Ellen Urbani | |
|---|---|
 Ellen Urbani in 2015 | |
| Born | Ellen Urbani March 21, 1969 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | English and Spanish |
| Citizenship | United States and Italy/EU |
| Subjects | Memoir, fiction, personal essays |
| Notable works | When I Was ElenaLandfall |
Ellen Urbani (born March 21, 1969) is an American author residing near Portland, Oregon. She has written two books: When I Was Elena (The Permanent Press, 2006) and Landfall (Forest Avenue Press, 2015).
Urbani was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the eldest of three daughters to Kathryn "Katie" (née White) and Gayton Paul Urbani, Jr., a second-generation Italian immigrant. The family moved to Leesburg, Virginia when Urbani was eleven. In 1987 she graduated from Loudoun County High School [1] where she was a cheerleader, served on the editorial staff of the yearbook, and was a member of the National Honor Society.
Urbani earned a BA from The University of Alabama (1991) in Tuscaloosa, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta [2] and commitment worked as an award-winning writer and editor for the Corolla. After graduating from college, she joined the Peace Corps and spent two years (1991–1993) in Guatemala serving as a volunteer in youth development programs. [3] Upon her return to the United States, she earned an MA from Marylhurst University (1996) where she was both an All-American Scholar and a Leopold Schepp Foundation Scholar].
From 1994 to 2007 Urbani worked in the field of oncology counseling, designing and implementing a therapeutic arts programs for cancer patients and their families at hospitals such as Legacy Health System and Oregon Health Sciences University. [4] She also served as an advisory board member at the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences [5] at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California; served as executive director and president of the board of directors for the Society for the Arts in Healthcare; taught/lectured as part of the nationally-touring faculty for the American Art Therapy Association’s Medical Art Therapy Symposium; and worked as a Mental Health Specialist for the Oregon Disaster Medical Team. [6] Her work is the subject of a short documentary titled Paint Me a Future [7] that won the Juror’s Award for Excellence at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2000.
Urbani's first book, the memoir When I Was Elena [8] (The Permanent Press, 2006) documents the years she lived in Guatemala during that country's civil war. It describes her personal experiences with assaults and illness, [9] as well as political maneuverings such as the self-coup or autogolpe staged by then-President Jorge Serrano Elías who was quickly ousted with help from the CIA. Shortly after publication, the syndicated talk show, The Montel Williams Show, inquired as to whether Urbani would be willing to return to Guatemala to reunite on-camera with the women about whom she wrote. Urbani declined to do so, citing concerns for the safety of the individual women and their families if their true identities were revealed.
Urbani's debut novel, Landfall (Forest Avenue Press, 2015), [10] is a work of historical fiction set in the Deep South – primarily Tuscaloosa, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana – in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In addition to authoring books, Urbani has reviewed books for The Oregonian , written for The New York Times , and has been published in a number of bestselling pop-culture anthologies. Her stories have also been selected for inclusion in a number of other collections and books about Peace Corps service. [11]
Urbani married Frank Hiltebrand on May 28, 1994. They met while serving overlapping tours as Peace Corps Volunteers [12] in Guatemala and were married for twelve years. They have two children together. Much of Urbani's work from that time is published under the name Ellen Urbani Hiltebrand or Ellen Hiltebrand.
In 2010, Urbani married Stephen (Steve) Gass, PhD, [13] President and inventor of SawStop. Together they own and operate an equine hay farm, Folly Farms. Urbani has two stepchildren from this marriage.
The Corps of Discovery was a specially established unit of the United States Army which formed the nucleus of the Lewis and Clark Expedition that took place between May 1804 and September 1806. The Corps was led jointly by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, the Corps' objectives were scientific and commercial – to study the area's plants, animal life, and geography, and to learn how the Louisiana Purchase could be exploited economically. Aside from its military composition, the Corps' additional personnel included scouts, boatmen, and civilians.
Loret Miller Ruppe was a Director of the Peace Corps and US Ambassador to Norway. She was the wife of U. S. Congressman Philip Ruppe of Michigan.
The Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) is a network in the U.S. of community-based units initiated and established by local organizations aimed at meeting the public health needs of their communities. It is sponsored by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The MRC consists of medical and non-medical volunteers who contribute to local health initiatives, such as activities meeting the Surgeon General's priorities for public health, and supplement existing response capabilities in times of emergency. The MRC provides the structure necessary to pre-identify, credential, train, and activate medical and public health volunteers.
Bessie Lillian Carter was an American nurse. Carter's son, Jimmy Carter, served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. She was also known for her contributions as a Peace Corps volunteer in India and for writing two books during her son’s presidency.
