Meet the Collective & Advisory Council
Global Health 50/50 works to bridge the gap between evidence and organisational and policy change through its unique operating model. Our collective brings together academic researchers, medical doctors, political strategists, communication experts and gender advocates, alongside an esteemed Advisory Council of influential champions and policy makers.
You can read more about our workplace values and policies here.
GH5050 has a small team of full- and part-time staff, supported by a passionate global network of members. To limit the potential for conflicts of interest, collective members affiliated with organisations reviewed by GH5050 are not engaged in reviewing or coding organisations that they work for or advise.
Staff
Imogen Bakelmun
Imogen is the Communications Director at Global Health 50/50, and curator of the Global Health 50/50 photography and representation project, This is Gender. Imogen also works as the gender and migration officer and public engagement lead at the Centre for Gender and Global Health where her work focuses on the intersections of creative practice and academic research with a particular interest in race, racialisation and migration. She holds an MA in Visual Cultures from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a BA in English Literature from King’s College London.
Anna Purdie
Anna is the Programme Manager for Global Health 50/50 and works at the UCL Institute for Global Health and is part of the UCL Centre for Gender and Global Health working on gender, NCDs and public engagement. She holds an MSc in Anthropology and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, and an BA in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University. Prior to this, she spent time working for UNAIDS in Geneva and as a Community Outreach Volunteer at Positive East, a community-based HIV charity in London.
Sonja Tanaka
Sonja Tanaka is an expert in global health policy and strategy. Her work focuses on articulating organizational policy positions, strategies and engagement in global governance processes. She played a key role in the development of UNAIDS global strategies, UNAIDS contributions to the 2011 and 2016 UN General Assembly Political Declarations on AIDS and its positions in Agenda 2030. Sonja has extensive experience in delivering coherent, high-level products derived through complex, multistakeholder processes. She holds a Masters in Public Health and pursues creative solutions to communications in global health. She is currently an independent consultant and lives in Paris with her partner and two young sons in whom she hopes to instill belief in the power and imperative of gender equality.
Co-Directors
Prof. Kent Buse
Prof. Sarah Hawkes
Sarah Hawkes is a medical doctor with a degree in sociology and a PhD in epidemiology. She is Director of the Centre for Gender and Global Health and Professor of Global Public Health at University College London where she leads a research theme analyzing the use of evidence in policy processes, particularly in relation to gender and health, and sexual health. She has lived and worked for much of the past 20 years in Asia, where she has gathered evidence, built capacity and helped develop policy for programmes focusing on gender, sexual health and human rights. She works closely with national governments, research organizations, WHO and UNFPA in Asia and the Middle East.
Current members
Wafa Aftab
Wafa Aftab is a faculty member in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Aga Khan University, Pakistan. Her research focuses on health policy and governance in a number of areas including policies addressing dietary risk factors for non-communicable diseases; structural influences and potential policy responses to reduce risk of HIV/AIDS among migrant workers; regulatory approaches for reducing anti-microbial resistance; governance and implementation modalities for health- and health-related sustainable development goals; and governance approaches to public-private partnerships to improve primary health care. Dr Aftab also teaches Health Policy Formulation and Analysis and Public Health Law and Ethics at the Aga Khan University. She is a medical doctor with training in internal medicine. She did her Master’s in Public Health from the George Washington University, Washington DC, with a concentration in Health Policy where she was a Fulbright scholar.
Fiona Bakelmun
Fiona is a recent graduate from the University of Bristol, where she received a First Class Honours in Philosophy and Politics. Her research interests are primarily focused around the decolonisation of development and global health, critical race theory, and intersectional feminism. Fiona is also part of the AIR UK Collective, an anti-racist activist group which campaigns against institutional racism in the UK.
Valeria Bello
Valeria studied Economics in Italy and has worked in different sectors, including administration, data analysis and marketing. She has always been interested in gender matters, constantly advocating a social, economic and political equality of the sexes.
