Lecturers

More information about the lecturers will soon be published on this page.

Neil Arya
Arya is adjunct professor in family medicine at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, in the Department of Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo, and an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University. At the latter he co-taught the first university course in “Peace through Health” in spring 2004. His research areas of interest include also ecosystem health, healthy communities, and mental health. He has among others written about sovereignty and medical ethics, small arms, the arms trade and about sanctions and war on Iraq. Usually Arya works as family physician in Waterloo, Ontario, and is currently involved in projects in Palestine, Costa Rica and Cambodia. He is vice president for North America of IPPNW and has served as president of Physicians for Global Survival, its Canadian affiliate. More information.

Rachel Issa Djesa
Cand. Polit. Social Anthropology
Djesa is specialised in visual anthropolgy and creative methods. She has experience from work with Somali womens group and produced a teaching film for Norwegian health professionals about the meeting with patients with female circumcision.

Marit Elverland
Cand. Polit. Social Anthropology
After a postgraduate degree (hovedfag) in social anthropology, where she did a study including issues on experiential learning and embodiment of culture, Elverland has worked as a training officer in the Norwegian development agency Fredskorpset, organizing intercultural preparatory courses for professionals going to and from Norway on work exchanges. She includes participatory methods like Participatory Learning and Action in her teaching.

Nina Foss
Assistant Professor, UITø, with Cand. Polit in social anthropology.
Foss is working with themes related to health and society, among others relations between the helper and the user, and with processes of stigmatization and normalization.
She is developing participatory methods of reflection – and ways to work, in analysis and changing processes, incl. PLA ( Participatory Learning and Action).

Mads Gilbert
MD PhD
Department of Emergency Medicine and Tromsø Mine Victim Resource Centre.
University Hospital North Norway

Paula Gutlove
DMD
Dr. Paula Gutlove is deputy director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies where she directs the International Conflict Management Program (ICMP). ICMP works internationally and domestically with people of diverse perspectives and interests, to improve communication, build understanding, resolve conflicts, and promote cooperation. Dr. Gutlove founded the internationally known project, Health Bridges for Peace (HBP), in 1996. HBP links health care with the prevention and resolution of inter-communal conflict, and HBP programs have been instituted in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. In addition, Dr. Gutlove has served as a consultant to numerous international organizations, including the World Health Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. More information.

Toralf Hasvold
Professor of general practice at the University of Tromsø.
Hasvold has broad experience from international health work. He worked as Regional Medical Officer in Botswana (NORAD) from 1978 to 1980 and participated in the 'National Health Institute Implementation Study in Botswana (1992)' for the African Development Bank. He also participated in the international study group for Ministry of Health in Botswana 'Feasibility Study on Establishment of a Medical School' (1995), and in the international working group revising the medical curriculum of The Medical College of Malawi (1999). From 1996 to 1998 Hasvold worked for WHO as Public Health Adviser to the Ministries of Health in Armenia and Georgia, and from 2004 he has been Advisor to the Ministry of Health’s Primary Health Working Group in Belarus. Hasvold has also been project manager of 'Collaboration between North -Norway and Archangelsk in Development of Primary Health Care' and he currently teaches 'International Health' in the School of Public Health in Tromsø.

Bjørn Oscar Hoftvedt
Cand. Philol.
Hoftvedt is Head of Section for Medical Education in the Norwegian Medical Association and Secretary for the Committee for Human Rights. Over the last years he has primarily been involved in developing online educational programmes for the internet. In September 2004, Hoftvedt published in cooperation with an international group an online course for prison doctors: Doctors working in prison: human rights and ethical dilemmas.

Knut A. Holtedahl
Professor of general practice at the University of Tromsø.
Holtedahl holds a Diploma of Tropical Medicine from the University of Paris. His African medical experience consists of medical work in Niger in 1970 and in Cameroun in 1984 and again for one long and several shorter periods during the years 1997 and 2000-2004. He also has participated in 2001 on behalf of Landsforeningen for hjerte- og lungesyke in a WHO evaluation of the National Tb program of Senegal. Has published one epidemiological study from Cameroun, and several medical letters from Africa for the Norwegian Medical Journal. Lately Holtedahl has concentrated on questions concerning barring the way for hiv/aids. He was head of the Board of the UofTromsø Centre for Environment and Development Studies 1999-2003

Tordis Sørensen Høifødt
M.D. Psychiatrist
Høifødt works at the University Hospital of Northern Norway, Department of Psychiatric Research and Development. She chairs 'Norske leger mot atomvåpen' (NLA), the Norwegian affiliate of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).

Kristin Alice Jakobsen
Jakobsen is a 6th-year medical student at UiTø. Together with Hilde Karen Ofte she wrote her 5th-year paper in form of a Teaching program on the health effects of nuclear weapons.

Preben Marcussen
Preben has been the co-ordinator of NISAT (Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers) for three years. NISAT was a co-operation between the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), the Norwegian Church Aid and the Norwegian Red Cross, aiming at reducing the humanitarian cost of arms proliferation.
He has worked as a consultant with the International Department of the Norwegian Red Cross, and as an advisor at the UN delegation in New York for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Currently he is working as an IHL consultant in the Norwegian Red Cross.

Klaus Melf
MD, Dr. med. (Germany), MPhil (CPS, UiTø)
After medical graduation and PhD in Occupational Medicine (2000) at the University of Erlangen (Germany), Melf has worked at different clinical departments at Haukeland sykehus in Bergen and the University hospital of Northern Norway in Tromsø. Since 2002 he has been involved in the Master program in Peace and Conflict Transformation at the Centre for Peace Studies (UiTø), specializing in the research field of medical peace education (Exploring Medical Peace Education and a Call for PEACE MEDICINE). Melf is a board member of ‘Norske Leger mot Atomvåpen’ (NLA) and ‘The Norwegian Peace Film Award Foundation’ (NoFFPF).

Kirsten Myhr
MScPharm, MPH and specialisation in hospital pharmacy.
Myhr has international experience from drug supply management in Africa and Eastern Europe on assignments from NORAD, WHO and UNICEF. She is member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel for Drug Policies and Management. Principal author of the manual 'Medicine Prices: A new approach to management' and part-time technical consultant to national projects using the manual. Currently head of a regional drug information and adverse drug reactions monitoring centre in Oslo.

Hilde Karen Ofte
Ofte is a 6th-year medical student at UiTø. Together with Kristin A. Jakobsen she wrote her 5th-year paper in form of a Teaching program on the health effects of nuclear weapons.

Lars Småbrekke
Relis, UNN

Gunnar Westberg
Professor, Internal medicine and nephrology, recently retired, University of Gothenburg.
Since 1982 Westberg has been active in International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and its Swedish Affiliate SLMK. Since Sept. 2004 he is one of two Co-Presidents of IPPNW.
IPPNW has since its inception tried to prevent a nuclear war by informing about the medical consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. “This was, and is, necessary, and this mission we must return to. The fact that nuclear weapons may cause the annihilation of mankind is difficult to keep in our consciousness. Is this why nuclear weapons still exist?
Here is my core question: Why are there nuclear weapons? Or, in medical terms: Nuclear madness: Etiology, pathogenesis, symptoms, treatment and prevention.
This is my question to you.”