Dr Eileen Natuzzi
Eileen Natuzzi is co-lead of ANZGITA’s Solomon Islands Program. She is an American vascular surgeon who lives in San Diego and has been supporting medical services capacity building in Solomon Islands for 18 years. Her work included kicking off in 2011 at the National Referral Hospital (NRH) what later became the ANZGITA training program. Through ANZGITA there have been one or more in-country training programs annually except for the COVID years.
Eileen’s family has a connection with Solomon Islands which started in World War 2 and the Guadalcanal campaign fought between Aug. 7, 1942, and Feb. 9, 1943. Today, more than 1,000 Allied airmen, sailors and marines are entombed in ships in what is referred to as “Ironbottom Sound” off the shoreline of Honiara where NRH is located. One of the entombed is Eileen’s uncle, seaman second class Billy Stack, who was only 17 when he died. Eileen has worked with her family and others with a WWII connection to Solomon Islands to provide medical equipment and supplies for healthcare facilities in the country in addition to her visits.
Eileen has been a determined advocate for US engagement in the Pacific healthcare since first visiting Honiara. She has published a number of papers on health and climate change in Solomon Islands as well as editorials on issues pertinent to geopolitical events in The Hill, The Diplomat, DevPolicy, Griffith University’s Pacific Outlook and Global Health Governance in addition to publishing in medical journals. Her main area of interest currently is the health impacts from climate change and how to address them. In 2022 she was appointed as an Affiliate at the Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies within the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
Eileen received her medical degree from George Washington University, did her surgical training at the University of California San Francisco and obtained her Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology from San Diego State University.
Eileen’s family has a connection with Solomon Islands which started in World War 2 and the Guadalcanal campaign fought between Aug. 7, 1942, and Feb. 9, 1943. Today, more than 1,000 Allied airmen, sailors and marines are entombed in ships in what is referred to as “Ironbottom Sound” off the shoreline of Honiara where NRH is located. One of the entombed is Eileen’s uncle, seaman second class Billy Stack, who was only 17 when he died. Eileen has worked with her family and others with a WWII connection to Solomon Islands to provide medical equipment and supplies for healthcare facilities in the country in addition to her visits.
Eileen has been a determined advocate for US engagement in the Pacific healthcare since first visiting Honiara. She has published a number of papers on health and climate change in Solomon Islands as well as editorials on issues pertinent to geopolitical events in The Hill, The Diplomat, DevPolicy, Griffith University’s Pacific Outlook and Global Health Governance in addition to publishing in medical journals. Her main area of interest currently is the health impacts from climate change and how to address them. In 2022 she was appointed as an Affiliate at the Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies within the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
Eileen received her medical degree from George Washington University, did her surgical training at the University of California San Francisco and obtained her Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology from San Diego State University.