Mireille Evagora-Campbell
Angela Y. Chang
Angela Y. Chang is an Assistant Professor at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS) and the Department of Clinical Research at University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests lie in the areas of global health, health economics, and health metrics. Recent works include measuring population aging and capturing the monetary value of changes in health to estimate the economic burden of disease. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and worked with international global health agencies. Angela received her master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, doctoral degree from Harvard University, and postdoctoral training at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. She grew up in Taiwan and Japan, and is currently based in Copenhagen. When she is not at work, you will find her at local playgrounds pushing her daughters on swings (for an unreasonable length of time).
Bea Coates
Bea’s research interests in the social determinants of health, particularly in gender, derive from her academic and professional background in global health and development. At Chatham House’s Centre for Universal Health, she worked on projects of health security, health system strengthening, and One Health, in addition to the formation of the Centre’s Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. Bea holds a BA in International Development with First Class Honours from King’s College London and is pursuing further studies in development, analysing global health issues through an intersectional lens.
Kate Dovel
Dr. Dovel is a behavioral scientist and faculty in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Her research focuses on access to HIV services for men in Sub-Saharan Africa, where she lived for 8 years. Her work uses mixed methods to understand the gendered structure of HIV services in the region. She is an expert in implementation studies having been PI of multiple HIV self-testing trials in Malawi, and has a Forgarty K01 award alongside a large grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to test innovative treatment strategies for HIV-positive men in Malawi. Dr. Dovel is regularly involved in global HIV policy development and has helped lead the development of HIV self-testing guidelines in Malawi.
Ilaria Galizia
Ilaria completed a degree in Medicine and Surgery and specialised in General Adult Psychiatry. She also obtained a Master’s degree in Gender Studies and Politics, writing a dissertation about the impact of gender as a risk factor for depression. She worked as a visiting researcher at the Psychological Medicine Department of King’s College London, collaborating with Cochrane Collaboration. As a clinician, she gained experience working at Mental Health Services in Italy. During her clinical activity, she always keeps a gender and intersectional approach. She has a very keen interest in investigating the impact of gender on mental health, and is currently working on the GH5050 journal review.
Sophie Gepp
Sophie is studying medicine at Charité University in Berlin and holds a Master of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She is the current Youth Observer to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women by the German United Nations Association. Sophie has a strong interest in the topics of global health, gender and climate change and works with various organisations at intersections of these.
Ysabel Gonzalez Rico
Lara Hollmann
Lara is a Research Analyst at Chatham House where she works on health security issues with a focus on threats that arise at the human-animal-environment interface (One Health). Previously, she worked on humanitarian and global health policy issues at the European Commission and volunteered at Projekt Sex, a student-led sexual health organization. She holds an MSc in Global Health from the University of Copenhagen, with time spent at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College in Moshi, and a BSc in Development Studies with a major in Human Geography from Lund University.
Unsia Hussain
Unsia has an MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Reading. Previously, she was working in knowledge translation & evaluation at the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation, a non-profit providing comfort care to vulnerable populations living with HIV.
Jagnoor Jagnoor
Jagnoor is Senior Research Fellow, with a background in injury epidemiology. She has a conjoint appointment as Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW and an honorary Senior Lecturer appointment, School of Public Health University of Sydney, and The John Walsh Centre for Rehabilitation Research. Jagnoor’ s research interests are exploring the impact of injuries, assessing issues of equity and vulnerability in the distribution of the burden of injuries, evaluating potential interventions to reduce the burden of injuries in Australia, Africa and Asia and contributing to data for decision making in preventing injuries and improving recovery post-injury. Her current research spans a broad range, including injury prevention, rehabilitation, health-related quality of life, economic impact and alternate systems of insurance with respect to injury, whiplash, and mild traumatic brain injury. She is passionate about creating new knowledge to best address the injury burden in low middle-income populations with competing for health needs. She is engaged in several projects in LMIC working on injury surveillance systems, road injuries, burns, falls and drowning.
