H.E. Sarah Mbi Enow Anyang Agbor, Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology, African Union Commission
Professor Sarah Mbi Enow Anyang Agbor is Professor of African and Commonwealth Literatures and the African Union Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology. Before being elected, she was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor in charge of research, cooperation, and relations with the business world at the University of Bamenda-North West Region of Cameroon. In that role, she promoted research, efficiently and effectively managed the University’s educational and research programs, and oversaw the university’s research strategic planning. She has served as Inspector of Academic Affairs No 1. at the Ministry of Higher Education, Cameroon during which she was responsible for evaluation and monitoring of higher education institutions in Cameroon in strategic leadership, academic planning, and quality, teaching, and learning. She was the Focal Point for Pan African University; Conference of Ministers of Education in Africa (COMEDAF); Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers, and most of all UNESCO. Moreover, she represented the Cameroon Minister of Higher Education in several capacities. She has authored three textbooks and over thirty peer reviewed book chapters and scientific publications.
Professor Rifat Atun, Professor of Global Health Systems, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Professor Rifat Atun is Professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard University and the Faculty Chair for the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. Prior to that, he was Professor of International Health Management at Imperial College London where he is also co-investigator and the joint lead for the innovation work stream at the National Centre for Infection Prevention and Management. He also served on the Executive Management Team of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria as the Director of Strategy. He has published more than 350 papers in leading journals including the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, and Academy of Management Journal. Professor Atun has worked with more than 30 governments globally as well as the World Bank, World Health Organization, and the UK Department for International Development to design, implement, and evaluate health system reform initiatives. He has led executive education programs and undertaken assignments for major companies including Novartis, Medtronic, GSK, Pfizer Inc., the Vodafone Group, Hofmann La Roche, and Tata Consulting Services. Prof. Atun studied medicine at University of London as a Commonwealth Scholar. He subsequently completed his postgraduate medical studies and Masters in Business Administration at University of London and Imperial College London.
Professor Mark Elliott, Vice Provost for International Affairs Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History, Harvard University
Mark Elliott is Vice Provost of International Affairs at Harvard University and the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and in the Department of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
As Vice Provost, Elliott oversees and works to advance international academic initiatives, extending the global reach of Harvard’s research and teaching activities. In this capacity, Elliott serves as the University’s representative in negotiating agreements with foreign governments, receiving senior-level international delegations, and representing Harvard to peer institutions and alumni worldwide. In addition, he shares responsibility for supporting the community of international students, scholars, and faculty in Cambridge and Boston, as well as for guiding Harvard’s overall global strategy and sustaining its ongoing development as a global university.
Elliott is an authority on the last four centuries of Chinese history, in particular the Qing period (1636-1911). His research encompasses the history of relations between China and its nomadic frontier, with special attention to questions of ethnicity and empire. His first book, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China, is a pioneering study in the “New Qing History,” an approach emphasizing the imprint of Inner Asian traditions upon China’s last imperial state. He is also the author of Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World, and has published more than twenty-five scholarly articles. He serves on numerous editorial boards, and was for three years the director of the Fairbank Center of Chinese Studies.
A graduate of Yale (BA 1981 summa cum laude, MA 1984), Elliott earned his PhD in History at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara and at the University of Michigan before coming to Harvard in 2003.
Professor Wafaie Fawzi, Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences, and Professor of Nutrition, Epidemiology, and Global Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Professor Wafaie Fawzi is the Interim Oppenheimer Faculty Director of the Harvard Center for African Studies and Professor of Nutrition, Epidemiology and Global Health and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed his medical training at the University of Khartoum, Sudan and his Doctorate of Public Health in 1992 in the Departments of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has experience in the design and implementation of randomized controlled trials and observational epidemiologic studies of perinatal health and infectious diseases, with emphasis on nutritional factors. These include examining the epidemiology of adverse pregnancy outcomes, childhood infections, and HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria among populations in Tanzania, India, and other developing countries. Prof. Fawzi is also a principal investigator of the MDH HIV/AIDS Care and Treatment Program in Tanzania, which provides for scaling up quality care and treatment services and building operational research capacity. He is a founding member of the Africa Academy of Public Health, a Harvard affiliated organization that aims to train future public health leaders and build strong research collaborations with partners in Africa.
Professor Olufunmilayo Fawole, Professor of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, University of Ibadan
Olufunmilayo I. Fawole is a Professor of Epidemiology and the past Dean of the Faculty of Public Health in the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a Public Health Physician and also an Honorary Consultant with the University College Hospital, Ibadan. She is also an adjunct lecturer at San Diego State University. She has over 15 years of work experience on gender-based violence (GBV) research and women’s empowerment and is one of the leading researchers in the field in Nigeria. She has over 70 peer reviewed publications and 15 research grants in this discipline. She just completed a three phased mixed method study that determined the content and strategies to be used in the design of a GBV curriculum for medical students. Presently, she is working on a project that aims to empower young girls and women by providing financial literacy using mobile technology.
