Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar

Akmal Samsorwas born in Afghanistan and received his MBBS degree from Rawalpindi Medical College, Pakistan. He started his career as a public health practitioner in Pakistan where he was involved in the relief efforts in response to the 2005 earthquake. He has vast experience in community-based interventions including PPH, CTC, DOTS, EmNOC, BCC and IPCC.  

Harshad Sanghvi’s professional background is in Obstetrics, Gynecology and Clinical Epidemiology. He received his medical education and residency in Kenya and graduate and postdoctoral training in the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. He was formerly Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Nairobi. Currently he is the Vice President and Medical Director for JHPIEGO and senior Associate at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. He has led the global effort in expanding EmOC and finding solutions for preventing PPH, pre-eclampsia, and cervical cancer for the past 15 years.

Center for Health Systems Research, National Institute of Public Health

Global Health Action (GHA)

K. G. Santhya is an associate at the Population Council. She has over 10 years of experience in conducting qualitative and quantitative research on young people’s sexual and reproductive health.

International Center for Research on Women

Dr. Felix Sayinzoga is a physician currently in charge of maternal death audit within the Rwandan Ministry of Health. He also previously worked in the maternity department at both Butare Teaching University Hospital and Kirehe Hospital.

Mary Philip Sebastian is a Senior Program Officer with Population Council, India. Currently, Sebastian is principal investigator and co-principal investigator in a number of studies under the HIV and AIDS Program and Reproductive Health Program. She has extensive experience in research and implementation of interventions for adolescents and young women. 

Tunde Segun currently serves as the Deputy Director of Jhpiego's country office in Nigeria. 

Florina Serbanescu, Senior Health Scientist, CDC, Division of Reproductive Health, Maternal and Infant Health Branch; Main duties include: design, implementation, analyses and dissemination of large-scale, population-based studies of reproductive health and maternal mortality studies; evaluation of surveillance systems; trainings in reproductive health epidemiology.

Dr. Sesia holds a PhD in Medical Anthropology (University of Arizona, Tucson) and a MPH (UC-Berkeley). She is a full-time researcher-professor at the Center for Research an Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Oaxaca, Mexico. Her research interests include maternal health and maternal mortality, reproductive health, and food security and nutrition, particularly among Indigenous people.

Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria

Working with a voluntary organization, SEWA-Rural, in the rural, tribal, and underserved area of South Gujarat since 1985. Now heading SEWA-Rural’s Health Training and Resource Center since 1991. Involved in training, orientation, and capacity-building of different cadres of health workers and college students from different NGOs, government sectors, and academic institutions from India and abroad.  

After graduating with an MD in Community Medicine, Pankaj Shah joined SEWA-Rural (NGO) in 1981. As a Director of the Community Health Program, Shah has extensive experience in managing formal primary health centers under NGO–GO partnership and in delivering community-based safe motherhood and new born care services. Shah spent a year at RSPH, Emory University, Atlanta as a Humphrey Fellow in 1998-1999 under a Fulbright Scholarship.  

National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi

National Institute for Development and Related Research

Harvard School of Public Health

Dr. Mona Sharan works as a Maternal Health Specialist in the Africa Division of the World Bank in Washington, DC. She has worked in reproductive health programs and research in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia for over 10 years. She has a PhD in Public Health with a specialization in Population and
Reproductive Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

IIPH, Delhi

Vivek brings with him a rich 13 years of experience in the social sector in various research and program management functions. He possesses a remarkable in-depth understanding of research and has made sure that programmatic requirements leads to research that provides evidence to inform strategic and implementation decisions. Academically he holds a masters and a PhD in Public Health from the Indian Institute of Population Studies (IIPS), Mumbai. Prior to that he received his bachelors in Statistics from Aligarh Muslim University. Professionally he started his career with ACNielsen ORG MARG in 1997. Then he joined PSI as research manger in one their most prestigious projects - Operation Light House. He soon became the Senior Technical advisor leading the entire research. From OPL, he moved to lead another successful program - the USAID-funded Connect project that works on private-public partnerships model. Here he also tested and demonstrated his stint as a Program manger/Director. He chose to return to his core competency in March 2008 and joined Women's Health Project. Since then he has guided and led the research team to conceptualize, design, and implement several research studies in line with the program requirements. For this particular research, Vivek was instrumental in arriving at a definition of behavior and non-behavior enabling a segmentation analysis to identify the differences between these two groups to determine the key determinants that program can work on. The study also provides an alternative strategy to measure the provider's behaviour even in face-to-face interviews.

Women Deliver

Mure Memorial Hospital

MPH (Nutrition); Logistic Coordinator, Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research; Researcher with special interest in adolescent reproductive health.