Ekatha Ann John
Ekatha Ann John is an independent journalist and researcher based in Toronto, Canada. She is a regional co-ordinator for Migration Health South Asia (MiHSA) Network and currently co-leads a project to identify research priorities and set the agenda for migration, health and rights in South Asia. She has more than a decade's experience as a journalist in South Asia, covering issues related to gender, health, migration, slavery and trafficking. Her work has been carried in leading publications like The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Economic Times, The Indian Express and Mint. A Chevening scholar, she completed her Master's in Migration, Culture and Global Health Policy from Queen Mary University of London. Her research interest is in examining portrayals of migrants and refugees by mainstream media and variation in representation based on their identities and social positions. She has also researched on the prevalence of gender inequity in global health leadership.
Dahye Kim
Dahye Kim is a PhD Candidate at the National University of Singapore, lee kuan yew public policy school. Her research focuses on health and gender, and her work at Global Health 50/50 focuses on contributing to the sex-disaggregated COVID-19 data tracker.
Rebekah Merriman
Rebekah is currently a junior doctor working in central London, after having recently graduated from King’s College London. At university, along side her medical degree, she obtained a BSc in Medical Ethics and Law, and wrote a dissertation which considered gendered public health messages in national screening programmes. She was a widening participation ambassador, and was also part of a team that implemented an anti-sexual harassment campaign on campus. She has a long standing interest in gender equality and gender as a social determinant of health and hopes to pursue this further alongside her clinical career.
Emmanuel Otache
Emmanuel Otache is a brand communication consultant who has worked with UNICEF, UNFPA, UNHCR and key development agencies in Nigeria with key involvement in campaigns such as End Female Genital Mutilation, Gender Analysis of the Capital Projects in the Nigerian Budget, case studies of Violence Against Women and Girls in Northern Nigeria, Communication for Development Interventions to Address Gender Barrier in MNCH Services uptake in selected Nigeria states. With over 12 years in brand communication, he specialises in motion graphics, graphic designs, UX/UI Design and brand strategy.
Andrew Riley
Andrew has had a varied career in education, working in Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam and the UK as an English language teacher and teacher trainer. Motivated by the conditions of inequality and environmental degradation he witnessed whilst working in Asia, he completed an MSc in Global Health and Development at UCL in order to pursue a career in health research and promotion. His dissertation explored associations between disability status, mental health and women’s experience of violence in India. He also has an MA in Cultural History from the University of Manchester.
Mehrnoosh Samaei
Mehrnoosh is a research fellow at the division of Sex and Gender in the Emergency Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University. She is a general physician from Iran and has worked in underserved areas of her country. She pursued an MPH degree from Tehran University of Medical Sciences as she wanted to think broader than one-patient at a time. Mehrnoosh has previously worked on various projects related to women’s health with the International Federation of Medical Students Association, WomenDeliver organization, and UNICEF. Mehrnoosh aspires to be a physician who can provide the best level of health care for all people of all genders. She aims to identify the existing gaps in gender equality, design interventions, and translate research into policies and meaningful outcomes.
Ashley Sheffel
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-sheffel-2aa1346b/
Nina van der Mark
Kate Williams
Kate is a Strategic Projects Advisor at Marie Stopes International in London where she supports the implementation of a multi-country project aimed at improving women's access to family planning and safe abortion services. Kate has a background in law and international public health and has previously worked on sexual and reproductive health and rights in China and Timor-Leste.
Zahra Zeinali
Zahra Zeinali is a physician from Iran, and has pursued an MPH degree in International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Zahra is currently working with Global Health 50/50 as a researcher, is a Fellow with the Rockefeller Foundation-Boston University 3-D Commission on Health Determinants, Data and Decision Making, and chairs the Intersectionality Working Group of the Gender Equity Hub of the WHO’s Global Health Workforce Network.
Zahra has previously worked as a researcher with Johns Hopkins University on Gender and Intersectionality; as a policy officer with EAT Foundation, focusing on food systems policy at the intersection of human and planet health; with the WHO and Jhpiego on human resources for health policies; and with the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations and the Iranian Medical Students Association.
