Appendix C
Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers
Larry Aber, Ph.D., is the Willner Family Professor in Psychology and Public Policy at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and University Professor, New York University, where he also serves as board chair of its Institute of Human Development and Social Change. He is an internationally recognized expert in child development and social policy and has co-edited Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children (1997, Russell Sage Foundation), Assessing the Impact of September 11th, 2001, on Children, Youth, and Parents: Lessons for Applied Developmental Science (2004, Erlbaum), and Child Development and Social Policy: Knowledge for Action (2007, APA Publications). His basic research examines the influence of poverty and violence at the family and community levels and on the social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and academic development of children and youth. Currently, he conducts research on the impact of poverty and HIV/AIDS on children’s development in South Africa (in collaboration with the Human Sciences Research Council) and on school- and community-based interventions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee). In 2006, Dr. Aber was appointed by the Mayor of New York City to the Commission for Economic Opportunity, an initiative to help reduce poverty and increase economic opportunity in New York City. In 2007, Dr. Aber served as the Nannerl O. Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professor at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also Chair of the Board of Directors of the Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa, and
served as consultant to the World Bank on its project Children and Youth in Crisis. From 2003–2006, Dr. Aber chaired the Advisory Board, International Research Network on Children and Armed Conflict of the Social Science Research Council in collaboration with the Special Representative to the Secretary General of the United Nations on Children and Armed Conflict and the United Nations Children’s Fund. Dr. Aber earned his Ph.D. from Yale University and an A.B. from Harvard University.
Amina Abubakar, Ph.D., is a research fellow at Lancaster University. She studied educational psychology at Kenyatta University in Kenya before proceeding to study developmental cross-cultural psychology at Tilburg University, where she obtained her Ph.D. in 2008. She previously worked at the Kenya Medical Research Institute/Wellcome Trust Research Program in Kenya. She was also a visiting academic at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Her research concerns three broad areas: examining the sequelae of various childhood diseases, neurodevelopmental disorders, specifically autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and contextual predictors of mental health among adolescents across cultural contexts. Her main interests are in the study of developmental delays and impairments among children exposed to various health problems such as HIV, malnutrition, and malaria. Her main focus in this regard is on developing culturally appropriate strategies for identifying, monitoring, and rehabilitating at-risk children. Alongside her colleagues, Dr. Abubakar was instrumental in developing various culturally appropriate measures of child development currently in use in almost 10 African countries. She was also involved in various projects aimed at examining the psychosocial risk factors (i.e., maternal depression, quality of home environment, and parental socioeconomic status) predictive of poor developmental outcomes among vertically infected HIV positive children and adolescents. In addition, she is also interested in examining the prevalence of and risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders, specifically ASD, within the African context. As part of her postdoctoral work in cross-cultural psychology, she recently completed a study involving more than 7,000 adolescents and emerging adults from 24 countries, where she investigated how various contextual factors (familial, school, peer, and cultural) impact on well-being (mental health and life satisfaction identity formation). Dr. Abubakar has given guest lectures and workshops largely focusing on cross-cultural research methods in various countries, including Cameroon, Germany, Indonesia, Kenya, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, and Spain. She has co-authored several peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.
Steven Adler is IBM’s chief information strategist, where he is responsible for IBM’s open data, data governance, and system dynamics strategies. He is an early pioneer in the data governance industry, holds four patents on data privacy and security, and is a member of the U.S. Commerce Data Advisory Council, the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition Program, and the Open Government Partnership. Mr. Adler is the founder of the Open Governance Council, the Africa Open Data Group, and the Australia Open Data Group. He organized the first Africa Open Data Jam during the U.S.–Africa Leaders Summit and two subsequent Ebola Open Data Jams to use open data to improve information about Ebola and health care capacity in West Africa.
Constanza Alarcon, M.S., is a Colombian expert on childhood and adolescent public policies design and implementation, with special focus on early childhood and works in the Presidency of the Republic of Colombia as the National Coordinator of the Intersectoral Commission for Early Childhood. From the Presidency of the Republic of Colombia she led the design and implementation process of an innovative public policy, in terms of integrality and intersectionality, for early childhood in her country.
Through her extended career, Ms. Alarcon has made an important contribution in the area of early childhood and childhood, from academic, public, and private areas in her country. As a recognized leader in her country and Latin America, Ms. Alarcon brings an enriching perspective built on her experience as the former Deputy Secretary for Childhood in Bogotá, Colombia. Being part of national and international, public, and private organizations, Ms. Alarcon has led several social development projects, including the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public policies and intersectoral and inter-institutional coordination, as well as designing and managing public–private partnerships in the social area. Prior to her work as Deputy Secretary for Childhood, she was a United Nations policy adviser to the Office of the Mayor of Bogotá on strengthening social organizations. In the academic sector, she served as Dean and Professor in several Schools of Education in various universities in Colombia. She also coordinated protection, adoption, and care programs for people with disabilities. Ms. Alarcon is a psychologist from Colombian National University. She holds a specialization degree on social comprehensive attention in mental health and received a master’s in educational and social development.
Charlee Alexander is a research associate with the Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally. Ms. Alexander graduated from the University of Chicago in 2010 with a B.A. in political science. After moving to
Washington, DC, in September 2010 she worked as a legal assistant for the environmental firm Hill & Kehne, LLC, with a focus on brownfield remediation. Through the efforts of the RACER Trust, Ms. Alexander helped to revitalize and repurpose contaminated industrial properties remaining from the General Motors bankruptcy in 2009. Prior to joining the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, she was a legal assistant at the civil rights firm Sanford Heisler, LLP, where the majority of her cases involved race and gender discrimination in the workplace. In October 2012 she traveled to Ghana for a 5-week child labor and trafficking volunteer program with a local nongovernmental organization, the Cheerful Hearts Foundation. She conducted interviews with victims of child labor and their families to develop a socioeconomic snapshot of fishing communities. While Ms. Alexander was always interested in civil and human rights, her trip to Ghana led her to focus on public health.
