2021 Mentors
Emily Bailey
Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Dr. Emily Bailey is an assistant professor at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), she received a PhD in Environmental Science and Engineering concentrating in Public and Environmental Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. Her research interests are primarily in infectious diseases, environmental microbiology, and emerging pathogens. She has considerable laboratory and laboratory management experience, specifically in the examination of water and wastewater and in the detection of pathogens by culture and molecular diagnostic techniques. Her laboratory employs the One Health approach, working to solve problems what affect humans, animals, and the environment.
Bruno Ghersi
Postdoctoral Scholar, UC Davis One Health Institute
Bruno Ghersi is a postdoctoral scholar at the One Health Institute at UC Davis, where he studies Lassa virus ecology in West Africa. He obtained his DVM from San Marcos university in Peru. After graduation he worked for at the US Naval Medical Research Unit 6 leading zoonotic disease surveillance projects in Peru. He then came to the US to pursue a PhD in ecology, graduating from University of Tennessee in 2020. He has experience working with wild rodents, bats, birds, and primates, and domestic animals. He is interested in understanding how host ecology can influence transmission risk to humans.
Katharina Kreppel
Epidemiologist, Afrique One-ASPIRE
Dr. Katharina Kreppel is a Tanzania-based epidemiologist working with the Pan-African Afrique One-ASPIRE programme building research capacity in One Health on the African continent. Her research interests lie in understanding the effects of a changing climate on disease epidemiology to further the development of adaptive One Health strategies for Africa. She am focused on disease vector ecology, zoonotic disease epidemiology and surveillance as well as nutrition. As training coordinator with a Pan-African programme, Dr. Kreppel is interested in the challenges faced by members of Pan-African research consortia regarding the successful collaboration with colleagues from other African countries.
Kennedy Lushasi
Research Scientist, Ifakara Health Institute
Kennedy Lushasi is an Afrique-One ASPIRE Ph.D. student in the final year based in Tanzania. He also works with Ifakara Health Institute as a research scientist. He has over 10 years of experience in the control and prevention of rabies. His research interests are on epidemiology and control of zoonoses, focussing on rabies. He has been liaising with veterinarians to organize, implement and evaluate mass dog vaccination programmes, overseeing rabies surveillance work across southern and northern Tanzania by liaising with both health and veterinary workers, and currently, he is leading the pilot of an integrated bite case management, an approach for rabies control, that links health and veterinary sectors in the fight against rabies. He is also leading the public engagement component of rabies control activities in Pemba Island where he is working with community members, public and animal health practitioners and the policymakers to understand how they have been impacted by rabies and what they can do to prevent rabies from their societies through storytelling.
Andrée Prisca Ndjoug NDOUR
Epidemiologist, Afrique One-ASPIRE
Andrée Prisca Ndjoug NDOUR is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Epidemiologist. Her research interest focuses on One Health with an emphasis on zoonosis, and food security and wildlife. She completed her Master (2012) degree under the Afrique One programme then her PhD (2020) under Afrique One ASPIRE programme. She works mainly in research programmes and academia. The aim of her Post-Doctoral research under Thematic Training Programme on Canine Rabies Elimination in Africa is to demonstrate the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of canine rabies at region-wide level (West Africa).
Sunil Raina
Department Head of Community Medicine, Dr. RP Government Medical College
Dr. Sunil Raina trained is the Professor & Head, department of Community Medicine, at Dr. RP Government Medical College, Tanda (Himachal Pradesh) India. He is also head of the Multi-Disciplinary Research Unit and Director of the Centre for Advancing Tobacco Control in Himachal Pradesh. He on the panel of reviewers for Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Dr. Sunil Raina has been and continues to be involved with Thirty (30) funded research projects and has more than 280 research publications to his credit. With interest in One Health, he is a part of experts and advisors team of Covid Action Group.
Nistara Randhawa
Veterinary Epidemiologist, UC Davis One Health Institute
Dr. Nistara Randhawa, BVSc, MVSc, MPVM, PhD, is a veterinary epidemiologist working with the One Health Workforce - Next Generation project at the UC Davis One Health Institute. She has worked on modeling infectious disease epidemics across geospatial networks and bat movement ecology as part of USAID and DTRA funded PREDICT and VISHA projects, as well as studied the effects of organochlorine pollutants on California sea lion health during her MPVM. She has a special interest in GIS and R programming, is an affiliate of the UC Davis DataLab and the R Epidemics Consortium (RECON), and has contributed to tools developed during RECON’s Hackout3, a hackathon for analysis and modelling tools for emergency outbreak response.