Her research is focused on intersectionality as a framework for public health research, women’s leadership in health systems, and gender as a determinant of health.
David Zezai
David is a research consultant with vast experience in health research, statistics, and data management. He is an advocate for youth participation in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in Zimbabwe. David works closely with government ministries, united nation agencies, research organisations, and civil society organisations in driving sustainable development agenda forward. He obtained his Master’s in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from the Midlands State University, Zimbabwe, with a concentration in infectious disease epidemiology. David is currently working with Global Health 50/50 as a researcher focusing on gender equality in global health leadership.
Laure-Anais Zultak
Laure has been working in global health policy and advocacy for several years and currently works as a political consultant for the healthcare sector. She previously worked on various projects at Chatham House's Centre on Global Health Security, think tank Polygeia and sexual health charity MEDFASH. Laure holds a BA in Chinese studies from the University of Oxford and an MSc Population and Development from the London School of Economics.
Independent Ethics & Integrity Counsel
Emily Blitz
Emily T. Blitz is a conference director with twenty years of experience in public relations, multicultural team leadership and stakeholder engagement. She has intimate knowledge of all programmatic and logistical aspects involved with implementing conferences and events for 25 to 25,000 participants. At home in an international environment, her specialties include project management, event communications including social media, presentation skills, protocol, VIP and IPP handling, committee governance, programme development, and stakeholder and donor support. Emily is passionate about health and development issues, particularly HIV, vaccines, sustainable agriculture, LGBTI issues, women's rights, safe motherhood and children's health.
Contributors and former collective members
Clara Affun-Adegbulu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/clara-affun-adegbulu-18a356138/
Claudia Ahumada
https://www.linkedin.com/in/claudia-ahumada-17b26a133/
Charlotte Brown
Charlotte is an incoming PhD student at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a graduate of the University of Cambridge. She has spent three years working on issues relating to global health and development and has field experience in both Uganda and India. She leads communications for Global Health 50/50.
Chloe Byers
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloe-byers-809715124/
Mikaela Hildebrand
Mikaela is a strategist, organizer and HIV/SRHR policy specialist with over ten years experience in developing global partnerships, such as ‘All In to end adolescent AIDS’ and ‘ACT2015’ as well as corporate strategies to influence policy process, including Agenda 2030. She has coordinated large scale qualitative and epidemiological research projects in Southern Africa, as well as managed communications and social media for advocacy, community building and accountability. As an advocate, she has worked to reform Swedish harm-reduction policy, by among other things co-editing the book Dogmer som Dödar/Deadly Dogma (2017), as well as to strengthen Sweden’s global health commitments. She has worked for the UN, civil society and government, with a 360 understanding of different actors and positions. Mikaela is currently an advisor at Sida’s regional SRHR team at the Swedish Embassy in Zambia. She holds an MSc in human rights from Gothenburg University.
Fatima Irfan
Fatima is a rising senior at Wellesley College studying data science and cognitive neuroscience. She is interested in advocating for health equity and is currently contributing to the COVID-19 sex-disaggregated data tracker.
Mairi Jeffery
Mairi obtained an MSc in Global Health and Development at UCL in 2017, writing her dissertation on gender differences in the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease, and whether gender inequality could play a role. She completed her undergraduate degree in Sociology with social policy in 2015, having studied research methods and international perspectives on gender. She recently finished a placement with the health team at the Commonwealth Secretariat, and before that she worked as an independent consultant for the Global Health and Development Group at Imperial College, to help in the creation of an online Toolkit for information on Health Technology Assessment.
Ruth Lawlor
Ruth Lawlor is a PhD candidate in history at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on conflict-related sexual violence and is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Cambridge Trust, and the Robert Gardiner Memorial Fund. She is an editor at U.S. Studies Online, the postgraduate journal of the British Association for American Studies.
