About the Assistant Director

Dr. Socorro Gross-Galiano is the Assistant Director of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, which is the Secretariat of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). She oversees the organization's programs for Family and Community Health; Health Surveillance, Disease Prevention and Control; Sustainable Development and Environmental Health; Technology, Health Care and Research; Health Systems and Services; and Gender, Ethnicity and Health-PAHO's core programs for providing technical cooperation to its Member States.

Dr. Gross, a national of Costa Rica, obtained her degree in Medicine at the University of Costa Rica in 1982 and a master's in Epidemiology at the School of Public Health at the University of Texas in 1989. From 1982 to 1984, she was a Physician in Costa Rica attending outpatients, inpatients, emergencies and consultations for chronic terminal patients. In 1984, she became a Research Assistant at the Costa Rican Social Security Institute (CCSS) in San José, where she later became the Chief of the Health Services Research Section from 1985 to 1986. She was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Medical Technology at the University of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1989.

In 1989, Dr. Gross started working at PAHO on short-term assignments for the Chronic Diseases department, evaluating health service capacities in communities, and evaluating the state of the diabetic patient in the Western Hemisphere. Until 1991, Dr. Gross continued in Costa Rica as a Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Costa Rica and as the Chief of the Adult Health Section in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the CCSS.

From 1991 to 1992, Dr. Gross was the Coordinator for the Basic Technical Group of INCAP in San José, Costa Rica and in 1993 she returned to her former post at the CCSS, as a the Chief of the Adult Health Section.

Dr. Gross joined PAHO in 1994 as Country Adviser on Health Promotion at the PAHO/WHO Representative Office in Bogotá, Colombia. In 1997, she became the PAHO/WHO Representative in Dominican Republic. Since 2005, Dr. Socorro Gross has been the PAHO/WHO Representative in Nicaragua.