Dr. George Gao, Director, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Professor George F. Gao is a member (academician) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, a foreign associate of National Academy of Sciences (NAS, elected in 2019), Director-General of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Director and Professor of CAS Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Professor Gao obtained his PhD (DPhil) degree from Oxford University, UK and did his postdoc work in both Oxford University and Harvard University (with a brief stay in Calgary University). His research interests include enveloped viruses and molecular immunology. His group research is mainly focusing on the enveloped virus entry and release, especially influenza virus interspecies transmission (host jump), structure-based drug-design, and structural immunology. He is also interested in virus ecology, especially the relationship between influenza virus and migratory birds or live poultry markets and the bat-derived virus ecology and molecular biology. He has published lots of refereed papers (including papers in Cell, Nature, Science, The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, etc.). His research has recently expanded on public health policy and global health strategy. Gao is a recipient of several international and national awards, including TWAS Medical Prize (2012), Nikkei Asian Prize (Japan 2014), Shulan Medical Sciences Award (2016), the Gamaleya Medal (Russia 2018), HKU Centennial Distinguished Chinese Scholar (2019), and the Qiu Shi Outstanding Scientist and Outstanding Scientific Research Team Awards (2019).
Professor William Hsiao, K.T. Li Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Professor Hsiao is the K.T. Li Professor of Economics, Emeritus, in the Department of Health Policy and Management and the Department of Global Health and Population, at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is a leading global expert in universal health insurance, which he has studied for more than forty years. He has been actively engaged in designing health system reforms and universal health insurance programs for countries worldwide, including in Africa and Asia. In his work for developing nations, Professor Hsiao’s research focuses on sustainable financing mechanisms to provide health care for the poor rural population. With UNICEF’s support, he collaborated with seven universities in China to conduct a nationwide study on health care financing and provision for the 900 million poor Chinese at that time. Professor Hsiao was elected to be a member of the Institute of Medicine, US National Academy of Science as well as a Board member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and Society of Actuaries. He has published more than 180 papers and several books and has served as an advisor to three US presidents, the US Congress, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, World Health Organization, and International Labor Organization.
Professor Phyllis Kanki, Mary Woodard Lasker Professor of Health Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Professor Phyllis Kanki carries out research that centers on the virology, pathogenesis, and molecular epidemiology of HIV in Africa. Based on long term research collaborations in Senegal for over 24 years her team’s work provided the initial characterization of HIV-2, demonstrated reduced virulence, transmission, and progression to disease and interactions with HIV-1 subtypes from West Africa. In 2000, she created and directed the AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria (APIN), with a $25 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This provided the collaborative foundation for the Harvard President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) providing prevention, care and HIV antiretroviral therapy in Nigeria, Botswana, and Tanzania (2004-2012). To date, in addition to the capacity building for clinical, laboratory and research capabilities, the program supported treatment for over 150,000 AIDS patients. The PEPFAR program in Nigeria has developed an extensive electronic medical record system that provides real time access to 250,000 patients on antiretroviral treatment in the country. Professor Kanki is a visiting faculty member at the University of Ibadan and University of Jos in Nigeria and studied at Harvard School of Public Health and University of Minnesota School of Veterinary Medicine.
Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, Vice President for Global Health, Emory University and Cofounder, International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI)
Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan is Vice President for Global Health at Emory University, Cofounder of the International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI), and Principal Investigator of the Global Health Institute-China Tobacco Control Partnership. Dr. Koplan founded the Emory Global Health Institute (EGHI) in 2006, served as its Director until March 2013, and continues to be actively involved in its daily operations in his role as Vice President for Global Health. Prior to founding EGHI, Dr. Koplan was Vice President for Academic Health Affairs at Emory University.
A former Director (1998-2002) and 26-year veteran of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Koplan began his public health career in the early 1970s as a member of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. He has worked on virtually every major public health issue, including infectious diseases such as smallpox and HIV/AIDS, environmental issues such as the Bhopal chemical disaster, and the health toll of tobacco and chronic diseases around the globe.
Professor Kun Tang, Associate Professor, Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University
Professor Kun Tang is currently an associate professor at Vanke School of Public Health at Tsinghua University. Prior to his current functions, he was the Founding Director of the China Youth Network, a first-ever youth NGO working to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights in China. He served as the National Standing Council Member of the China Family Planning Association and the Governing Council Member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. He was a member of the XVI International AIDS Conference Scientific Programme Committee and the Chair of the Youth Committee in the 5th Asia Pacific Conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. He now serves as the global health adviser of the Chinese Delegation to the World Health Organization Executive Board and the World Health Assembly. He has extensive working experience on a number of global health projects in Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea, and Myanmar. He obtained his M.B.B.S. from Peking University, a Master’s in Global Health from Harvard University, and D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.
