As the Public Health Director, Thomas McHale leads PHR’s international capacity development initiatives, focusing on the documentation of human rights abuses such as torture, conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and attacks on health care. He also drives the organization’s use of innovative research methodologies, monitoring and evaluation efforts, and integrates public health approaches into PHR’s work. For a decade, McHale has helped shape PHR’s response to CRSV, and led multidisciplinary teams across several countries, overseeing complex programs aimed at combating impunity for CRSV in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Kenya, Iraq, Myanmar, and Ukraine. McHale has led groundbreaking research projects using trauma-informed, survivor-centered methodologies, and helped train thousands of medical, legal, and law enforcement professionals worldwide in forensic documentation techniques, while promoting survivor-centered approaches to care and justice.
McHale brings extensive expertise in global health and public health responses to human rights violations. He has conducted research on intimate partner violence, sexual violence in conflict settings, violence against sex workers, and the impacts of child soldiering in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, and Uganda. Before joining PHR, McHale worked at JSI, where he supported health systems strengthening, HIV prevention, and maternal and child health programs across Ethiopia, India, Liberia, Russia, Senegal, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.
McHale holds a Master of Science from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Health and Society and African Studies from Beloit College. In 2008, he was awarded a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to study health and human rights in Kenya. He is fluent in French and Romanian, with proficiency in Kiswahili, Russian, and Spanish.