National Conversation: Strengthening the Worker Protection Standard

Ed Zuroweste, MD is the Founding Medical Director for Migrant Clinicians Network. He was present for the first official meeting of Migrant Clinicians Network in 1985 and has been consistently involved with the organization since that time. Dr. Zuroweste began his work with migrants as a partner in a private practice in Chambersburg, PA. He later became the Medical Director of Keystone Health Center, a large Migrant and Community Health Center in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. While attending to his administrative responsibilities, Dr. Zuroweste also maintained a full-time clinical practice in family practice and obstetrics, including full hospital privileges in Pediatrics, Adult Medicine, and Obstetrics. In addition to his work with MCN, Dr. Zuroweste is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he directs an International Rural Health Elective in Honduras. Dr. Zuroweste is also the staff physician for seven County Health Department tuberculosis clinics, Pennsylvania Department of Health and he currently acts as the Tuberculosis Medical Consultant for the PA Dept. of Health; a Clinical Consultant for a separate consulting firm. Dr. Zuroweste has worked for the World Health Organization (WHO) on two separate short-term assignments; the first in 2009-2010 as a Special Medical Consultant during the H1N1 influenza pandemic, and in 2014 as a Special Medical Consultant with the Ebola Response Team in Guinea and Sierra Leone, West Africa. Dr. Zuroweste has also participated in three CDC/WHO sponsored screening programs for TB/Leprosy/DM twice in the Marshall Islands (Ebeye 2017 and Majuro 2018) and most recently in the Micronesia on the island of Chuuk in 2023. He has traveled extensively in Central America, especially Honduras and Guatemala both for teaching and pleasure. He has also traveled to Europe, South America, and the Caribbean. Dr. Zuroweste is married with three children. When not working, Dr. Zuroweste enjoys long distance running, listening to great music, great movies, and concerts, working out of doors, and traveling with family and friends to far-off locations. 

Amy K. Liebman, MPA, MA (she/her) has devoted her career to improving the safety and health of disenfranchised populations. She joined Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) in 1999 and currently serves as the Chief Program Officer: Workers, Environment and Climate. With MCN she has established nationally recognized initiatives to improve the health and safety of immigrant workers and their families. She oversees programs ranging from integrating occupational and environmental medicine into primary care to designing worker safety interventions. She is a national leader in addressing worker safety and environmental justice through the community health worker (CHW) model. She has been a strong advocate for worker health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading programs to improve access to care and culturally contextual education for migrants and immigrants. Prior to her current position, she directed numerous environmental health and justice projects along the US-Mexico Border including an award-winning, community-based hygiene education program that reached thousands of families living without water and sewerage services. She has spearheaded policy efforts within the American Public Health Association to support the protection of agricultural workers and served on the federal advisory committee to the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs. Her programs have won several awards including the 2008 EPA Children’s Environmental Health Champion Award and the 2015 National Safety Council Research Collaboration Award. In 2011, Liebman received the Lorin Kerr Award, an APHA/Occupational Health and Safety Section honor recognizing public health professionals for their dedication and sustained efforts to improve the lives of workers. And in 2024 she was honored with the Shelley Davis Humanitarian Award for her commitment to improving farmworker health and safety. She is a past Chair of APHA’s Occupational Health and Safety. Liebman has been the principal investigator and project manager of numerous government and privately sponsored projects. She has authored articles, bilingual training manuals and other educational materials dealing with environmental and occupational health and migrants. Liebman has a master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Master of Arts from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Liebman has traveled throughout Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, and Europe. She is an avid soccer fan and loves to spend time with her husband and two sons. Together they spend a lot of time outdoors.