Executive board

Krsitine Sørensen is the founding director of the Global Health Literacy Academy and a visiting lecturer at the Centre of European Studies at the Maastricht University and at the MCI Management Center in Innsbruck. Her educational background is in medicine, public health and global health diplomacy. She had among others acted as expert advisor for the European Commission, the European Parliament, the World Health Organization, the European Centre of Disease Control, Council of Europe and McKinsey and received the European Health Award 2012 for the societal impact of the European Health Literacy study and the International Health Literacy Award 2017 for setting up the International Health Literacy Association. She is engaged in research, education, consultation, advocacy and public speaking.

Orkan Okan is professor of health literacy at the Department of Sport and Health Sciences at Technical University Munich, Germany. Orkan is co-editor of three health literacy books, including the “International Handbook of Health Literacy” and co-lead of the global Covid-19 Health Literacy Network (Covid-HL). According to Expertscape's PubMed-based algorithms, Orkan is placed in the top 0.1% of scholars writing about health literacy over the past 10 years. He has vast experience in research, practice and policy on health literacy with focus on children, adolescents and schools.

Dr. Sasha Fleary is an Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health and Social Sciences at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. Dr. Fleary’s mixed methods research focuses on empowering parents, adolescents, and children to engage in healthful behaviors through developmentally and culturally appropriate interventions, programming, and outreach responsive to the risk and protective factors for health disparities in minoritized groups. Her research also targets systems-level changes necessary for a more just health environment. Dr. Fleary's research is particularly focused on the role of multiple facets of health literacy in chronic disease prevention and community organization around health. Her health literacy research is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Catina O'Leary is President & CEO of Health Literacy Media (HLM), where she oversees Health Literacy Media’s core activities and programs to set and maintain the strategic vision for the organization. Her primary focus has been on building sustainable health literacy programming to address systemic challenges in the delivery of health care and clinical research, and making health and science information accessible and meaningful to the people who need it most.

Dr. Tuyen Van Duong is current an Assistant Professor of School of Nutrition and Health Sciences, Taipei Medical University, Taiwan. He has been also acting as a Vice-president of Asian Health Literacy Association, London, UK; Chair of International Health Literacy Association, Boston, USA. He has been invited as a yearly Guest Faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine since 2018. He is an active member of several international organizations, e.g. Nutrition Society of Taiwan, American Society for Nutrition, and some others.
Dr. Duong has developed a strong academic background, and wide international networks. He has been closely working with other scholars on several research projects (e.g. Health and dietary literacy, dietary intake and health-related behaviors, mental health and quality of life in hemodialysis, chronic kidney disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes mellitus and COVID-19) in Asian countries, and also collaborated with the research consortium in Europe and with growing number of institutions in Australia, United States and Africa.
As a young professor whose international education and research career has integrated medical and health sciences, public health, and nutrition, he has published about 50 original research articles on 27 prestigious international journals (by July 2022). He has been serving as a Guest Editor of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Associate Editor of Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers in Nutrition, and a reviewer of 35 international journals. In addition, he had more than 30 scientific presentations at national and international conferences.
Dr. Duong has received 14 honorable academic awards from national and international organizations from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Switzerland, Taiwan, The United States, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Bill Stone is the Director of Content Strategy at Sommer Consulting, a Primary Qualitative Market Research firm with extensive experience in Health Literacy Market Research. In that capacity and as an active member of the Intellus Worldwide Clear Health Communication Task Force, he has been an avid contributor and proponent of furthering the dialogue on health literacy by speaking at scientific meetings and industry conferences, leading round-table discussions, moderating expert panels, and publishing perspective pieces as well as original research on the topic in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Robert A. Logan Ph.D. retired from the Senior Staff of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) in 2020 and is a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism. Logan is the author of more than 70 refereed journal articles. He is the primary editor of two books on health literacy and seven additional books including Betsy L. Humphreys, Robert A. Logan, Randolph A. Miller, Elliot R. Siegel. (Eds). Transforming Biomedical Information and Health Information Access: Don Lindberg and the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2022. Dr. Logan's research areas are: health literacy; public understanding of science and medicine; theory and applications of Q methodology; and mass communication ethics.

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Dr. Teresa Wagner is an Assistant Professor in Lifestyle Health Sciences and Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center and Clinical Executive for Health Literacy at SaferCare Texas. Her work has encompassed delivering multiple health literacy programs, publications, speaking engagements and trainings on health literacy issues including a collaborative study on Health Literate Healthcare Organizations. At the same time, her research focuses on alleviating health disparities in underserved communities through health literacy and community health workers to improve population health.

Tara Chen identifies as a young public health professional working to strengthen health systems with a vision that “everything & everywhere is public health”. She has an active interest in the SDGs, planetary health, health literacy and cross-sectoral collaborations. Tara is a strong advocate for amplifying young voices in health literacy dialogue, research and practice.

Professor Peter Wushou Chang is the President of the Asian Health Literacy Association and also serves as the director for international development in the Show Chwan Medical Group, the adjunct professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine, distinguished advisor in the Ho Chi Minh University Shing Mark Hospital in Đồng Nai and senior advisor for the Scientific and Training Council in the Phan Ngoc Thach University of Medicine in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, senior advisor for the Chung Cheng University, Chayi, Taiwan, visiting professor in the Dian Nouswantoro University in Semarang, Indonesia. He also acts as the President of the Taiwan Vietnam Medical Biotech Association. He has an educational background in medicine, public health, environmental and occupational health and received his Doctor of Science in the field of radiation biology. He also is a former ombudsman and served as the Chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Communities in the Control Yuan in Taiwan. He is interested in integrating better health literacy into more successful healthcare services both in the community and global levels. He likes to promote health literacy as a key element for health rights.