BPKIHS, Dharan, Nepal

IntraHealth International

A public health physician, Dr. Abhay Shukla is among the organizers of the Right to Healthcare campaign and the People's Health Movement in India. He is a member of the advisory group for community action for the National Rural Health Mission and a member of the core group of NGOs of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in India.

Community-Based Safe Motherhood Project

Mohsin Sidat is Head of the Microbiology Department at the Faculty of Medicine and Coordinator of the Promotion, Prevention and Control of Diseases MPH Program at the Community Health Department, University Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique. Dr. SIdat is a general practitioner and recently assisted in the development of the Health Sector Human Resources Development Plan (2008-2015).

Kathleen Sienko is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Departments at the University of Michigan. Dr. Sienko directs the Sensory Augmentation and Rehabilitation Laboratory and the Laboratory for Innovation in Global Health Technology (LIGHT).

CARE India

Prashant Kumar Singh, doctoral student, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, engaged in social science research particularly in the areas of Family, Youth and Child well-being in Indian context for more than a couple of years. He extended his contribution as a Research Officer at IIPS in the project entitled “Youth in India: Situation and Needs Study” in collaboration with Population Council, New Delhi.

MBA in Public Health Management with over 4 years of experience working in health systems, health system research, and research communication. Has worked with NRHM and RCH II at district and state levels. Conducted large scale surveys and proficient in handling national-level survey data. Co-authored articles on maternal and child health, health, and poverty.

Sewa Singh has been working as a Program Manager at Beyond Beijing Committee since 2008. She coordinates programs on Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights both at the national and local level. She has conducted various research on women and young people's SRHR in Nepal. She has a Masters in Public Health and Sociology. 

Dr. Vivek Singh is a senior lecturer at the Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), Hyderabad. His areas of interest are public health surveillance, applied epidemiology, use of technology to strengthen health systems and linking public health practice to education and training. 

International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Population and Family Health

Jeffrey Michael Smith is an obstetrician/gynecologist with experience in clinical medicine, public health, and international development. Dr. Smith is Jhpiego’s Regional Technical Director in Asia based in Bangkok, Thailand, where he oversees the implementation of service delivery and health workforce development programs throughout South and Southeast Asia.

Geeta Sodhi holds a postagraduate degree in child health. She is founder of the NGO Swaasthya. She is a MacArthur Fellow of 1995. She was Senior Program Advisor to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (2001-2003) and is member of Sub-Group on Adolescent Health appointed by the Government of India.

Dr. Bulbul Sood is Country Director for Jhpiego, India, and an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University in the United States. She is a public health professional with more then 35 years experience, of which 23 years have been working in the Medical College in Delhi as Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine. 

Dr. Spangler is a Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed her PhD in 2009 from the University of North Carolina's Gillings School of Global Public Health. Research interests include the influence of social and material inequality on behaviors and outcomes related to maternal health and how local health care systems might be improved to better serve women who are economically deprived or socially marginalized.   

Ann Starrs co-founded FCI in 1987 and became its president at the beginning of 2008. She currently serves as co-chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. Ms. Starrs earned an MPA in Development Economics and a Certificate in Demography from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Kate Steger, Public Health Outreach Specialist with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting,received her MPH from the Department of International Health at Boston University in May of this year. While there, she helped found and was Editor-in-Chief of the student-run global health journal, The Movement and received the John Snow, Inc Award. She also has a Masters in East Asian Studies from the Institute of International Studies at the University of Minnesota. She has worked in non-profit arts administration, taught and studied in Taiwan and mainland China, and traveled in other parts of Asia. Her undergraduate degree was in English literature.

Family Health International

Marion Subah is a nurse-midwife with 26 years of midwifery, midwifery education, and administrative experience in Liberia. Having worked in both Liberia and the U.S.A., she brings a broad global perspective to the leadership that she provides as Jhpiego's Senior Country Representative. 

International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh

Dr. A.K. Susheela, Ashoka Fellow, is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences (India) and Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. Former professor of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and has spent almost 3 decades researching the harmful effects of fluoride on human health and fluorosis disease. She is presently leading the National Fluorosis Control Program in the country with her vast experience in research, teaching and patient care services with focus on diagnostic services and counseling for prevention of fluorosis. Her extensive researches on intestinal mucosa, skeletal musculature, red blood cells, male reproductive system, matrix molecules of bone, tooth and soft tissues viz ligament, and the aorta are landmark events, as results led to deeper understanding of the problems of fluoride poisoning on human health. Since 2004 she and her team focus on the developments of understanding fluoride poisoning effects in regards to anemia and low birth weight babies. The results emerging are ground-breaking discoveries hitherto unknown. Presently, she is the Executive Director of the Fluorosis Foundation of India.