In 2001, the CORE Group inaugurated the Dory Storms Child Survival Recognition Award to recognize an individual for his or her vision, concern, intelligence, commitment, and love for people in the developing world.

The annual award is presented to a person whose leadership and courage in guiding nongovernmental organizations working in child survival has resulted in more effective program implementation and increased impact on improving the health of the poorest-of-the-poor mothers, children and infants in underserved communities throughout the world.

2007 - Monique & Jerry Sternin

As a team, Monique and Jerry Sternin pioneered the community-based application of the Positive Deviance approach to nutrition and to other health interventions. Monique and Jerry Sternin have been highly influential within the PVO community, articulating a community-focused asset approach to development based on local wisdom. As staff members of Save the Children, the Sternins piloted and scaled-up the PD/Hearth Approach to demonstrate its success in sustainably reducing malnutrition of children. Their groundbreaking work in Vietnam has served as a model for rehabilitating thousands of malnourished children in over 20 countries.

Jerry Sternin is a former Assistant Dean of Students at Harvard University Business School, and has been a Save the Children Director in Bangladesh, the Philippines, Viet Nam, Egypt and Myanmar. Jerry also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines, associate director in Nepal and as a Peace Corps Director in Mauritania and Rwanda. Jerry is currently a visiting scholar at Tufts University, teaching and directing the Positive Deviance Initiative, a Ford funded project to document and share information on global PD projects, to explore new PD applications, and to expand the cadre of PD practitioners and trainers.

Monique Sternin has worked in development since 1985 in Bangladesh, Egypt, Viet Nam, and Myanmar. Together with Jerry, she further developed and expanded upon the application of the positive deviance approach to maternal and newborn care, HIV/AIDS risk reduction and in advocacy against Female Genital Cutting. She currently works as a visiting scholar and co-director of the PD Initiative at Tufts University. As consultants, both Sternins have trained many CORE Group member and other organizations in Bolivia, Bhutan, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Ethiopia and Senegal to implement the Positive Deviance approach in nutrition and in Pakistan and Ethiopia for maternal and newborn care.

In addition to providing technical support to organizations using the PD approach to improve maternal and children’s health, both are currently facilitating the use of the PD approach to eradicate and prevent Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) in U.S. hospitals under a Robert Wood Johnson funded pilot involving 5 Beta sites hospitals and 15 partner hospitals, as well as a pilot project with the VA Healthcare System and a regional initiative in Maryland with the Delmarva Foundation.

Monique holds a Masters of Education Degree from Harvard University.
Jerry holds a Masters of Arts degree in Asian studies from Harvard University. He is currently an Associate Fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford University

2006 - Carl Taylor

Carl E. Taylor, professor emeritus at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and senior consultant to UNICEF, has worked in 70 countries in his 85 years. He was born and raised in the Himalayas, where his father was a medical missionary. After completing medical school at Harvard, he trained in surgery in Panama, where he spent most of World War II. After the war he moved to India with his wife, and following the example of both of his parents, he became a medical missionary at a Presbyterian hospital. He served as trek doctor on a 1949 Nepal ornithological trek of 140 miles, where he conducted the first national health survey of the country.

Dr. Taylor has promoted research and interest in International Public Health throughout his career, and was Chair of the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health for almost 25 years. He was a key contributor to the Alma Ata Declaration. He served as UNICEF representative to China and worked on the development of UNICEF Programs worldwide. He was founding chairman of the National Council of International Health, as well as founding chair of the IH Section of APHA. His highly praised, latest book Just and Lasting Change, written with his son Daniel Taylor- Ides, describes an approach to health from a systems perspective, encouraging self-reinforcing systems, combining community initiative, government support and technical expertise for optimum achievement through the SEED- SCALE method. It is the latest of more than 160 publications in health.

Dr. Taylor continues to advocate for improved health and equity, and continues research and participation in projects to improve the status of the underserved, among them reduction of tobacco use in China, and strengthening the effectiveness of faith based organizations in the promotion of health and equity in their development work around the world.

He is the recipient of the Edwin M. Ryan Prize for Contributions to International Nutrition in Narangwal Project; the International Health Leadership Award – National Council for International Health; Heritage Award of Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association; APHA, IH Section Career Award for Distinguished Service and Leadership; Harvard School of Public Health Alumni Award of Merit; JHSPH Award for Outstanding Contributions to Public Health; and Award from the President of the United States for Sustained Work to Protect Children Around the World in Especially Difficult Circumstances and Life-time Commitment to Promoting Community Based Primary Care, Good Nutrition and Family Planning for Child Survival.