Joe Amoako-Tuffour, Ph.D., is a senior advisor at the African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET). Prior to joining ACET, he was a professor of economics at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada where he taught for 25 years. He also recently taught in the natural resource governance executive program at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. He has served in different capacities as a tax policy advisor at the Ministry of Finance (Ghana). In Ghana from 2001–2003 he served as lead economist of a mini-consultative group of donors and provided leadership in the design of the Multi-Donor Budgetary Support System, participated in the design of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy in 2001–2002, and in 2008–2010 was lead advisor in the design of Ghana’s Oil and Gas Revenue Management legislation. He has published in international journals on the demand for public goods, recreational demand analysis, fiscal deficits, and public debt. He is a co-author of the book Poverty Reduction Strategies in Action: Lessons and Perspectives from Ghana. His current research interest is in taxation, how government spends, natural resource governance, and revenue management.
Bishnu Bhatta, M.B.A., is currently working as director of Partnership for Sustainable Development (PSD)-Nepal. For the past 25 years he served in organizations such as the Students Partnership Worldwide, Save the Children, and the Peace Corps-Nepal. He also served as the Country Coordinator for i*EARN for 2 years and also served as international deputy coordinator for the Medicinal Plants in Our Backyard Project that was implemented in seven different countries. Currently, he is the Asia representative for the leadership team in Nature Action Collaborative for Children, based in the United States. He has presented several papers at numerous international conferences. He was a facilitator for the How to
Connect Children with Nature Conference. Since 2012, he has also been working as the Nepal country liaison for the Association of Childhood Education International. He works for the improvement of early childhood development, which is just one sector of PSD-Nepal work amid many. In order to enhance the quality of education, he has continuously involved himself in raising small-scale funds and investing it to build up quality school environments for children. Mr. Bhatta’s work has made the community member feel that investing in early childhood education is in fact investing in community development in the long term. Apart from this, he also plans and implements the PSD volunteer program, manages the volunteer program team, and he plans, reviews, and coordinates all of its activities to ensure effective and focused inputs that lead to the delivery of the program outputs.
Zulfiqar Bhutta, MBBS, FRCPCH, FAAP, Ph.D., is the Robert Harding Inaugural Chair in Global Child Health at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, the co-director of the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, and founding director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health at the Aga Khan University, unique joint appointments. He also holds adjunct professorships at the Schools of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore), Tufts University (Boston), the University of Alberta, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a designated Distinguished National Professor of the Government of Pakistan and was the founding chairman of the National Research Ethics Committee of the Government of Pakistan from 2002–2014. Dr. Bhutta’s research interests include newborn and child survival, maternal and child undernutrition, and micronutrient deficiencies. Dr. Bhutta is one of the seven-member Independent Expert Review Group established by the United Nations Secretary General in September 2011 for monitoring global progress in maternal and child health Millennium Development Goals. He represents the global academic and research organizations on the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations Board, is the co-chair of the Maternal and Child Health oversight committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO) as well as the Global Countdown for 2015 Steering Group. He served as a member of the Global Advisory Committee for Health Research for WHO, the Board of Child & Health and Nutrition Initiative of Global Forum for Health Research, and was a founding Board member of the Global Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. He serves on several international editorial boards. Dr. Bhutta is currently a member of the WHO Strategic Advisory Committee for Vaccines, the Expert Advisory Group for Vaccine Research, the Advisory Committee for Health Research of WHO EMRO, and a co-chair of its apex
Regional Committee for Maternal and Child Health. He has won several awards, including the Aga Khan University Awards for Research (2005) and Distinguished Faculty (2012) and the WHO Ihsan Dogramaci Family Health Award (2014). Dr. Bhutta received his Ph.D. from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, and is a fellow of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Pakistan Academy of Sciences.
Bonita Birungi, M.P.H., is the senior specialist for early childhood care and development for Save the Children in Africa. Ms. Birungi has more than 15 years of professional and program technical management experience in early childhood development, community health and child protection, providing technical and thought leadership and support to programs to ensure technical quality, comprehensive and coordinated programming, and quality service provision. Ms. Birungi provides thought leadership to early childhood care and development country teams by staying abreast of the latest research and evidence as well as input from programs while ensuring that Save the Children’s work embodies existing best practices. This is done at the same time Save the Children strategically develops and tests innovative approaches to addressing the next frontier of challenges to improve children’s development in low-resource settings and leverages community-level success for national and international changes in policy and practice. Ms. Birungi has a master’s degree in child development and a master’s degree in public health.
Arnaud Conchon, M.S.C., is a French national who holds a master’s degree in humanitarian program management. He has about 10 years of international work as an emergency coordinator and early childhood development (ECD) in emergency specialist. He worked mainly with the United Nations Office for Project Services; The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); and Save the Children. He was based in Afghanistan, the Comoros, Iraq, Kosovo, and the tsunami-affected areas in Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Haiti; and in New York with the UNICEF/ECD Unit. He is currently home-based in Rwanda and on short-term deployment to UNICEF New York, where he works as an ECD in Emergency specialist.