Edward Mishaud
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emishaud/
Elias Nosrati
https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/people/elias-nosrati
Kristine Onarheim
Artricia Rasyid
Artricia is a Senior Policy Analyst to the Chief of Staff for the Governor of Jakarta, where she is a part of the Gubernatorial Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight. She dual majored in anthropology and comparative literature at New York University and obtained her Master's in Social Anthropology (Medical track) at the University of Cambridge. She is interested in learning more about quantifying the sociocultural determinants of global health inequalities.
Geordan Shannon
Dr Geordan Shannon is a feminist, medical doctor, and global health academic. She is based at the UCL Institute for Global Health, Centre for Gender and Global Health and Centre for Global Health Economics, where she leads research in health systems innovation, gender-based violence prevention, participatory research, public engagement, and health economics. She has worked in various settings, including remote Indigenous Australia, post-Tsunami Sri Lanka, the Peruvian Amazon, Western Kenya and rural Sierra Leone. Geordan is the co-founder of Global Health Disrupted (www.globalhealthdisrupted.org), a grassroots network supporting creative approaches to improving health and strengthening communities around the world. Geordan is also co-founder of STEMA, a research initiative using a systems and design thinking approach to address broader systems failures in achieving human health and wellbeing in low resource settings worldwide. She was recently awarded Young Australian of the Year in the UK in recognition of her contributions to global health.
Metti Temesgen
Metti Temesgen is a junior at the University of North Texas studying Political Science and Public Health. She’s been working with grassroots movements like Setaweet Movement and Research PLC in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia focusing on women empowerment and women’s rights advocacy. She also has experience in sexual and reproductive health rights advocacy and has been working with LGBTQ+ health advocacy organizations to promote the health of marginalized communities. She’s currently working as a Peer Health Educator at the Meadows Center for Health Resources designing health programs focusing on women’s health and reproductive justice. She’s also a student leader for Texas Rising doing grassroots and digital organizing for reproductive rights, health and justice.
The Global Health 50/50 Advisory Council is comprised of leaders in the fields of gender, global health and development, who are passionate about advancing gender equality and better health for all. Serving as ambassadors in their personal and voluntary capacity, they support the work of the initiative, amplify its findings and guide the strategic direction of GH5050. We strive for diverse intersectional representation on our Advisory Council and balance, including in terms of expertise, age, gender and geography.
Our Advisory Council
Seye Abimbola
Dr Seye Abimbola is a health systems researcher. He has worked as a health care practitioner and/or researcher in Nigeria where he completed his medical training at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; in Australia where completed an MPhil in Public Health and PhD in health systems research at the University of Sydney, and in the United Kingdom where he was a Sidney Sax Overseas Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. From 2009-10, Dr Abimbola was a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar at the George Institute for Global Health in Australia, and from 2010-13 he was a research fellow at the National Primary Health Care Development Agency in Nigeria. Dr Abimbola studies community engagement in governance, decentralised governance and the role of governance in the adoption and scale up of health system innovations. He is a senior lecturer in global health at the University of Sydney, and the editor in chief of BMJ Global Health.
Frances Baum
Professor Fran Baum is the Chair of the Advisory Council of the People’s Health Movement. She serves as a Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Director of the Southgate Institute of Health, Society and Equity at Flinders University. She is a past National President of the Public Health Association of Australia.
Fran Baum is one of Australia’s leading researchers on the social and economic determinants of health. She is an expert on evaluation in community health, theories of health promotion, Healthy Cities, social capital and health promotion, and the political economy of health. In June 2016 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of her outstanding work in public health advocacy.
Jan Beagle
Jan Beagle is a diplomat from New Zealand. Formerly, she served as the Under-Secretary-General for Management at the United Nations, and as Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS. She has more than 30 years of experience in diplomatic, political, strategic, management and intergovernmental and interagency affairs, and has made important contributions in leading and advancing change management initiatives in the Secretariat and at the level of the United Nations system. Ms Beagle also serves as the Chair of the High Level Committee on Management.
