cuba’s Soft Power Politics. She has conducted research on Cuban medical diplomacy since 1979, although not continuously. Ms. Feinsilver is the author of the book, Healing the Masses: Cuban Health Politics At Home and Abroad (University of California Press, 1993), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on Cuba dealing with medical diplomacy, biotechnology, non-traditional exports, foreign relations, and the politics of health.

"Ms. Feinsilver earned a Ph.D. in sociology at Yale University (1989) and taught Latin American politics and development, environment and development and international law courses at Oberlin College, Bard College, Colgate University and Wesleyan University.

"After academia, she worked for the Pan American Health Organization in Research and Technological Development, where she wrote articles on biodiversity and biotechnology and was the scientific editor of and contributor to the book, Biodiversity, Biotechnology and Sustainable Development in Health and Agriculture: Emerging Connections (PAHO, 1996). She later worked as a consultant to both the President of the Osvaldo Cruz Foundation of the Ministry of Health of Brazil and to the Secretary of Science and Technology of Panama. Finally, Ms. Feinsilver spent the last 12 years of her non-academic career at the Inter-American Development Bank in a variety of positions. After leaving the IDB in late 2008, Ms. Feinsilver returned to academic research and writing, but also has continued to work on issues of public sector reform and management for results as an independent consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank."


 * Senior Research Fellow, Council on Hemispheric Affairs