Dr. Nirav Shah, Prof. Kara Palamountain, Dr. Dora Anne Mills: Global Health in a Pandemic World

Click here to watch the video archive of this event.

Maine’s own Dr. Dora Mills provided the framework for us to peek inside the work and lives of Dr. Nirav Shah and his wife Prof. Kara Palamountain as they coped with the emerging Covid pandemic in Maine and abroad, in a discussion full of humor and sagacity. And hear about the moment they fell in love with Maine.

Prof. Kara Palamountain is a Research Associate Professor at the Kellogg School of Management and a Lecturer of Global Health. She has managed over 50 Kellogg field research teams in countries such as Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, China, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Nigeria. She is Co-Principal Investigator of a $68M grant which aims to reduce neonatal mortality rate by scaling life-saving medical devices within the health systems of four African countries. Kara received her MBA from Kellogg in 2004 and her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998.

Dr. Nirav Shah is the Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and has been the public face of Maine's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Shah is an epidemiologist, economist and attorney. He received both a Juris Doctor and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Chicago and worked as an economist and epidemiologist at the Cambodian Ministry of Health. Shah practiced law at Sidley Austin before being appointed as the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. Shah is also the inspiration for the eponymous Shah Bar created in his honor by Freeport’s own Wilbur’s Chocolate.

Dr. Dora Anne Mills is the chief health improvement officer for MaineHealth, overseeing the nonprofit integrated health system’s community population health initiatives, including serving on the leadership team for the system’s pandemic and vaccine responses. She previously served as Maine’s state health officer. Starting her career as a pediatric hospitalist in the Los Angeles area, Dr. Mills also practiced in her hometown in rural Maine and served several stints in Africa. Dr. Mills is a graduate of Bowdoin College, the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.