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Latest posts

BIT Development Virtual Workshop Series

BIT Development Virtual Workshop Series

  • Session 1: 26 Jan 2021
  • Session 2: 09 Feb 2021
  • Session 3: 23 Feb 2021 

 

John Blandford

Position: Country Director - South Africa

Affiliation: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - South Africa

John M Blandford, PhD is the Country Director for South Africa and was Principal Deputy Director of the Division of Global HIV/AIDS (DGHA) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With the director, Dr. Blandford oversees the management and implementation of CDC’s global HIV treatment, care and prevention programs and the division’s approximately 2000 staff positioned in 44 country offices and CDC headquarters in Atlanta, in support of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Dr. Blandford also serves as a PEPFAR Deputy Principal, providing overall leadership in strategy and management for PEPFAR. Previously, Dr. Blandford served as Chief of DGHA’s Health Economics, Systems, and Integration Branch after he launched the branch in 2010. His leadership was critical in elevating the role of economic research and analysis to support planning, sustainable scale-up and efficient implementation of global HIV programs under PEPFAR. He directed and was principal investigator of the PEPFAR ART Costing Project, a multicountry study of costs and cost drivers of global HIV treatment programs. Dr. Blandford pioneered the design and implementation of PEPFAR Expenditure Analysis, which has been adopted for routine implementation across PEPFAR to support program management, accountability and efficiency. For two years, Dr. Blandford was seconded to the Department of State’s Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, where he oversaw implementation science activities across multiple U.S. government agencies and guided efforts to project global resource needs for scale-up of PEPFAR programs. Dr. Blandford studied at the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Notre Dame, and conducted his postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago as a Social Science Research Council Fellow.

 

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Jacqui Miot

Position: Indlela Strategic Advisor

Organization: Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office

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Dr. Jacqui Miot is the Division Director at the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO), a division of Wits Health Consortium and holds a joint appointment with the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Witwatersrand. She has successfully led and managed teams in clinical and economic evaluation in the public and private healthcare sector for more than 15 years. Since 2009 she has been conducting health economics and evidence-based driven research to inform policy in the public healthcare setting both in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa which has included technical advisory work with the National Department of Health. She is the Program Director of a 5-year cooperative agreement with USAID on the HIV/AIDS Economic and Research Activity as well as a Strategic Advisor for the Indlela project.

 

Sophie Pascoe

Position: Indlela Co-Director

Organization: Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office

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Dr. Sophie Pascoe is an Epidemiologist and Principal Researcher at the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO) in Johannesburg. She holds a Masters and Doctorate degree in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Sophie has 17 years experience working in the region where her work has focused on HIV and sexual reproductive health research and the implementation of randomised control trials as well as operational research evaluating health systems strengthening interventions. Currently her research focuses on linkage to care, treatment adherence and retention in care among people living with HIV and the implementation of differentiated models of care, as well as exploring the preferences of young people and men for accessing HIV programme services. She is also Co-Director of the Indlela initiative, a first-of-its-kind nudge unit focused on HIV in South Africa, that aims to build capacity in behavioural economics and the application of behavioural insights to improve the efficiency of health systems and achieve better health outcomes.

 

Candice M Chetty-Makkan

Position: Indlela Senior Behavioural Scientist

Organization: Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office

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Dr. Candice M Chetty-Makkan is a Senior Researcher at the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO). Candice also has an honorary senior lecturer position at the School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand. She has a doctorate degree from the University of Witwatersrand in Research Psychology and has approximately 15 years’ experience in public health research. Candice’s key areas of interest include understanding the socio-behavioural factors that impact the lives of people who are at risk for HIV and TB. Candice has been involved in projects that included a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods that focussed on understanding participant preferences, barriers and motivators to accessing health care. She has experience with epidemiology, implementation science studies and clinical trials. Candice has been the qualitative lead, co-investigator and principal investigator on multiple studies. Currently, Candice is the Senior Behavioural Scientist on the Indlela project that is aimed at building capacity to design and test nudges and other behavioural solutions to improve the effectiveness of health services and achieve better health outcomes in South Africa. She is a mentor for the IAVI ITAPS UCSF scientific manuscript writing programme and a guest associate editor for Frontiers in Reproductive Health HIV and STIs.

Lungisile Vezi

Position: Indlela Project Coordinator

Organization: Health Ecomics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO)

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Lungisile Vezi is a Coordinator at Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO), where she also coordinates Indlela Project. Her role includes: project demand creation through, quarterly newsletter development, website monitoring, virtual communications technical support and general project support. Lungisile Vezi has been with HE2RO since 2016, she worked on The Linkages and Enhance studies based in KZN, she was a coordinator for The Simplified algorithm for treatment eligibility study (SLATE) based in Gauteng. she was a part of this study from wave one, two and SLATE Qualitative sub study, where she has been a co-author for a couple of study publications. Lungisile has a BA degree in Psychology and a diploma in project management. She is very passionate about improving patient care systems, bring positive change in human behaviour and changing the societal stereotypes.