With a focus across the development, health, gender, human rights, peace and security and humanitarian spheres, Ms Beagle has consistently worked across sectors, promoting interlinkages for joined up strategic action. Ms Beagle is a leading advocate within the UN system for gender equality and gender parity. At UNAIDS she spearheaded the development and implementation of a Gender Action Plan which serves as an accountability platform to provide concrete measures to increase gender parity in UNAIDS, while forming the basis from which to strengthen organizational culture towards gender equality for all staff. She was one of the early appointed International Gender Champions–a leadership network that brings together senior female and male decision makers to break down gender barriers and served as a Co-Chair of the Champions Working Group on Change Management.
James Chau
James Chau is a British-Chinese news anchor. He was a guest presenter on the award-winning show Horizons on BBC World News, and is now a Special Contributor to CCTV International. His programs are watched by over 100 million people in China and globally.
He has earned a special reputation for his in-depth interviews with world leaders in politics and science. In December 2016, he spoke with Ban Ki-moon in his last conversation as United Nations Secretary-General. Among others, he has interviewed Nobel laureates Kofi Annan, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Muhammad Yunus and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi – and also Winnie Mandela, Joko Widodo, Robert Mugabe, Tung Chee-hwa, Paul Kagame, Arianna Huffington, Elton John and an exclusive with China’s First Lady Peng Liyuan.
He is a frequent moderator at major events: the UN High-Level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance; the G20 Summit with Jack Ma and Justin Trudeau; the Global Partners Meeting on Neglected Tropical Diseases with donors including Bill Gates; and a conversation in Los Angeles on the future of global health with Laura Bush and Charlize Theron.
In 2009, James was named UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador, and in 2016 he was appointed WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Goals and Health. Born in London, he studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music, and graduated from Cambridge University where the John CB Chau Prize in Engineering is named for his father. He lives in Beijing.
Helen Clark
Helen Clark, ranked by Forbes as one of the most powerful women in the world, is a New Zealand politician who served as the 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, and was the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017 where she was the highest ranking woman in the United Nations.
Throughout her exceptional career Helen Clark has continued to achieve many firsts, including becoming the first elected woman Prime Minister of New Zealand and the first woman head of UNDP. As Prime Minister, she served for three consecutive terms. During her tenure at UNDP, the ratio of female to male staff reached 50 per cent, including at the most senior levels. She is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders.
Helen Clark is a passionate communicator, and engages widely with the public, using social media as a tool to advocate on important global issues, and was consistently ranked as the top communicator at the UN for her continual interaction with broad audiences. A new film, ‘My Year with Helen’, follows her attempt to become the first female Secretary-General of the United Nations and her continued pursuit of breaking glass ceilings.
Jocalyn Clark
Dr Jocalyn Clark is Canadian public health scientist and professional journal editor, currently working as Executive Editor at The Lancet in London UK. She has experience working in numerous organisations including as Executive Editor at icddr,b, an international health research organisation located in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Senior Editor at PLOS Medicine, and Assistant Editor at The BMJ. She is also an adjunct Assistant Professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and former consultant to Grand Challenges Canada. She holds a PhD in Public Health Sciences, for which she was a doctoral fellow of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, studying the medicalisation of sexual assault and gender-equity in public health issues. Her recent Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residency produced a 5-part series critiquing The Medicalisation of Global Health.
Jocalyn is dedicated to building capacity in research, writing, and knowledge translation among developing country investigators and institutions, and is a recognised leader in the mechanics of writing, writing for publication, publication ethics, social determinants of health, and global/women’s health. She has over 125 publications in peer-reviewed medical journals.
Senait Fisseha
Reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist Senait Fisseha is a global leader in expanding access to reproductive health services, especially in developing countries. Dr. Fisseha chaired Dr. Tedros’ successful campaign in 2016-2017 as he was elected the first ever African Director-General of the World Health Organization and led his transition team. She guided the recruitment of the senior leadership team that for the first time represented top talent from 14 countries, including all WHO regions, and is 60% women.
