Speakers & Mentors
Bassirou Bonfoh
Director, Afrique One
Speaker, COVID-19 & Influenza Mentor
Bassirou holds a DVM and a PhD in epidemiology. He has worked as a livestock development program coordinator for Vétérinaires Sans Frontières, an epidemiology postdoctoral fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and Swiss TPH, leader of a One Health research group in the Horn of Africa, West Africa, and Central Asia, and Managing Director of the CSRS. Since 2009, he has been the Director of the consortium Afrique One, a pan-African research consortium for capacity building in One-Health. He is a guest lecturer at University of Liège (Belgium), Swiss TPH/University of Basel (Switzerland), African universities (Côte d’Ivoire, Togo) and at the Inter-States Veterinary School (Senegal) of which he is the chair of the scientific advisory board. He is author and co-author of up to 200 peer review papers and fellow of the African Academy of Sciences.
Harvey Fineberg
President, Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation
COVID-19 Mentor
Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He previously served as president of the U.S. Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine), as provost of Harvard University, and as dean of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. His past research has focused on global health, assessment of medical technology, evaluation and use of vaccines, and dissemination of medical innovations. Dr. Fineberg chairs the advisory board of the Peterson Center on Healthcare, co-chairs the inaugural international advisory board of Tsinghua University Vanke School of Public Health, and chairs the U.S. National Academies standing committee on emerging infectious diseases and 21st century health threats.
Nita Madhav
CEO, Metabiota
Speaker, Influenza Mentor
Nita Madhav is the Chief Executive Officer at Metabiota, a company that specializes in measuring, mitigating, and managing epidemic risk. Nita has over 15 years of experience in probabilistic modeling and risk assessment, with a focus on monitoring and modeling infectious disease spread and economic impacts. Before joining Metabiota, Nita worked as a Principal Scientist at AIR Worldwide, and prior to that, Nita performed hantavirus research at the US CDC. Nita holds a BS in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, with distinction, from Yale and an MSPH in Epidemiology from Emory University.
Hongying Li
Researcher, EcoHealth Alliance
Speaker, COVID-19 Mentor
Hongying Li is a Research Scientist at EcoHealth Alliance, working with local communities in China and Southeast Asia to understand the health and ecological impacts of human interactions with animals to develop risk mitigation strategies. Li holds a Master Degree in Public Health and Bachelor Degree in Biosciences, and is currently pursuing a PhD focusing on the zoonotic disease risks in China and SE Asia from both biological and anthropological perspectives. She is also active in conservation as a member of IUCN Pangolin Specialist Group and interested in science communication by writing popular science articles on conservation, disease ecology, and environmental health.
Cyril Caminade
Researcher, University of Liverpool
Speaker, Malaria Mentor
Cyril is originally trained as an applied physicist & climatologist. He obtained his PhD about climate variability in Sub-Saharan Africa at CERFACS and at the Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse in 2006. In early 2008, he moved to the University of Liverpool to study the impact of climate change on the risk posed by important vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue, Zika, Rift Valley Fever, plague, bluetongue, fascioliasis and haemonchosis. His work has been cited by important governmental agencies (IPCC, PHE, World Bank…) and by mainstream media at global scale.
Athman Mwatondo
Head, Kenya Zoonotic Disease Unit
Speaker
Dr. Athman Mwatondo is a Medical Epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health Kenya. He currently co-heads the Zoonotic Disease Unit, Kenya’s One Health Platform. He is involved in initiatives that bring together animal and human and environmental health professionals to address zoonotic diseases and other One Health drivers. These include development of key documents towards prevention and control of priority zoonotic diseases, participating in collaborative research on the animal-human-environment interface, implementing zoonotic disease surveillance activities and outbreak investigations.