Joan Conn, M.A., is the executive director of the Restavek Freedom Foundation. She received a B.A. in education from Lee University and an M.A. in education from the University of Cincinnati. Ms. Conn has been leading the Restavek Freedom Foundation’s efforts to abolish child slavery in Haiti. Splitting her time between the United States and Haiti, she has
become an expert on the restavek issue working with her team in Haiti to provide direct services to 800+ children in restavek, as well as leading national-level conferences and wide-reaching media projects to raise awareness about the damage the restavek issues have on Haiti. In the time that Ms. Conn has been working on the restavek issue, human trafficking legislation has been passed to protect children in Haiti, Haitian government leaders are addressing the issue publicly, and the Miss Haiti pageant partnered with the Restavek Freedom Foundation to make restavek a platform issue for its competition in 2014. Ms. Conn participates in United Nations roundtables focused on child protection, is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, and has hosted journalists from the BBC, CNN, and The New York Times to bring attention to the restavek issue around the world.
Janice Cooper, M.P.A., Ph.D., is the country lead for the Liberia Mental Health Initiative. She oversees a national training, policy, and support program to expand capacity for mental health services delivery. She is also responsible for interacting with national and international colleagues and partners of the program. A native Liberian and health services researcher specializing in children’s mental health, Dr. Cooper has worked in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors in the United States and Liberia. Prior to joining the Carter Center in 2010, Dr. Cooper was the interim director of the National Center for Children in Poverty, as well as an assistant clinical professor in Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. From 2005–2009, she also served as the Carter Center’s director of Child Health and Mental Health, receiving the distinguished Calderone Prize for Junior Faculty in 2007. Dr. Cooper received her M.P.A. and Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University. She was a 2001 fellow in medical ethics at Harvard Medical School and a 1999 Archibald Bush Foundation Leadership Fellow. She holds additional undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Essex, Colchester, England, and Columbia and Harvard Universities in the United States.
Alex Coutinho, M.D., is the retired executive director of Uganda’s Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) and has spent three decades fighting HIV/ AIDS in Africa. He is now working with the Accordia Global Health Foundation and its implementing partners to increase Ebola preparedness and to advocate for structural changes to prevent such catastrophic outbreaks. In 2013, Dr. Coutinho received Japan’s Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize, recognizing his outstanding contributions. Born in Uganda, Dr. Coutinho treated some of the earliest AIDS cases, working in Uganda and Swaziland. He went on to lead The AIDS Support Organization (TASO),
which became the largest country-owned support organization for people living with HIV. TASO’s innovations were copied and scaled up across HIV-endemic countries. In 2007, Dr. Coutinho became the first Ugandan to head IDI. Launched by Accordia and granted to Makerere University, IDI provides training for 2,000 health professionals from across Africa each year in HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria and helps capacity building in regional and many district Ugandan hospitals. It attracts researchers from around the world and has become virtually self-sustaining in just 10 years.
Gary Darmstadt, M.D., M.S., is associate dean for maternal and child health, professor in the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Pediatrics, and co-director of Global Pediatric Health in the Department of Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Previously, Dr. Darmstadt was senior fellow in the Global Development Program at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), where he led a cross-foundation initiative on women, girls, and gender, assessing how addressing gender inequalities and empowering women and girls leads to improved gender equality as well as improved health and development outcomes. Prior to this role, he served as BMGF director of family health, leading strategy development and implementation across nutrition, family planning, and maternal, newborn, and child health.
Dr. Darmstadt was formerly associate professor and founding director of the International Center for Advancing Neonatal Health in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has trained in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, in dermatology at Stanford University, and in pediatric infectious disease as a fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he was assistant professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Medicine. Dr. Darmstadt left the University of Washington to serve as senior research advisor for the Saving Newborn Lives program of Save the Children-US, where he led the development and implementation of the global research strategy for newborn health and survival, before joining Johns Hopkins.
Menelik Desta Argaw, Ph.D., did his undergraduate medical training at Addis Ababa University at Tikur Anbasa Hospital. After working as a general practitioner in rural Ethiopia, Dr. Desta Argaw studied psychiatry at the University of Manchester in England. After serving as a psychiatrist at Amanuel Mental Hospital for 13 years, he studied for his Ph.D. at the University of Umea in Sweden on the epidemiology of child psychiatric disorders in Ethiopia. He then worked in the first child psychiatric clinic at Yekatit 12 Hospital in Addis Ababa until he started the full-time job as the executive director of the Ethiopian School Readiness Initiative, a
nongovernmental charity organization that works in collaboration with the Addis Ababa Education Bureau to promote a child-friendly preschool program.
Angela Diaz, M.D., M.P.H., is the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. After earning her medical degree in 1981 at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, she completed her post-doctoral training at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1985 and subsequently received a master in public health from Harvard University.
Dr. Diaz is the director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, a unique program that provides comprehensive, integrated, interdisciplinary primary care, sexual and reproductive health, mental health, dental services, and health education services to teens for free. The Center has an emphasis on wellness and prevention. Under her leadership the Center has become the largest adolescent specific health center in the United States, serving more than 12,000 vulnerable and disadvantaged youth each year, including those who are sexually exploited and trafficked. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and president and chair of the Board of Trustees of the Children’s Aid Society of New York. Dr. Diaz has been a White House fellow, a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Pediatric Advisory Committee, and a member of the National Institutes of Health State of the Science Conference on Preventing Violence and Related Health Risk Social Behaviors in Adolescents. In 2003, Dr. Diaz chaired the National Advisory Committee on Children and Terrorism for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. In 2009, Dr. Diaz was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg to the New York City Commission for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Runaway and Homeless Youth Taskforce. Dr. Diaz is active in public policy and advocacy in the United States and has conducted many international health projects in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and Europe. She is a frequent speaker at conferences throughout the country and around the world.
