Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative - Program Staff

Shelly Terrazas, M.S., M.B.A
Assistant Director, Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative and the Liberia Mental Health Initiative

Shelly Terrazas supports the management and oversight of the operations of the Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative and Liberia Mental Health Initiative. She is involved in the development, implementation, and monitoring of project activities for EPHTI and Liberia Mental Health Initiative and is responsible for interacting with international colleagues and partners of the program. Ms. Terrazas supports the management of program grants and assists in the compilation of data, reports, papers, proposals, and budgets.

Prior to joining The Carter Center in 2004, Ms. Terrazas was program administrator for the Islam and Human Rights Fellowship Program at Emory University School of Law, overseeing all aspects of the program in the areas of finance, administration, personnel, research, and public relations. She has also worked at the Georgia Institute of Technology in program and grant management.

Ms. Terrazas earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in international affairs from Centre College and her Master of Science degree in international affairs from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She received a Master of Business Administration degree with a concentration in healthcare administration from Georgia State University.

Dennis Carlson, M.A., M.P.H, M.D.
Senior Consultant, Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative

Dr. Dennis Carlson began collaborating with The Carter Center to develop the Ethiopia Public Health Training Initiative in 1993 and has served as senior consultant on a full-time basis since 1997.

Dr. Carlson has been involved with Ethiopian health development for more than 40 years. After medical school at the University of Washington in Seattle, he had training in surgery and tropical medicine before beginning work at a mission hospital in rural Ethiopia in 1958.

After further education in public health and anthropology, he served as the dean of the Haile Selassie Public Health College and Training Center in Gondar in northern Ethiopia during the 1960s. After studies in the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, he joined the Hopkins faculty and taught there for 10 years before returning to Ethiopia, first to work on famine relief and community development, then to teach community health at Addis Ababa University.