Barbara Pierce Bush is an American activist. She co-founded and is the chair of the board of the nonprofit organization Global Health Corps. She and her fraternal twin sister, Jenna, are the daughters of the 43rd U.S. president, George W. Bush, and former first lady, Laura Bush. She is also a granddaughter of former president George H. W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, after whom she is named.
Kevin O'Donnell was the fourth director of Peace Corps, serving from July 1, 1971 to September 30, 1972.
Ronald A. Tschetter was the 17th Director of the Peace Corps.
Esther Pohl Lovejoy was an American physician and public health pioneer, suffrage activist, congressional candidate, and a central figure in early efforts to organize international medical relief work. In 1907, Lovejoy became the first woman appointed to direct a department of health in a major U.S city: the Board of Health in Portland, Oregon. Lovejoy worked on the women's suffrage campaigns in Oregon in 1906 and 1912, and founded the Everybody's Equal Suffrage League ahead of the 1912 election, when Oregon became the 7th state to grant women the right to vote. Lovejoy was among the founders of the Medical Women's International Association and was elected as its first president in 1919. Lovejoy ran for the U.S. Congress in 1920 as the Democratic candidate for Portland’s Third District but was not successful against the sitting Republican. She was awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal by the American Medical Women's Association in 1951 and 1957 for contributions to the field of medicine. On July 21, 2012, the Century of Action Committee honored her and three other suffragists—Harriet Redmond, Harry Lane, and Martha Cardwell Dalton—by installing new headstones for them at the Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery, where their initial headstones had become overgrown. The installation ceremony included costumed portrayals of the four suffragists and was attended by Barbara Roberts, a former Oregon governor. This event took place as part of the Century of Action Committee's year-long celebration of 100 years of suffrage for women in Oregon and as part of their efforts to call attention to remaining voting barriers for minorities.
National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) is a North American nonprofit organization supporting the Peace Corps Agency community. Founded in 1979, the NPCA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States
Beckstrand Cancer Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization that was founded in 1974 by Dr. Grant Beckstrand and a group of doctors specializing in the treatment and care of cancer patients. It was formed by incorporation as a non-profit organization.
William S. Breitbart, FAPM, is an American psychiatrist in Psychosomatic Medicine, Psycho-oncology, and Palliative Care. He is the Jimmie C Holland Chair in Psychiatric Oncology, and the Chief of the Psychiatry Service, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, He is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He was president of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, and the Editor-in-Chief of Palliative and Supportive Care.
Stephen Michael Hahn is an American physician who served as the commissioner of food and drugs from 2019 to 2021. Before becoming commissioner, he was an oncologist serving as chief medical executive of the MD Anderson Cancer Center. In 2021, he became chief medical officer at Flagship Pioneering, the venture capital firm that launched Moderna.
Barrie Joyce Rabinowitz Cassileth was an American medical sociologist and researcher of complementary medicine and a critic of alternative medicine. She published extensively on alternative cancer treatments.
The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order (10924) of President John F. Kennedy and authorized by Congress the following September by the Peace Corps Act.
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Russell John Carollo was an American Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, who worked as an investigative reporter for numerous publications, including the Dayton Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, and The Sacramento Bee.
Carolyn "Carrie" Hessler-Radelet is the President & CEO of Global Communities. In 2017, she served as the President & CEO of Project Concern International (PCI), a San Diego–based international development and humanitarian assistance organization, and spearheaded the merger of the organization with the Silver Spring, Maryland–based Global Communities in 2020. Prior to leading PCI, Carrie was the 19th director of the Peace Corps, from 2014 to 2017. She was the Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Peace Corps from April 2010 to December 2015, serving as Acting Peace Corps Director from September 2012 until June 2014 when she was elevated to Director. She resigned on January 20, 2017, to join Project Concern International (PCI) as its President & CEO.
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Anna Konstantinovna "Nyuta" Federmesser is a Russian humanitarian worker, founder of the Vera Foundation and the Lighthouse Children's Oncology Foundation, activist for the rights of oncology patients. She actively promotes awareness on the necessity of palliative care in Russia, suggesting legitimization of palliative help and establishment of proper education in this field.
Psychosocial distress refers to the unpleasant emotions or psychological symptoms an individual has when they are overwhelmed, which negatively impacts their quality of life. Psychosocial distress is most commonly used in medical care to refer to the emotional distress experienced by populations of patients and caregivers of patients with complex chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular conditions, which confer heavy symptom burdens that are often overwhelming, due to the disease's association with death. Due to the significant history of psychosocial distress in cancer treatment, and a lack of reliable secondary resources documenting distress in other contexts, psychosocial distress will be mainly discussed in the context of oncology.
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