Dr. Gordon Liu, Dean, Global Institute for Global Health and Development, Peking University
Dr. Liu is a professor of economics at Peking University Guanghua School of Management, and Director of PKU China Center for Health Economic Research. Prior to Peking University, he served as tenured associate professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and assistant professor at the University of Southern California. He received his PhD in Economics from the CUNY Graduate School. He obtained postdoc training in Health Economics at Harvard University with Professor William Hsiao (1992 – 1993). He was the President for the Chinese Economists Society and currently sits on The State Council Health Reform Advisory Commission. He serves as Co-Editor for the ISPOR official journal of Value in Health and is Editor-in-Chief for the China Journal of Pharmaceutical Economics. Dr. Liu also serves as a member of the UN Sustainable Development and Solution Network. Dr. Liu's primary research interests include health and development economics, health policy reform, and pharmaceutical economics. His primary courses are China in Transition (English), Managerial Economics (English), Macroeconomy and Health, Health Economics, and Economics of Health Management. His current research projects are funded by the State Council Health Reform Office, The National Science Foundation, UNICEF, and The China Medical Board (NYC).
Professor Shabir Madhi, Professor of Vaccinology, University of the Witwatersrand
Shabir A. Madhi, M.B.B.C.H. (Wits), FCPaeds(SA), Ph.D., is the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He also holds the position of Director of the South African Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA) and is Co-Director of the African Leadership Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE). He has in the past led studies on pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and rotavirus vaccine in Africa, which informed WHO recommendations on the use of these vaccines in low- and middle-income settings. He has led studies on the clinical development of vaccines for pregnant women aimed at protection of mother-infant dyads against influenza virus, Group B streptococcus, and respiratory syncytial virus. Most recently, he led the first two COVID-19 vaccine studies being undertaken in Africa and has been involved in multiple epidemiological studies on Covid-19 in South Africa.
Dr. Joseph Makhema, Chief Executive Officer, The Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership (BHP)
Dr. Makhema is Chief Executive Officer of the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership (BHP), where he oversees all clinical research and training projects. He joined BHP as Senior Clinical Research Manager and Co-Director in 2003. He became BHP Project Director in 2006. A specialist physician by training, he also participates in the clinical conduct of research trials, capacity building, and training initiatives at the BHP.
As CEO of the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership (BHP), he oversees the research and training activities conducted at the BHP, including numerous US Government grants and research projects. He provides clinical mentorship for all CTU trials, he is the Site PI and directly oversees the coordination of HPTN activities at BHP, he advises on the selection for the Botswana clinical research sites and participates in quality management systems, including monitoring and evaluation of studies conducted at the BHP. He supervises leaders of each participating BHP department to ensure study objectives in recruitment and retention are met, and that laboratory and data management, and QC and QA procedures are in place.
Dr. Rebecca Martin, Director of the Center for Global Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Rebecca Martin, PhD, serves as the Director of the Center for Global Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Martin has worked both domestically and internationally in immunization, HIV, and health system strengthening and now leads CDC’s global efforts to protect and improve health globally through science, policy, partnership, and evidence-based public health action. Dr. Martin has over 20 years of experience working in global health. Dr. Martin has had CDC assignments in Kenya, Tanzania, and Denmark. Dr. Martin began her career with the CDC in 1997 in the National Immunization Program, Epidemiology and Surveillance Division. Prior to joining the CDC, she worked at the Maryland Department of Hygiene and Mental Health in Baltimore, MD as the immunization program epidemiologist.
Dr. Vasee Moorthy, Senior Advisor of R&D, Science Division, World Health Organization
Dr. Vasee Moorthy MD PhD is a senior advisor in the Science Division at WHO headquarters in Geneva. He is co-lead of the WHO R&D Blueprint for action to prevent epidemics. His background is as an infectious disease physician, clinical trialist and vaccine immunologist. For the last 10 years at WHO his work has focused on linking research and product development with access in multiple disease areas and product classes. This includes horizon scanning, developing WHO Target Product Profiles and guidance on good practice for evidence generation. In the past he has worked in The Gambia, South Africa, USA, and UK as a clinical researcher, product developer, and practicing physician.