Jeffrey Edmeades, Ph.D., is a senior social demographer at the International Center for Research on Women. In this role, Dr. Edmeades manages a variety of projects in which he provides technical assistance to partners, designs and conducts program evaluations, and executes data analysis. His research primarily focuses on the interaction between the development process and demographic behavior, including fertility, contraceptive use, and migration, as well as household decision-making processes and the role gender norms play in shaping demographic outcomes.
Dr. Edmeades has several years of experience in studying the effects of rural poverty, gender inequality, and reproductive health patterns in the developing world. He also has published a number of peer-reviewed papers that address research methodology and the determinants of reproductive behavior and intimate partner violence, among other topics. His work has appeared in academic publications such as Demography, Social Science and Medicine, Studies in Family Planning, and the Journal of Mixed Method Research. Dr. Edmeades holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of North Carolina. He earned a master’s in demography and a bachelor’s in geography from the University of Waikato, New Zealand.
Masresha Fetene Workneh, Ph.D., is a professor of plant ecophysiology at Addis Ababa University (AAU). He obtained his B.Sc. (1982) and M.Sc. (1985) in biology from AAU and his Ph.D. in plant ecophysiology from the University of Darmstadt, Germany (1990). Currently, he is executive director of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS). In the past, he has served AAU in various capacities: vice-president for research and graduate studies, head of department of biology, associate dean for research and graduate studies, and director of Addis Ababa University Press. He was also the editor-in chief of Sinet: Ethiopian Journal of Science. He has initiated several international and regional partnerships in teaching and research and has led and conducted many research projects with collaborators from East African countries and Europe. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals in the area of plant eco-physiology, plant stress and crop physiology, tree physiology, and plant ecology. He is a recipient of several research awards and fellowships, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization-International Cell Research Organization research award and the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship. Dr. Fetene Workneh is a founding and active member of many professional associations, both national and international. He spearheaded the initiative for the establishment of the EAS.
Mulugeta Gebru is an Ethiopian national and executive director of the Jerusalem Children and Community Development Organization. He holds a B.A. in business management with a concentration on civil society and government relationships from the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom); an advanced diploma in development studies; and attended trainings in various disciplines in Asia, England, Ethiopia, the Netherlands, and the United States. He has 28 years of work experience from lower to top management level at government and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Mr. Gebru maintains close relationships with governments of Ethiopia at different levels and donors in Australia, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the
United States. He plays a strategic and executive management role toward achieving organizational mission and programmatic objectives. Mr. Gebru guides various levels of management groups in the process of developing programmatic work plans, regularly monitors work performance, and ensures effective implementation of strategic management plans. He is involved with policy formulation and advocacy work on children’s issues. He serves as a board member and board chair of six NGOs, including the Canadian Christian Relief and Development Association; is an advisory member of the Firelight Foundation; is a member of the International AIDS Society in the United States; and serves as a parental committee member of various schools in Addis Ababa.
Bill Guyton, M.A., is president of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and an internationally recognized expert with nearly 25 years of experience in sustainable development. He acts as a primary spokesman for the international chocolate industry on issues related to a sustainable cocoa economy and the quality of life of independent family cocoa farmers. Mr. Guyton has been with WCF since its inception. He helped grow the foundation’s membership from a handful of large companies into a diversified group of more than 90 companies representing more than 80 percent of the global cocoa market. He directs sustainable cocoa programs with an annual budget of more than $10 million. Mr. Guyton brings deep technical expertise and hands-on field experience to his position with in-country experience in 30 different nations in Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Afzal Habib is the co-founder and chief imagination officer at Kidogo, a social enterprise that provides high-quality, affordable early childhood care and education to families living in East Africa’s urban slums. Mr. Habib oversees Kidogo’s strategy, finances, and day-to-day operations from Nairobi, Kenya. Previously, Mr. Habib spent 3 years in management consulting with the Boston Consulting Group, a leading global adviser on business strategy. He has also been an adviser and consultant to numerous social enterprises, including Acumen, CARE, and Karibu Solar Power and is the author of an award-winning business case on micro-franchising. Mr. Habib is a graduate of the international business program at the Schulich School of Business, where he specialized in strategy and social entrepreneurship and studied as a Loran Scholar. He was recently selected as one of Corporate Knights “Top 30, Under 30” in Canada for his work in social entrepreneurship.
Demissie Habte, M.D., is the incumbent president of the Board of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, elected in 2010. He is a professor of
pediatrics at the Faculty of Medicine, Addis Ababa University. He has also served as dean of the faculty. Dr. Habte held various positions abroad including executive director of the International Centre for Diarrheal Diseases Research in Bangladesh, health specialist for the African Region at the World Bank in Washington, DC, and founding international director of the James P. Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Bangladesh. He is a recipient of the Rosen von Rosenstein Medal of the Swedish Pediatric Society.
David Harrison, M.B.Ch.B., M.Sc., M.P.P., is the chief executive officer of the South African grant-making foundation DG Murray Trust. After completing his medical internship in 1990, Mr. Harrison joined the Child Health Unit of the University of Cape Town, working on policy issues related to child health, nutrition, and early childhood development (ECD). He completed an M.Sc.(Med) related to the planning of child health services in Khayelitsha. In 1991, he founded the Health Systems Trust (HST), a nongovernmental organization supporting health policy and services development in South Africa. In his capacity as director of HST, he established the South African Health Review—an annual assessment of health and health care—and the Initiative for Sub-District Support, working with the Department of Health to improve the quality of health care in clinics throughout South Africa. In 2000, he completed a master’s in public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, before returning to South Africa to head up loveLife, a national HIV prevention program for young people. In 2010, he joined DG Murray Trust, which has a significant focus on ECD, education, and opportunities for young people.