Born in Ethiopia, Dr. Fisseha earned an undergraduate degree from Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois, M.D. and J.D. degrees from Southern Illinois University, and a certificate in International Human Rights and Comparative Law from the University of Oxford. She completed her internship (2000) and residency (2003) in obstetrics and gynecology and fellowship training in reproductive endocrinology and infertility (2006) at the University of Michigan. As adjunct professor of obstetrics and gynecology at U-M, Dr. Fisseha advocates for training and capacity building in contraception and reproductive health services globally. Previously, Dr. Fisseha was medical director of Michigan’s Center for Reproductive Medicine and founding executive director of its Center for International Reproductive Health Training. She helped U-M forge strong partnerships with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health and the St. Paul Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa, and was honored by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health in 2013 for her contributions to the health sector. In 2016, the U-M Medical Center Alumni Society presented her its Early Distinguished Career Achievement Award.
Renzo Guinto
Renzo Guinto, MD DrPH is the Chief Planetary Doctor of PH Lab – a “glo-cal think-and-do tank” for advancing the health of both people and the planet. He is also Associate Professor of the Practice of Global Public Health and Inaugural Director of the Global Health Program of the St. Luke’s Medical Center College of Medicine in the Philippines.
An Obama Foundation Asia-Pacific Leader and Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow, Renzo is member of several groups including: Lancet–Chatham House Commission on Improving Population Health post COVID-19 based at the University of Cambridge; Editorial Advisory Board of The Lancet Planetary Health; Forum on Climate Change and Health of the World Innovation Summit for Health in Qatar; and Lancet One Health Commission based at the University of Oslo. He has served as consultant for various organizations including: World Health Organization; World Bank; USAID; International Organization for Migration; and Philippine Department of Health. Renzo obtained his Doctor of Public Health from Harvard University and Doctor of Medicine from the University of the Philippines Manila. He has traveled to and lectured in nearly 50 countries; published more than 100 articles in scientific journals, books, and popular media; and directed and produced short films that communicate the message of planetary healing to the world.
Katja Iversen
Katja Iversen is an internationally recognised expert on development, advocacy and communications, Katja has over 20 years of experience working in NGOs, United Nations agencies and corporations. She is a member of President Macron’s G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, the Unilever Sustainability Advisory Council, and the MIT Women & Technology Solve Leadership Group. She is the former President/CEO of Women Deliver. Her unwavering commitment to the principles of equality, justice and human rights was celebrated in 2018 when she was named Dane of the Year.
Sharmila Mhatre
Sharmila Mhatre joined the Public Health Program at the Open Society Foundations as the deputy director in July 2016. Her expertise in health systems and policy research in low- and middle-income countries is founded on over 20 years of experience leading, designing and managing multi-sectoral health programs with government, donor, and civil society collaborators in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.
Prior to joining Open Society, Mhatre worked at Canada’s International Development Research Centre for over a decade where she headed the Governance for Equity in Health Systems program (2010-2016). She is a board member of the British Medical Journal Global Health. Mhatre holds a PhD in health services research from the University of Toronto (1994).
Geeta Misra
Geetanjali Misra is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of CREA. Geeta, a seasoned activist and grant-maker, is a champion of sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equality and ending violence against women. Before founding CREA, she was Program Officer, Sexuality and Reproductive Health, for the Ford Foundation in New Delhi where she supported non-governmental organizations in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka working on sexual and reproductive health and rights. She also co-founded SAKHI for South Asian Women in New York in 1989, a non-profit organization, committed to ending violence against women of South Asian origin.
Geeta is a Board Member of Reproductive Health Matters (UK); and a Member of the Advisory Board of FHI360 (US). She was President of the Board of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) from 2006–2008. She co-edited Sexuality, Gender, and Rights: Exploring Theory and Practice in South and Southeast Asia.
Muhammad Musa
Dr Muhammad Musa has an extensive background in leading humanitarian, social development, and public health organisations in international, cross-cultural settings. A medical doctor and public health specialist, he has a specialised training in maternal and child nutrition, and disaster management.
Before joining BRAC, he worked for 32 years with CARE International as one of its senior international management professionals. Twenty of those years were spent working in Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Asia region.
