Isaac Ashkenazi


Isaac Ashkenazi is an Israeli Professor of Disaster Medicine at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and a consultant to Harvard University. He is considered one of the world’s foremost experts in medical preparedness for complex emergencies and disasters.

Biography

Education and professional certification

In 1982, Ashkenazi volunteered to the paratrooper forces in the IDF as a military doctor. After four years of intensive military training, treating wounded soldiers and working under fire, Ashkenazi started his residency in ophthalmology at Sheba Medical Center in 1986.
In 1993, Ashkenazi volunteered again for the IDF, this time as the Head of Medical Services in the West Bank. After one year of service, he was promoted to Head of the Public Health Department in the Israeli Medical Corps.
In 1997, he was promoted to full colonel with the responsibilities of Surgeon General for the Home Front Command and the National Medical Coordinator for Mass Casualty Incidents and Disasters. As the Surgeon General of the HFC he led medical mission teams to give assistance to the USA Embassy survivors in Nairobi, after the terrorist attack, to the and in Greece.

Disaster preparedness, and emergency response

Ashkenazi is Professor of Disaster Medicine at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and a consultant to Harvard University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the United States Department of Homeland Security, and other national and international agencies. Ashkenazi is the former head of the Medical Services and Supply Center for the Israeli Defense Forces and served as the first Surgeon General for the IDF Home Front Command.
Ashkenazi is the Former Director of the Urban Terrorism Preparedness Project at the , a joint program of the Harvard School of Public Health and the John F. Kennedy School of Government from July 2007 to April 2013.

Work

Over the past twenty years, Ashkenazi has become increasingly interested in disaster management and has served in. He has given courses in Disaster Medicine; Disaster Management; Leadership during Crisis; Urban Terrorism and Preparation of Health Systems for Crisis. He has published more than two hundred papers in medical and scientific journals, and presented his work across North and South America, Africa, Europe Asia and the Middle-East. In the last twelve years, Ashkenazi has received Presidential Medals of Honor for Humanitarian Assistance from Turkey and Greece; the President of Rwanda; the Jewish Community in France, Turkey, Italy and USA; and the United Jewish Communities.
Working with his colleagues Leonard Marcus and Barry Dorn at the NPLI, Ashkenazi has been instrumental in the development of the concept and practice of meta-leadership and, specifically, its adoption by emergency response leaders.

Selected publications

For a more complete listing of publications: http://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/PROFILES/ProfileDetails.aspx?From=Pinfo&Person=IA25