He holds degrees from Muskingum College, Ohio (BS), Harvard Medical School (MD), Harvard School of Public Health (MPH, DrPH); honorary degrees from Muskingum (ScD), Towson University, Baltimore (ScD); and honorary professorships at Tongji University Medical College, Wuhan; and Peking Union Medical College, Peking, China.

2005 - Robb Davis

Robb Davis has been the Chairman of CORE’s Board of Directors for the past three years, during which time he has successfully led the Board of Directors through several key strategic planning and direction setting processes and has supported the establishment of CORE Inc. as a viable non-profit organization. His excellence in leadership of the CORE Board and of the CORE network of PVO members has been demonstrated via expert meeting and conference facilitation, the stimulation of interactive and productive group dynamics, and the enthusiastic and unwavering dedication he has shown to CORE, its members, and to the health and well-being of women and children around the globe. Through CORE, Dr. Davis has influenced countless staff members, keeping them motivated and on track. He manages to combine humor and seriousness in a way that is powerful and meaningful.

During his tenure with CORE, Dr. Davis has also made a particular mark in three areas with relevance for maternal and children health: Malaria Control, Lot Quality Assurance Sampling, and the application of dialogue-based education principles. In all cases, Dr. Davis provided important leadership, energy and vision, while at the same time ensuring that practical, needs-based and community-oriented approaches were utilized.

As Freedom from Hunger’s Senior Vice President of Program Services, Dr. Davis has led or participated in revisions of Freedom from Hunger’s Breastfeeding and Infant and Child Feeding education modules, including HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care, Women's Health and Family Planning education curricula, and led the design of a malaria prevention and treatment. He co-authored the LQAS manual, Assessing Community Health Programs: Using LQAS for Baseline Surveys and Regular Monitoring, and led the development of the CORE KPC Training of Survey Trainers field guide.

Dr. Davis’s experience in public health also includes work for World Vision and Catholic Relief Services, as well as a number of consultancies for a variety of national and international non-governmental organizations. For example, Dr. Davis made a significant contribution to the health and survival of vulnerable women and children while at CRS in the late 1990s. As Senior Health Technical Advisor, Dr. Davis was responsible for technical backstopping of child survival and maternal and child health projects in CRS country programs around the world.

Dr. Davis is a leader and teacher extraordinaire. He stimulates and facilitates, energizes and catalyzes. His ability to be organized and on target, yet in a relaxed manner with humor and goodwill, brings out the best in all around him. He is an exceptional human being, leader and contributor to the field of maternal and child health and nutrition, resulting in an impact that is felt at the global, national and local levels through the work of CORE members, Freedom from Hunger affiliates and the many other partners he has influenced in a positive manner over the years.

Dr. Davis holds a Ph.D. in Population Dynamics and an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University School of public Health.

Dr. Davis currently serves as Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee.

2004 - Gretchen & Warren Berggren

Warren and Gretchen Berggren, a husband and wife team, have worked together for over four decades to improve the health of children across the Third World. They have successfully combined academic appointments at Harvard with work for UNICEF, Save the Children, World Relief and Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, Haiti. They never lost their commitment to serving the less fortunate, and continue to bring their skills to the remotest of populations while mentoring and training countless NGOs, students and public health practitioners along the way.

Drs. Gretchen and Warren Berggren met at the University of Nebraska Medical School in the 1950s. They both chose careers as medical missionaries in Africa where they became proponents of the value of “preventive medicine” before marrying in 1959. In the 1960s the Berggrens studied and worked at the Harvard School of Public Health before taking positions with Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Haiti. During their first five-year tenure in Haiti, the Berggrens initiated the “Nutritional Foyer” program to train mothers in the use of local foods to correct dietary deficiencies. These early experiments in community-based appreciative public health methodologies eventually led to the “Positive Deviance / Hearth” approach well known to CORE members. Dr. Warren Berggren was responsible for the start-up and documentation of the World Relief Bangladesh PD/Hearth program, while Dr. Gretchen Berggren supervised the development of the Save the Children Vietnam PD/Hearth program. Successful documentation of these nutritional programs in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Haiti provided the experienced-based data needed to further develop and scale-up the approach. Both Berggrens continue to train numerous NGOs in this approach.

