Christiaan Morssink receives a Globy Award for Lifetime Achievement

Article by Alessandra Testa, GPA Ambassador

Christiaan Morssink admits that it can be a bit frustrating to be a global Philadelphian in a city where shared definitions of globalization can be mired in terms of US-centric trade, career advancement, and business connections. To remedy this, the recipient of GPA’s 2017 Globy Award for Lifetime Achievement has spent his life seeking to advance awareness of what is happening beyond the US’s borders by encouraging people to reflect on what connects them to people outside of their immediate local sphere or nationality.

Dr. Morssink is the current Executive Director of the United Nations Association of Greater Philadelphia, the Treasureer of the Philadelphia Global Water Initiative, and Secretary of the Global Philadelphia Association. He also sits on the board of the Project for Nuclear Awareness and on the advisory board of the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center.

He has 30+ years of practice and teaching experience in public health and related fields in the Netherlands, the U.S., as well as in the Republic of Suriname, where he was head of the Department of Planning and Project Management in the Ministry of Health.

He holds Candidandus and Doctorandus degrees in cultural anthropology and non-Western sociology, respectively, from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, a MPH from Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. in Health Policy and Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.