Staff  

Roz D. Lasker, Director
Dorothy C. Benson, Associate Director for Administration
Quinton E. Baker, Associate Investigator

Roz D. Lasker
Director
email rlasker@nyam.org

Roz D. Lasker directs the Division of Public Health and the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at The New York Academy of Medicine. She is also Clinical Professor of Public Health in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. Nationally known in the fields of medicine, public health, and health policy, her current research focuses on how broadly participatory collaborative processes strengthen the ability of communities to identify, understand, and solve complex problems.

Prior to joining the Academy, Dr. Lasker served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health (Policy Development) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she received the John W. Gardner Award for excellence and outstanding achievement in public policy, population health, and public service. From 1987 to 1993 she served as Principal Policy Analyst for the Physician Payment Review Commission. Over the last 15 years, she has written extensively on health policy and collaborative problem solving and has given hundreds of presentations to a broad spectrum of professional and community audiences. She has also participated in numerous international activities related to health system reform.

Before moving to health policy, Dr. Lasker was on the faculty of the Department of Medicine at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, where she received the Teacher of the Year Award. An alumna of the High School of Music and Art in New York City, Cornell University, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, she completed her post-doctoral training in endocrinology and metabolism at the National Institutes of Health.

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Dorothy C. Benson
Associate Director for Administration
email dbenson@nyam.org

Dorothy C. Benson supports the activities of the Center by overseeing all administrative matters including financial management, travel and meeting coordination and planning, and project logistics. A graduate of Fordham University in the Bronx, she worked in public relations before entering the field of non-profit administration over a decade ago and building her career through successful associations with service and cultural institutions in and around Albany, New York. Prior to joining the Center six years ago, Dorothy was a member of a team conducting a federally funded needs assessment of the complete holdings of the New York State Archives.

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Quinton E. Baker
Associate Investigator

Quinton E. Baker is the Principal Consultant with QE Baker Associate providing consulting services to community-based organizations and other agencies/organizations in the public and non-profit sectors. He serves as an Associate Investigator with the Division of Public Health and the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at the New York Academy of Medicine. Mr. Baker works primarily off site with an office in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

“Go to the people; Live among the people; Learn from the people
Work with the people; Start with what the people know; Building on
What the people have;

A native of Greenville, North Carolina, Mr. Baker is the former executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Community Based Public Health. Much of his post secondary education occurred during his years as an organizer and leader in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina, and subsequently as a community organizer in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Massachusetts. More formally, his education includes North Carolina College at Durham, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University and more recently the Duke University Certificate Program in Business Coaching.

Teach by showing, learn by doing
Not a showcase, but a pattern; Not odds and ends, but a system
Not piecemeal but an integrated approach;

As Principal Consultant with QE Baker Associates, Mr Baker's work includes strategic organizational development and change, non-traditional team building, community engagement/development, group facilitation as well as skill-building and support for developing , sustaining and evaluating partnerships and collaborations. Mr. Baker hopes to work with intelligent, interesting people who are committed to the inclusion and full participation of all people in creating the quality of their existence.

Not to conform but to transform; Not relief but release.”

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