Ricky Davis / Ricken Flow
Ricken was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 2000, but after three months on medication was showing no more symptoms. His doctor started using him as an example on how well medications can work. He also began to talk to patients, which was the start of his volunteer career. Karuna, which means compassion and mercy, is something he strives to bring to his work in Second Life every day. He will talk about his experiences both in his first and Second lives helping others learn about and come to terms with living with HIV/AIDS.
Miguel Gomez has worked combating HIV/AIDS for twenty-three years. Since 2006, Mr. Gomez has served as the Director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), Office of HIV/AIDS Policy’s, AIDS.gov, an information gateway to Federal domestic HIV/AIDS and new media information and resources. In this role, Mr. Gomez works across HHS to increase the use of new media tools to promote HHS agencies programs, policies and resources.
John Lester / Pathfinder Linden
Pathfinder Linden joined Linden Lab (the creators of Second Life) in 2005, bringing experience in online community development as well as a background in the fields of healthcare and education. His primary focus in on leading Linden Lab’s Proactive Education and Healthcare Mentoring Program, acting as a general resource and academic evangelist for people using Second Life for teaching, academic and healthcare research, and scientific visualization.
Carol Perryman / Carolina Keats
With more than 20 years in libraries, consumer/medical librarians Carol Perryman is currently a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina School of Library and Information Science. She has served as Project Coordinator for three Second Life projects and advisor to a fourth, all funded by the National Library of Medicine, and administered by Lori Bell, Director of Innovations at the Alliance Library System in East Peoria, Illinois.
Michelle Samplin-Salgado, MPH / Ellehchim Fizzle has over eleven years professional experience in health communications, public health, project design, and management, with a specific emphasis on emerging technologies. Ms. Samplin-Salgado has managed the design and development for both federal and partner organization’s online activities. As a consultant at John Snow, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts she currently serves as the New Media Strategist for AIDS.gov.