The Berggrens, participants at the Alma Ata Conference that established Primary Health Care for All and opened the way for the USAID Child Survival Grants Program, led and developed Save the Children’s child survival program for ten years. During this time, they continued to teach at Harvard keeping the PVO community of the latest technical developments while turning their academic knowledge into practical advice for PVO public health programming. Some of their advice still guides our work today: the importance of getting out to the people themselves, the power of using local data for decision making, the importance of ensuring every individual counts and is registered in the health system, and focusing on better nutrition as a key intervention for the two-thirds of malnourished Third World children.

The Berggrens are recipients of numerous awards including a Presidential citation from Bill Clinton; the Donald McKay Medal of the American Society of Tropical Medicine; the International Health Award from Mother Theresa; and the HSPH Alumni Award of Merit from Harvard University. They are proud grandparents, yet continue to travel and to teach and to mentor new public health practitioners. Dr. Gretchen Berggren continues to be an active member of the CORE Hearth listserv, contributing her experience to provoke new knowledge generation and ensuring that the PVO community remain informed of the latest technical findings and challenges.

2003 - Kate Jones

Kate Jones has a long history working both internationally and domestically on local, regional, and national health problems, including service in the Peace Corps (Nicaragua) and 21 years with USAID. She holds a BA in Anthropology and an MSPH from the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition, Kate speaks both Spanish and French.

Many CORE members know her from her exceptional and PVO friendly work from 1995-2001, when Kate was the Chief of the Child Survival and Health Unit for the Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation in Washington, DC. In this position, she directed a large, high profile competitive grants program for PVOs, incorporating values of transparency, partnership, participation, and excellence. Kate also supported the founding of the CORE Group to promote PVO collaboration.

Kate has been a strong advocate of the role of NGOs in improving child survival and health impact and coverage throughout her USAID career. Kate served as the Director of the Office of Health and Human Resources, Regional Economic Development Support Office/West and Central Africa in Côte d’Ivoire (1992-95), and served in various positions in the Office of Family Health in Ecuador, LAC Bureau, the Health office in Bolivia, and in Liberia. Kate retired from USAID in 2001 and currently runs a successful consulting practice.

2002 - David Newberry

David Newberry is a skilled public health advisor with close to 40 years of health experience. Mr. Newberry contributed to the work of the Centers for Disease Control for more than 20 years and has been with CARE since 1994. He currently serves as the Project Director for CORE's Polio Eradication Initiative. As such, he is responsible for providing the strategic framework for an $11 million dollar project through PVOs and NGOs in national and regional OPV immunization programs with 23 grant-funded PEI partners in eight countries, and assures quality efforts through administrative and technical support to all projects. Mr. Newberry also spent over six years as a private public health consultant providing guidance and advice to numerous health organizations around the world.

Mr. Newberry received a Research Scientist faculty appointment as a Ph.D. equivalent at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Department of International Health, based on education, experience, training and professional reputation. He has first-hand experience in three disease eradication programs: smallpox, guinea worm and currently polio.

2001 - John Wyon

John Wyon was one of the pioneers in the field of population science and had a 35-year career at the Harvard School of Public Health, retiring in 1988 as a senior lecturer in the Department of Population and International Health.

A British missionary doctor fluent in Hindi, Wyon began his career in Ethiopia and rural India. In 1943, as a conscientious objector to military service, Wyon joined a Quaker organization and served as the only Western qualified doctor in the Province of Tigre in Ethiopia, working at a government-run hospital that had 100 beds and six outpatient clinics for a community of approximately one million people. He developed a desire to practice medicine effectively among impoverished and illiterate populations with no access to health care.

A leader in establishing community-based health care, Dr. Wyon also helped establish one of the first longitudinal investigations in population science: the 1953 Khanna Study. Wyon served as Field Director for the study and later co-wrote a book considered to be a classic in the field, The Khanna Study: Population Problems in the Rural Punjab.

Dr. Wyon and colleague John Gordon worked to test the possibility of changing the birth rates in the rural villages of Punjab, India, through the use of birth control. This was the start of what would eventually become known as community-based health care?strong outreach services, down to the household level, for basic health and family planning services in rural areas without hospitals. Wyon and Gordon have since been credited with contributing to the progress that has been made in Bangladesh in reducing childhood mortality and in reducing fertility.

Dr. Wyon died on May 31, 2004.