Jody Heymann, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the University of California, Los Angeles, Fielding School of Public Health since January 2013, is an internationally renowned researcher on health and social policy. Dr. Heymann is founding director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center, the first global initiative to examine health and social policy in all 193 United Nations nations. In 2013, the WORLD Policy Analysis Center launched Children’s Chances, which focuses on legislation and policies that will help ensure children have a better chance to lead healthy lives. This effort led to collaborations focusing on child policy with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; and the World Health Organization (WHO) public use information has been accessed from 180 countries. In September 2013, Children’s Chances data covering education policy, constitutional rights, child labor laws, child marriage, protection against discrimination, and parental care were presented to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the
Child. In addition to Dr. Heymann’s award-winning global social policy research, she has led seminal studies on the risk of HIV transmission via breast milk to infants in Africa, the impact of HIV/AIDS on tuberculosis rates in Africa, and how labor conditions impact the health and welfare of children and families globally. Prior to becoming dean of the Fielding School, Dr. Heymann held a Canadian Research Chair in Global Health and Social Policy at McGill University where she was the founding director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy. While on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, she founded the Project on Global Working Families. Dr. Heymann has worked with government leaders in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America as well as a wide range of intergovernmental organizations, including the International Labor Organization, UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO, and the World Economic Forum. She helped develop health and social policy with national policy makers as well as with United Nations agencies based on the implications of her team’s research results.
Tina Hyder, M.S.C., is deputy director of the Early Childhood Program of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), based in London, and leads OSF’s early childhood development projects and grants in Africa and Asia. As deputy director, Ms. Hyder helps forge partnerships to strengthen early childhood policies, research, networks, and programs for young children and their families. Prior to joining OSF in 2009, Ms. Hyder was a global adviser for Save the Children UK, supporting more than 50 country offices around the world to promote the rights of children affected by discrimination. Earlier work includes programming for children affected by conflict and other emergencies, in addition to research on children’s perspectives of physical punishment and policy and practical responses to working with refugee children.
Yayehyirad Kitaw, M.D., is a fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Kitaw was the past treasurer at the Ethiopian Medical Association, a past Executive Board member at the Ethiopian Public Health Association, and past president of the Ethiopian Malaria Professionals Association. Dr. Kitaw has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed Ethiopian and international journals on malaria, smoking, immunization, HIV/AIDS, HIV-related Dementia, and health care development. He is also the main author of several chapters in books and manuals, including The HIV/Security Nexus: The Cornucopia Horn (Inter-Africa Group, 2008); “Old Beyond Imaginings: Harmful Traditional Practices in Ethiopia” (2nd Edition, 2008); The Evolution of Public Health in Ethiopia: 1941–2010 (2nd Revised Edition, Ethiopian Public Health Association [EPHA], 2012); The Evolution of Human Resources for Health in Ethiopia: 1941-2010 (EPHA, 2014); History
of the Ethiopian Public Health Association (EPHA, 2014); and History of the Ethiopian Medical Association (Ethiopian Medical Association, 2015).
Aderemi Kuku, Ph.D., is currently president of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and was president of the African Mathematical Union for 9 years from 1986 to 1995. He has more than 40 years of teaching and research experience at the university level. He was professor, head of mathematics (1983–1986) and dean of the Postgraduate School (1986–1990) at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria; and foundation chairman, Committee of Deans of Post-Graduate schools in Nigerian Universities (1987–1990). Dr. Kuku was a professor of mathematics at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, from 1995–2003 and the William W. S. Claytor Endowed Professor of Mathematics at Grambling State University, Louisiana, in the United States. He has held many visiting positions at universities and research institutes in Canada, China, Europe, Hong Kong, and the United States, including as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States. Moreover, he has given numerous colloquia and seminar lectures and organized numerous conferences, symposia, and workshops all over the world. Dr. Kuku is a recipient of several honors such fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012; fellow of The World Academy of Sciences in 1989; European Academy of Arts, Science and Humanities in 1986; AAS in 1986; Nigerian Academy of Science in 1989; and foreign fellow of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 2005.
Guru Madhavan, Ph.D., is a senior program officer and project director at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Since 2010, he has led the research and development of Strategic Multi-Attribute Ranking Tool for Vaccines (SMART Vaccines)—a widely recognized prioritization software tool to help reduce barriers for vaccine innovation—produced in partnership with the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Madhavan received his M.S. and his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and an M.B.A. from the State University of New York. He worked in the medical device industry as a research scientist developing cardiac surgical catheters for ablation therapy and served as a strategic consultant for tech start-up firms and nonprofit organizations. Dr. Madhavan was a founding member of the Global Young Academy, and is a vice president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-USA of IEEE, the world’s largest professional society for engineering and technology. Among many honors and fellowships, Dr. Madhavan received the Innovator Award from the presidents of the Academies and the Cecil Medal, the highest distinction for a staff researcher of the Institute of Medicine. He has been named as one of the “New Faces of Engi-
neering” in USA Today and as a distinguished young scientist under the age of 40 by the World Economic Forum. Dr. Madhavan has authored or co-edited seven books.
