[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 84 (Wednesday, May 21, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4615-S4616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO LAUREL ZAKS

 Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, today I wish to honor in the 
Record of the Senate Laurel Zaks, an incredibly dedicated and 
universally beloved and respected civil servant who died on Friday, 
March 28, 2008. Laurel was a public health adviser at the Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA, with more than 14 years 
international and domestic work experience as a nutritionist.
  Laurel started her career in 1992 as a nutritionist in Bucharest, 
Romania, with the Free Romania Foundation cross-training staff in three 
orphanages with medical clinics in health and nutrition issues. She 
then took a position as a community developer in Pop Wuj, 
Quetzeltenango, Guatemala, teaching primary health prevention 
strategies. She returned to the United States in 1996 where she 
developed and communicated policy and legislative strategy on domestic 
hunger for Congress and lobbied Congress on nutrition programs 
involving welfare reform. While in Washington, she also served as a 
pediatric dietitian with the Children's National Medical Center working 
on initial and followup nutritional assessments of HIV/AIDS and 
gastrointestinal disease patients.
  In 1997, Laurel joined the Peace Corps volunteering in Ecuador, where 
she used her training as a dietitian to work with the Ministry of 
Health and indigenous organizations to develop training materials 
promoting maternal and child health and prevention of infectious 
diseases. Next Laurel moved to the city, Santa Domingo de Los 
Colorados, to work at the Center for Malnourished Children and in local 
communities where she served as the nutritionist/health educator 
working in an interdisciplinary medical team. During the last 2\1/2\ 
years of her Peace Corps service, she was instrumental in helping to 
design a new $400,000 Children's Center for Nutrition Recuperation, 
which served an average of 40 families daily.
  Laurel joined CDC in 2001, 1 week after finishing her Peace Corps 
tour in Ecuador. Her enthusiasm for making a difference in global 
health affected all who knew her. She worked in many areas of global 
health work at CDC, including planning for development of sustainable 
global public health management, planning for a global pandemic 
influenza outbreak, and serving as a team member traveling to Botswana 
in response to an outbreak of infant diarrhea and severe malnutrition. 
In 2007, she was part of a team honored for rapidly assisting 20 
countries around the world to apply for pandemic influenza preparedness 
funds.
  Laurel was an active member and leader in the Atlanta chapter of the 
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. She gave countless hours to charitable 
organizations domestically and abroad, including the Manna Food Bank in 
North Carolina and as a charter member of the Ecuadorian Rivers 
Institute in Ecuador. She received various awards for her volunteer 
work and was bestowed the North Carolina Governor's Award for 
Outstanding Volunteer Service in 1994.

[[Page S4616]]

  Just as she did with the Peace Corps, Laurel's work over 7 years at 
CDC left a legacy of healthier people around the world. She inspired 
her coworkers to make a difference in global health, and all who knew 
her were struck by her compassion and the lasting contributions she 
made to children living in poverty around the world.

                          ____________________