Richard Yapi
Epidemiologist, University Félix Houphouët-Boigny
Richard B Yapi is an epidemiologist, from the University Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Côte d’Ivoire. He holds a research position at the Centre d'Entomologie Médicale et Vétérinaire, Université Alassane Ouattara, Bouaké; and associate researcher at the Centre Suisse Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire (CSRS). During the past 10 years, he has been active in the design, planning and execution of multidisciplinary epidemiologic in Mali, Niger, Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire, with particular emphasis on malaria and neglected tropical and Zoonotic diseases. He expanded his skills in epidemiology and biostatistics at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH). He was awarded the Swiss Confederation Excellence Scholarship for Foreign Students in 2012, and the 9th CSRS-Fonds Eremitage Award in 2017. From 2017-2021, he carried out his postdoctoral research on One Health within the Africa One-ASPIRE programme on brucellosis transmission in Tanzania, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire. Currently, he is acting as an infectious disease moderator for ProMED, a program of the International Society of Infectious Diseases, and handling editor for the International Journal of Infectious Disease (IJID).
Dharmaveer Shetty (Dharma)
Founding Coordinator, One Health India
Dharma is the founding coordinator of the One Health India platform, an effort that aims to unite One Health professionals associated with India; improve awareness, connectivity, and opportunities in One Health across the country; and fight the COVID-19 misinformation using science and short-form messaging. Presently based at the University of California Davis, Dharma conducts research across the various realms of One Health, including wildlife, environment, and public health.
Rima Devi Shrestha
Research Associate, Institute of Global Health and Infectious Diseases
Rima, a Nepalese veterinarian, holds MSc from the Netherlands and PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health from New Zealand. She has been involved in teaching and research for more than a decade and has experience in field-/ laboratory-works, emergency disease preparedness and project management. She joined One Health Institute at UC Davis to work on One Health surveillance on viruses. Currently, she is working on community-associated antimicrobial resistance in the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her interests lie in emerging zoonotic diseases dynamics research using epidemiological/ molecular/One Health approaches.
Winston Vickers
Wildlife Research Veterinarian, UC Davis One Health Institute
Winston Vickers, DVM, MPVM is a wildlife research veterinarian with the University of California-Davis One Health Institute. His veterinary and research experience includes large and small domestic animals, exotic pet species, and wildlife – including mountain lions, bobcats, Channel Island foxes, Santa Cruz Island scrub jays, and various other avian species. He has studied a variety of zoonotic and epizootic diseases including West Nile Virus, influenza, plague, leptospirosis, distemper, and rabies, as well as studying toxin exposure in several wildlife species. He co-developed and directed documentaries about California mountain lions that have been viewed over 1.5 million times.
Kenneth B. Yeh
Senior Director, MRIGlobal
Kenneth B. Yeh has created partnerships and reinforced best practices to develop technical solutions in the areas of biodefense, biotechnology, and global health security. He is a senior director at MRIGlobal, which is an independent nonprofit research organization. In 2009-2014, Kenny developed and implemented over 12 bio-related studies in Kazakhstan under the Biological Threat Reduction Program. This work fostered publications on cooperative research including one health approach and related panels on first movers in biotechnology, sharing of data and sample material, and high- containment biological laboratories. His earlier industry experience was key to developing and deploying a U.S. DoD qPCR platform for identifying biological agents in the field. His real-world experience includes onsite technical support to clients during the 2001 anthrax attacks, AMI building site decontamination, and UNMOVIC trained biological WMD expert. He has BS (University of Maryland) and MS (Clemson) degrees in microbiology.
Dr HOUNGBEDJI Abikpo Clarisse
Epidemiologist, Université Alassane Ouattara, Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire/ Afrique One ASPIRE
Dr Clarisse A. Houngbedji is an epidemiologist and holds a teacher and researcher position at the Centre d’Entomologie Médicale et Vétérinaire (CEMV) at the Université Alassane Ouattara de Bouaké. She is also associated researcher at Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS).
During the past 11 years, she was involved in the design planning and execution of epidemiologic studies in Côte d’Ivoire with an emphasis on parasitic infections including malaria and geo helminthiasis at community and national level. Biologist by training, she received training courses in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Basel and Swiss-TPH. From 2013-2014, she was awarded the Swiss Confederation Excellence Scholarship for Foreign Students, then 3rd Prize for the Best National Student in 2016, awarded by the Ivorian Government through the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of Côte d'Ivoire and the 9th CSRS-Fonds Eremitage Award in 2017. Since 2017, She is carrying out a postdoctoral research on One Health within Afirque One ASPIRE programme on Foordborne diseases and nutritional illnesses in Tanzania, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire Ghana and Burkina Faso.