He has long experience in strategic leadership, governing board management, executive-level management of large-scale operations, and humanitarian and social development programme management. He specialises in people management, leadership development, conflict resolution, and organisational change management. He also has a proven track record in effective external relationship management, marketing, brand-building, communications, and fundraising for humanitarian and development projects. He has been successful in bringing about convergence of philanthropic approaches and entrepreneurial methodologies to create sustainable development programming that achieves impact on a large scale.
Sania Nishtar
Dr. Sania Nishtar is the founder and president of Heartfile, a powerful and respected health policy voice in Pakistan, and founder of Heartfile Health Financing, an access-to-treatment initiative to support Universal Health Coverage in mixed health systems. She currently serves as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation.
Dr Nishtar’s experience spans the sectors of government, civil society and multilateral institutions. In 2013 she served as a Federal Minister in Pakistan’s interim Government, where she held four portfolios and was instrumental in re-establishing Pakistan’s Ministry of Health. She was the founding Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Independent Accountability Panel for the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health and served as co-Chair of the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity. She currently co-chairs WHO’s High-Level Commission on Non-communicable diseases.
In the 2017 election of the World Health Organization Director-General, Dr Nishtar was nominated as a candidate by the Government of Pakistan. She was one of only two women nominated and was shortlisted as one of three final candidates. She is the author of six books, holds a PhD in medicine from King’s College London, and was the first ever female cardiologist in Pakistan.
Mariângela Batista Galvão Simão
Dr Mariângela Batista Galvão Simão from Brazil has been appointed Assistant Director-General for Drug Access, Vaccines and Pharmaceuticals. Most recently, she was Director of Community Support, Social Justice and Inclusion at UNAIDS. In addition to her work at UNAIDS, she brings more than 30 years of experience working in the Brazilian public health system and has played an active role in enhancing access and decentralizing health services in the country.
Between 2006 and 2010, she served as Director of the National STD/AIDS and Viral Hepatitis Department in the Brazilian Ministry of Health, where she led successful price negotiations with pharmaceutical companies to lower the price of HIV medication. During this time, she also represented the Brazilian Ministry of Health in the negotiations that led to the constitution of UNITAID in 2006, including its governing body, where she served as a board member until 2008. She was trained as a paediatrician in Brazil and holds an MSc degree in public health from University of London, United Kingdom.
Princess Nothemba (Nono) Simelela
Dr Simelela, from South Africa, is WHO’s Assistant Director- General and Special Advisor to the Director-General for Strategic Priorities. She oversees the Organization’s work on cervical cancer elimination, gender, equity, health rights, and youth. In her prior role, she served as WHO’s Assistant Director-General for Family, Women, Children and Adolescents.
Dr Simelela has more than 30 years of experience as an obstetrician, academic, advocate and government official, and has previously served as Special Advisor to the Vice President of the Republic of South Africa on Social Policy, where she supported the multisectoral, governmentwide response for HIV.
Dr Simelela joined the National Department of Health (South Africa) after qualifying as the country’s first black female gynaecologist. She worked for more than 20 years in the Department of Health, initially as a senior lecturer and clinician in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the Medical University of Southern Africa, and has had a distinguished career both in government and as a private medical doctor.
Other previous senior leadership roles held by Dr Simelela include serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the South African National AIDS Council, and as the Director of Technical Knowledge and Support for the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Ravi Verma
Ravi Verma is Regional Director for the International Centre for Research on Women’s (ICRW) Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, India. Over the past three decades he has worked on issues of men, masculinities, male sexual health and gender equality as they relate to violence against women, reproductive health including family planning and HIV and AIDS in India and the Asia region. He has published extensively on these issues in both Indian and international journals. Ravi is also serving as a Chair of the Indian National Technical Resource Group on Stigma and Vice Chair of the Indian National AIDS Control, Ethics Review Committee, and sits on advisory committees on the government’s response to child marriage, gender-based violence and adolescent health. He has served as a member of High Level Committee on the Status of Women (HLCSW), Government of India and the Rights & Empowerment working group of the FP2020 Initiative.