Samuel Boland
Global Health Researcher, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Speaker, Ebola Mentor
Samuel Boland is a global health researcher and consultant specializing in epidemic, humanitarian, and public health emergency response, including COVID-19 and Ebola. Among others, Samuel has worked for the World Health Organization, UK-Med on behalf of the Department for International Development, Brown University, Mercy Corps, GOAL Global, and the Massachusetts General Hospital Division of Global Health and Human Rights. Samuel's ongoing research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine focuses on the role and perception of military and security services in their support to epidemic, humanitarian, and public health emergency responses. Samuel is a Truman ('15) and Marshall ('16) scholar.
Adou Djané
Researcher, National Institute of Public Health of Abidjan
COVID-19 Mentor
Dr. Djané is a researcher at the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) of Abidjan, and head of the research group Governance, Society and Economic Development (GSDE) at the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS). He holds a PhD in sociology from the University Félix Houphouët Boigny of Abidjan. Since 2018 he has been the Policy and Public Engagement facilitator of Afrique One-ASPIRE for West Africa.
Sara Dada
Director of Implementation Research & Education Vayu Global Health Foundation
Ebola Mentor
Sara Dada, MSc is the Director of Implementation Research & Education at the Vayu Global Health Foundation. Building off of her background in public policy and one health, Sara has conducted research and led projects in Sierra Leone, Kenya, India, and Tanzania. Her work has largely centered on communications and community engagement - including observing community engagement programming in two Ebola vaccine trials, developing a comic book public engagement tool about antimicrobial resistance for students, monitoring vaccine sentiment on social media, and training clinicians to implement an innovative low-cost bubble CPAP device.
Francis Sena Nuvey
Fellow, Afrique One-ASPIRE
Influenza Mentor
Francis Sena Nuvey is a field epidemiologist and fully trained nurse who started as an MSc fellow with the Afrique One-African Science Partnership for Intervention Research Excellence at the University of Ghana. Afrique One-ASPIRE is a pan-African research consortium for capacity building in One-Health, preparing MSc and PhD fellows for a research career in Africa at the international level. Francis is now a doctoral candidate enrolled as a foreign scholar in the Swiss Tropical Institute of Public Health, University of Basel, Switzerland where he is conducting research to identify cost-effective ways of delivering interventions to improve food security and health of livestock dependent populations.
Gilbert Fokou
Research Associate, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire
Malaria Mentor
Gilbert Fokou is a social anthropologist and currently a Research Associate of the Centre Suisse de recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS), Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. He is also an African Research Fellow at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), Cape Town, South Africa. His main research interests revolve around: socio-ecological systems and natural resource management; conflicts and peacebuilding, transnational mobility and connectivity; health systems at the human-animal-environment interface (One Health); vulnerability and social resilience; governance and access to basic social services.
Katharina Kreppel
Epidemiologist, Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology
Malaria Mentor
Dr. Katharina Kreppel is a Tanzania-based vector ecologist and epidemiologist at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST). She has 12 years’ experience of research on disease vector ecology and climate. Since 2017 she is training coordinator of the Afrique One-ASPIRE programme, a Pan-African programme building capacity in One Health research on the African continent. Dr. Kreppel is an adjunct professor at NM-AIST where she works in close collaboration with the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania and the University of Glasgow, UK. Her research interests lie in understanding the effects of a changing climate on vector borne diseases and zoonoses to further the development of adaptive One Health strategies.
Kathrin Heitz-Tokpa
Research Associate, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire
Ebola Mentor
Kathrin Heitz-Tokpa has a PhD in anthropology from Basel University in Switzerland, for which she has conducted field research in rebel-controlled western Côte d’Ivoire on trust. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, she visited rural and urban communities at the Ivoirian/Liberian border and spoke to them about how they coped with the crisis. Since 2016, she is the coordinator of the pan-African research consortium on One Health “Afrique One-ASPIRE” (African Science Partnership for Intervention Research Excellence) at the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques in Côte d’Ivoire. She has won a visiting fellowship with the Swiss-African Research Cooperation (SARECO) for her project on “Operationalisations of One Health” with case-studies in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Switzerland.