Kofi Marfo, Ph.D., is professor and founding director of the Institute for Human Development at Aga Khan University (South-Central Asia, East Africa, and the United Kingdom). He was the founding director of the Center for Research on Children’s Development and Learning at the University of South Florida, where he was professor of educational psychology (and special education) from 1992–2014. His current scholarly interests are in the areas of developmental science, social policy and childhood interventions, the advancement of a global science of human development, and philosophical issues in behavioral science and education research.
He has published extensively in the areas of early child development, early intervention efficacy, parent–child interaction, behavioral development in children adopted from China, and childhood disability in low- and middle-income countries. His scholarship has been cited across disciplines in more than 180 different journals worldwide. He is co-leader of an initiative to support child development research capacity building in Africa and is a co-convener of the African Scholars in Child/Early Child Development Workshop series. He is a member of the Society for Research in Child Development, the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, and the American Educational Research Association. He has been a U.S. National Academy of Education Spencer Fellow, a Zero to Three Irving B. Harris Mid-Career Leadership Fellow, and more recently a Residential Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. For 4 years he was a member of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Bio-Behavioral and Behavioral Sciences Subcommittee. He is a member of the Governing Council of the Society for Research in Child Development and serves in advisory roles for two private foundations with substantial investments in early childhood development. He is a graduate of the University of Alberta, Canada (M.Ed. and Ph.D.) and the University of Cape Coast, Ghana (B.Ed., Honors).
Ann Masten, Ph.D., LP, is Regents Professor, Irving B. Harris Professor of Child Development and Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. She completed her doctoral training at the University of Minnesota in clinical psychology and her internship at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1986, she joined the faculty in the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, serving as chair of the department from 1999 to
2005. Dr. Masten’s research focuses on understanding processes that promote competence and prevent problems in human development, with a focus on adaptive processes and pathways, developmental tasks and cascades, and resilience in the context of high cumulative risk, adversity, and trauma. She directs the Project Competence studies of risk and resilience, including studies of normative populations and high-risk young people exposed to war, natural disasters, poverty, homelessness, and migration. The ultimate objective of her research is to inform sciences, practices, and policies that aim to promote positive development and a better future for children and families whose lives are threatened by adversity. Dr. Masten currently serves on the Board on Children, Youth, and Families (BCYF) and the U.S. National Committee of Psychology of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She formerly served on the BCYF Committee on the Impact of Mobility and Change on the Lives of Young Children, Schools, and Neighborhoods and the planning committee on Investing in Young Children Globally. She also has served as president of the Society for Research in Child Development and president of Division 7 (Developmental) of the American Psychological Association (APA). She is a 2014 recipient of the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contributions to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society from APA. Dr. Masten has published and presented extensively on the themes of risk and resilience in human development. Her book Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Children was published by Guilford Press and she taught a free MOOC (mass open online course) on the same theme beginning in September 2014 on Coursera.
Gillian Mellsop, M.A., graduated from the University of Auckland with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and history, and began her international development career in 1979 with New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the External Aid Division (1979–1982). She then joined the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) (1984–2003). Her work with AusAID included serving as AusAID’s representative in Australian missions in Bangladesh, India, and Laos (also covering Bhutan and Nepal), where she was responsible for Australia’s development cooperation programs in those countries. She was also involved in managing Australia’s aid programs in the Pacific, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines. Prior to joining the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) she was the director of AusAID’s United Nations and Commonwealth Program. Ms. Mellsop joined UNICEF in April 2003 as a representative in Suva, Fiji. She then served as a representative with UNICEF in Kathmandu, Nepal, from December 2006 to March 2011. Prior to joining UNICEF in Ethiopia in April 2015, Ms. Mellsop was UNICEF’s representative in China from April 2011 to April 2015. She obtained a postgradu-
ate diploma in community counselling from the University of Canberra and a master’s degree in development management from the Australian National University.
Helia Molina Milman, M.D., M.P.H., is vice dean of research and development in Faculty Medica Sciences at the University of Santiago de Chile, a consultant working with the Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally, and recently completed her term as Minister of Health of Chile. Dr. Molina Milman is a pediatrician and professor in public health at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She is the past national executive director (at the Ministry of Health) of Chile Crece Contigo, the Chilean Social Protection System for early infancy. Previously, she was chief of the Healthy Public Division at the Ministry of Health from 2006 to 2010. From 2005–2008, Dr. Molina Milman was a member of the Knowledge Network in Early Childhood Development World Health Organization Social Determinants of Health Commission. She served as regional advisor in Child Health and Development to the Pan American Health Organization in Washington, DC, and was previously the director of the Chilean Epidemiology Society from 2000 to 2004, and the past president of the Chilean Pediatric Society (1987). She has an M.D. from the University of Chile, where she specialized in pediatrics, and an M.P.H. from the Universidad de Chile (1990). She has written many technical publications about early child development and infant public policies.
Christine Mutaganzwa, M.D., is a Rwandan in the current role of Kayonza District Clinical Director for one of the three districts that Partners In Health supports. She oversees the implementation of Partners In Health, Rwanda Clinical Programs, and serves as the liaison for Clinical Program leads and the medical director of the Rwinkwavu District Hospital. She has been a general practitioner since March 2009, with an M.D. from the University of Rwanda Medical School. She practiced from 2009–2011 as a medical officer at King Faisal Hospital in the Pediatrics Department. Dr. Mutaganzwa received her master’s degree in epidemiology and biostatistics in tropical medicine and hygiene in South Africa in 2013. She joined Partners In Health/Inshuti Mu Buzima in April 2014. Her areas of research center on HIV, hypertension, and child’s health, including projects such as All Babies Count and Pediatric Development Clinic initiatives.