Professor Ayoade Oduola, Director and Professor, University of Ibadan Research Foundation, University of Ibadan
Professor Ayoade MJ Oduola recently retired as Coordinator for Stewardship and Capacity Building for Research at the Special Program for Research and Training at the World Health Organization. In this role, he managed and led several research and capacity building initiatives including regional training centers for bioinformatics created by the Committee on Pathogenesis and Applied Genomics located in numerous areas including the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil; South African National Bioinformatics Institute in South Africa and CBAG, and Mahidol University, in Thailand. He served as Professor and Director at the Postgraduate Institute for Medical Research at University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He received a US National Research Council (NRC) Fellowship and worked as an Investigator at the Water Reed Army Institute for Research in Washington DC. His research focused on drug discovery and drug resistance in parasitic diseases and applications of biotechnologies. He led a team that produced the Global Report for Research on Infectious Diseases launched by the European Commission in April 2012. Oduola continues his research on infectious diseases and facilitating strategic roles for leaders of affected populations through Universities and initiatives in West Africa including the West Africa Institute for Research on Infectious Diseases of Poverty.
Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, Deputy Director, Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr. Ahmed Ogwell Ouma is an accomplished international civil servant and an expert in global health for over 25 years. He has competency in governance in numerous areas including public health, partnerships and resource mobilization. Dr. Ouma has worked globally for public health and has overseen implementation of numerous health policies in countries in Africa. He has been a pioneer in supporting governments in Africa to implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Dr. Ouma was an Advisor in the Global Coordination Mechanism for NCDs in the Office of the Assistant Director-General for NCDs and Mental Health in WHO in Geneva. Before that, he was Program Manager for Primary Prevention of NCDs and Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at the WHO Regional Office for Africa. At the national level, Dr. Ogwell was the founding director for the NCDs in MoH Kenya and also established the Office for International Health Relations. He is the current Deputy Director at Africa CDC, a technical agency of the African Union. Dr. Ogwell is an alum of the University of Nairobi and the Centre for International Health at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Professor K. Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI)
Professor K. Srinath Reddy is the President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Under his leadership, PHFI has established five Indian Institutes of Public Health (IIPHs) to advance multidisciplinary public health education, research, health technologies and implementation support for strengthening health systems. He was appointed as the First Bernard Lown Visiting Professor of Cardiovascular Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in (2009-13) and presently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard (2014-present). He holds advisory positions in several national and international bodies and has over 550 scientific publications. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Emory and Sydney Universities. He is the first Indian to be elected to the National Academy of Medicine, USA and was awarded several prestigious international and national doctorates and fellowships. He was President of the World Heart Federation (2013-15). He was awarded the high civilian honor Padma Bhushan by the President of India in 2005. He is also an Advisor to the Governments of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh on Health.
Dr. Amadou Sall, Chief Executive Officer, Institut Pasteur de Dakar
Alpha Amadou Sall is a virologist and has a PhD in Public Health. He is currently the head of the Arboviruses and viral hemorrhagic fever unit, director of the WHO collaborating center, and scientific Director of Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD). His research focuses primarily on diagnostics, ecology, and evolution of arboviruses and viral hemorrhagic fever. He has published more than 100 papers, chapters, a book on viral diagnostics, and gave more than 200 scientific communications in international meetings. Dr. Sall is a consultant and member of several expert committees for WHO, OIE, and vice chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network steering committee. He is a member of the Senegal National Academy of Science and Technology and has been recipient of the Senegal Presidential Award for Science in 2011 and the UNESCO Prize for Research in Life science in 2015.
Professor Winnie Yip, Professor of the Practice of Global Health Policy and Economics, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Acting Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Professor Winnie Yip is Professor of the Practice of Global Health Policy and Economics in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and also Director of the school wide China Health Partnership. Professor Yip was previously a Professor of Health Policy and Economics at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, and Senior Research Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, where she was director of the Global Health Policy Program.
Professor Yip holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on: 1) the design, implementation and evaluation of systemic health care interventions, for improving affordable and equitable access to and the efficiency and quality of health care delivery, especially for the poor; and 2) modeling and evaluating the effects of incentives on the behavior of providers (organization and individual) and patients.
Yip's research encompasses both why health systems fail and how to improve them for the benefit of the people they serve. Her approach typically involves large-scale social experimentation of health system interventions by using experimental design to integrate the transformation of financing, incentives, organization and management. With a network of Chinese universities, Professor Yip's ongoing research projects cover over 25 million people in the low-income provinces in China.
Professor Zhi-jie Zheng, K.C. Wong Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Global Health, Peking University School of Public Health
Zhi-Jie (ZJ) Zheng, MD, MPH, PhD is K.C. Wong Professor, Chair of the Department of Global Health, School of Public Health, and Senior Vice Dean, the Institute for Global Health and Development, Peking University, Beijing, China. Prior to joining Peking University in 2017, he served as a Lead Epidemiologist at US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia, USA, as a Supervisory Medical Officer and Senior Program Director in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and as an Endowed Chair Professor of Public Health and Medicine, and Dean of the School of Public Health at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China. Dr. Zheng's current research focuses on the epidemiology and prevention strategies for diseases of major public health concerns, public health emergency preparedness and responses, and global health strategies, and governance.