Valerie Nkamgang Bemo, M.D., M.P.H., is the senior program officer responsible for the Emergency Response portfolio within the Global Development Department at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Nkamgang Bemo has 12 years of experience in clinical and public health
worldwide. Before joining the Foundation, she held various roles at the International Rescue Committee, most recently serving as senior technical advisor for health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and West Africa. Dr. Nkamgang Bemo also worked with various nongovernmental organizations and had extensive involvement in Aceh, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Kenya, Mauritania, and Sierra Leone. She is a board member of the Global Health Council and the Fetzer Institute Advisory Council for Health Professionals. Dr. Nkamgang Bemo received her M.D. from the University of Cote d’Ivoire, her epidemiology diploma at the University of Paris, and her M.P.H. from Madrid Autonome University.
Janna Patterson, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, is a senior program officer at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with the Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (MNCH) team. She manages a portfolio of grants on neonatal health ranging from the prevention and treatment of newborn sepsis to the care of the preterm infant, including kangaroo mother care. Dr. Patterson is a board-certified pediatrician and neonatologist. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was a practicing neonatologist and researcher on faculty at the University of Washington. Her research in Kenya focused on transplacental transfer of antibodies to respiratory pathogens in the mother–infant dyad. Her peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters are focused on maternal–neonatal infections, HIV, and prematurity. Previously, Dr. Patterson spent several years living and working in Tanzania, including work as a programme officer at the Tanzania Public Health Association, and she remains fluent in Swahili. Her education includes a B.A. in African development from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an M.D. and an M.P.H. from the University of Alabama–Birmingham, with graduate medical studies at the University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Alan Pence, Ph.D., is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization chair for early childhood education, care, and development at the University of Victoria, and professor, Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. His research interests include historical, cross-cultural, international, and post-structural perspectives regarding young children’s care and development. He has applied these interests in the co-development of educational and capacity-building programs with various indigenous communities in Canada and internationally, and subsequently with more than 20 countries in various parts of Africa. This work has been recognized by the Canadian Bureau for International Education’s Award for Educational Leadership, the University of Victoria’s inaugural Craigdarroch Research Award for Societal Contributions, and he was a finalist for the
international World Innovation Summit for Education Awards for innovation in education. Dr. Pence has published more than 130 articles, book chapters, and monographs on a range of education, development, and early childhood development (ECD) topics, as well as authored or edited 11 books and 4 special issue journals. He is the former director of the School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, and established three specialized units: the Unit for Early Years Research and Development; the First Nations Partnership Programs for Community-Based Aboriginal Child and Youth Care Education; and the Early Childhood Development Virtual University, focusing on ECD leadership promotion and capacity building in the Majority (Developing) World. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon.
Lorraine Sherr, Ph.D., is a consultant clinical psychologist and professor of clinical and health psychology at the University College, London, Medical School. She is head of the Health Psychology Unit. She has been involved in HIV infection and studying the psychological aspects of the disease since the beginning of the epidemic. She is editor of the International Journal AIDS Care as well as Psychology Health and Medicine and Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies. She jointly coordinated the European study on policy on HIV in pregnancy and was co-director of the European initiative on HIV discrimination and mental health, HIV and antenatal testing policy in Europe, and psychological services for HIV/ AIDS and HIV prevention. Dr. Sherr sat on the British HIV Association (BHIVA) Social and Behavioral Group and was a member of the Writing Group for the BHIVA Adherence guidelines, reproduction guidelines, and the psychological care guidelines. She sat on the Strategic and Technical Advisory group for the World Health Organization (WHO) HIV section. She was co-chair of Learning Group 1 on Families for the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and AIDS. She also sits on the steering committee of the International Coalition on Children affected by AIDS.
She was appointed a Churchill Fellow for life in respect of her work on HIV and AIDS in obstetrics and pediatrics. She has held numerous research grants looking into aspects of health psychology, family, HIV, and AIDS in Africa, Europe, and the United Kingdom. She chaired the British Psychological Society Special Group on HIV and AIDS and the Special Group on Teaching Psychology to Other Professions. She has provided psychosocial evaluations for international organizations such as the North American Aerospace Defense Command, Save the Children, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, WHO, and World Vision. Dr. Sherr represented psychology on the International Scientific Board of the International AIDS Conferences in Geneva and Washington,
DC (2012), and is on the International Organizing Committee of the AIDS Impact Conference and was previously appointed to the Review Support Panel of the Global Fund. Dr. Sherr chaired the WHO committee on HIV Disclosure.
Frealem Shibabaw is an entrepreneur in the education sector with an educational background in business, human and social studies, and development studies. Ms. Shibabaw has worked with women and children for the past 13 years, is founder of Bahirdar Academy, and the current director of the Ethiopia School Meal Initiative.
Simon Sommer, M.A., is the head of research and a member of senior management at the Jacobs Foundation in Zurich, Switzerland, one of the world’s leading charitable foundations dedicated to facilitating innovations for children and youth. The Jacobs Foundation is committed to contributing to social change toward better welfare, productivity, and inclusion of current and future generations. It supports research and intervention of the highest quality leading to significant and vital outcomes for children and youth worldwide. In his current position, Mr. Sommer is responsible for the area of research funding. His responsibilities include research project funding, intervention research, the annual Jacobs Foundation Conferences, and workshops and symposia at Marbach Castle. He developed the Klaus-J-Jacobs Research Prize as the largest and most renowned award honoring research on child and youth development. In addition, he coordinates the Foundation’s cooperation with research funding agencies and organizations as well as with professional and scholarly societies in the area of child and youth development. Before joining the Jacobs Foundation in 2006, he worked at the Volkswagen Foundation in Hannover, Germany, which is the largest private research funder, and as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in Berlin, Germany. He holds graduate degrees from the Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany, and the University of Maryland, College Park, in the United States. Most recent publication include “Leapfrogging as a Principle for Research on Children and Youth in Majority World Settings” in the Journal of Research on Adolescence, Special Issue: Adolescents in the Majority World (Volume 23, Issue 1, pp. 187 ff).
Yisak Tafere, M.A., is the lead qualitative researcher for the Young Lives Study in Ethiopia. Young Lives is an international study of childhood poverty, following the lives of 12,000 children in 4 countries (Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam) over 15 years (www.younglives.org.uk). It is funded from 2001 to 2017 by United Kingdom aid from the Department for International Development. Mr. Tafere is a Ph.D. candidate at the
Norwegian Centre for Child Research, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He has an M.A. in social anthropology from Addis Ababa University. His research focus is on childhood poverty, life-course poverty, intergenerational transfer of poverty, intergenerational relationships, children’s educational and occupational aspirations, socio-cultural construction of child well-being and transition, and social protection.
Taha E. Taha, MBBS, MCM, M.P.H., Ph.D., is a professor of epidemiology and population, family and reproductive health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Taha is a physician with extensive training and experience in infectious diseases, community medicine, public health, and demography. Dr. Taha is the principal investigator of the Malawi Clinical Trials Unit—a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research consortium that includes the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and institutions in Malawi. He has also been the principal investigator of the HIV Prevention Trials Network and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network NIH-funded projects in Malawi. He is the principal investigator, co–principal investor, or co-investigator on other cooperative agreements, subcontracts, or investigator-initiated NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or other sources-funded research and training projects in Malawi. For approximately 20 years, Dr. Taha has directed several large cohort studies and clinical trials in Malawi. His expertise is in the conduct of epidemiologic studies in the areas of HIV, sexually transmitted infections, malaria, other tropical diseases, and assessment of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the health of women and children. He has worked in several African countries. He has published extensively in the fields of HIV and genital tract infections. He has participated in the teaching of graduate medical students and postdoctoral fellows in several countries in Africa, and currently is a full-time faculty member in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Taha is extensively involved in training and the development of infrastructure in African countries.
Yayesh Tesfahuney, M.A., has been director of the Child Rights Promotion and Protection Directorate at the Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia since 2009. She previously served as the head of the Women’s Affairs Department at the Ministry of Works and Urban Development. Prior to this, she was the Women’s Affairs team leader of the Bole Sub-city Administration in Addis Ababa. These responsibilities cover 2003–2009. She was also head of the Department of Training, Monitoring and Policy Implementation at the Women’s Affairs Bureau in the Tigray Regional State. Ms. Yayesh
contributed to the development of effective policies concerning children in Ethiopia. Her passion for the protection and promotion of children’s rights has always guided her in her work. She has a master’s degree in development studies and has worked extensively in the areas of women and children’s rights, gender development and management, gender analysis, and gender mainstreaming for more than 10 years.
Jocelyn Widmer, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the program director and assistant scholar for online degree programs, Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florida and a consultant for the Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Dr. Widmer holds an M.P.H. and a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning with a concentration in international development (University of Florida); in addition to a masters in landscape architecture (M.L.A.) from Texas A&M University. She was also a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow for the Board on Children, Youth, and Families at the Academies.
Dr. Widmer has extensive experience in online education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including program and certificate design, course development, and course instruction both at the University of Florida and at Virginia Tech. Dr. Widmer’s experience in online technologies and engagement is also present in her international research agenda. She has worked in Latin America, Micronesia, and Southeast Asia with organizations, foundations, institutions, businesses, and governments to address global development issues from the policy realm to impacts at the community scale with an emphasis on innovative opportunities and partnerships. Her research lies at the intersections of urban planning and global health, with a particular focus on community- and technology-based approaches to development where communication and education are equally critical for dissemination and development.
Dr. Widmer’s teaching crosses disciplines of the built + natural environment and global health in both classroom-based and online settings in the areas of community engagement, international development, urbanization and development, and international field-based experiences.
Quentin Wodon, Ph.D., is an adviser/lead economist in the Education Global Practice at the World Bank where he serves as cluster leader for equity, resilience, and early childhood development. Previously, he managed the World Bank unit working on faith and development, served as lead poverty specialist for Africa, and as an economist/senior economist for Latin America. Before joining the World Bank, he worked as assistant brand manager for Procter & Gamble Benelux, as a volunteer corps member and deputy director with the International Movement All Together in
Dignity Fourth World, and as a tenured assistant professor of economics at the University of Namur. He is a fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, and the European Centre for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics in Brussels, Belgium, and taught at Georgetown University and American University in the United States in addition to the University of Namur. Dr. Wodon serves on various advisory boards, as associate editor for journals, and is a past president of the Society of Government Economists. He is also actively involved in service work with Rotary and through pro bono consulting for nonprofits. Dr. Wodon’s work focuses on improving policies that can contribute to poverty reduction and development. He has more than 350 publications and is a recipient of the Prize of Belgium’s Secretary of Foreign Trade, a Fulbright grant, and the Dudley Seers Prize. He holds graduate degrees in business engineering, economics, and philosophy (Université Catholique de Louvain), as well as Ph.D.s in economics (American University) and in theology and religious studies (The Catholic University of America).
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