Harsha Thirumurthy

Position: Indlela Co-Director

Organization: University of Pennsylvania

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Dr. Harsha Thirumurthy is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Associate Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE), where he leads global health initiatives. He is also a Research Associate at Penn’s Population Studies Center and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI). Dr. Thirumurthy’s research interests lie at the intersection of behavioral economics and public health. His research examines the decision making of individuals, households, and health care providers in low- and middle-income countries. He has nearly 20 years of research experience in east Africa, southern Africa, and South Asia, having led numerous randomized trials of behavioral interventions to promote improved health and economic outcomes. Dr. Thirumurthy has published in leading journals in economics, public health, and medicine. His projects have routinely included inter-disciplinary teams of scientists and practitioners, while being supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and several other funding agencies. Dr. Thirumurthy completed a Ph.D. in economics at Yale University. Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania, he was on the faculty at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to research activities, Dr. Thirumurthy is a member of the Population Sciences review panel at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

 

Alison Buttenheim

Position: Indlela Behavioural Design Lead

Organization: University of Pennsylvania

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Dr. Alison Buttenheim is a Scientific Director of CHIBE and an Associate Professor of Nursing and Health Policy. Her research addresses persistent behavior change challenges in public and global health. Using the techniques and frameworks of behavioral economics, Alison designs, trials, and scales innovative interventions in the areas of vaccine acceptance, smoking cessation, reproductive health, cancer prevention, and vector control. A recognized evaluation expert, Alison has consulted on several impact evaluation studies in international settings, including village midwife and microfinance programs in Indonesia, school feeding schemes in Laos, and improved sanitation in urban Bangladesh.

 

Laura Schmucker

Position: Indlela Programme Manager 

Organization: University of Pennsylvania

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Laura Schmucker is a Project Manager at the UPenn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE) and has supported in the preparation, launch and management of the Indlela project. She has a Master’s in Public Health degree focusing on global health from The George Washington University and has worked for a number of organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Most recently, she worked in Uganda for 5 years with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) where she managed various research studies focusing on global health and technology, health system strengthening, maternal and newborn care and economic inclusion within refugee populations.

Noora Marcus

Position: Indlela Operations Manager

Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Behavioral economics, Sociology, Public health

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Noora has worked as a Project Manager in behavioral health research since 2015. Her research areas of focus include HIV prevention, healthcare service delivery, medication adherence, and m-health. Noora has managed projects in the United States, Kenya, South Africa and India. Her academic training is in Medical Sociology and International Development. As a Operations Manager for Indlela, Noora advises on strategy, operations and BIT projects. As a Senior Research Manager for CHIBE, Noora supervises the CHIBE global health portfolio, led by Dr. Harsha Thirumurthy. Noora is interested in the socio-behavioral factors that impact health, and through the use of effective behavioral health interventions, improving the lives of large numbers of people around the world.

 

Lawrence Long

Position: Indlela Research Faculty 

Organization: Boston University

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Dr. Lawrence Long (MCom, PhD) is a health economist and public health policy researcher. He is a Research Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and holds a joint appointment at the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa). Lawrence did his undergraduate degree in business science with a specialization in economics and finance and then went on to focus on economics and its application to public health in his graduate studies. He has more than 14 years of experience conducting applied research on the economic impact of HIV, tuberculosis and associated conditions within South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Currently he is a co-PI of a number of HIV projects under a multi-year USAID co-operative agreement in South Africa and a member of Indlela, a team building behavioral science capacity in South Africa. Lawrence is the principal investigator of a NIMH K01 award examining the potential role of behavioral science / behavioral economics in improving the uptake of and persistent on HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis amongst men who have sex with men in South Africa.

 

Brendan Maughan-Brown

Position: Indlela Research Faculty 

Organization: Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town

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Dr. Brendan Maughan-Brown is an interdisciplinary social scientist with expertise on: the uptake of HIV-prevention and treatment services; behavioural economics; and the social and behavioural determinants of HIV risk. He is a Chief Research Officer at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town. Brendan’s research interests include: behavioural interventions to increase demand for health services and products; HIV testing; linkage to HIV care; HIV stigma; male circumcision; and age-disparate partnerships. His current research focus is on understanding the psychosocial and structural barriers to early antiretroviral therapy initiation, and testing interventions to help people living with HIV to access care and treatment. He is also conducting research on a novel intervention to improve handwashing and health among young children, and research to advance understanding of the factors contributing to high HIV incidence rates among young women in South Africa. Brendan holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Cape Town.

 

Ammaarah Martinus

Position: Director of Policy, Research and Analysis

Affiliation: Department of the Premier in the Western Cape

Ammaarah Martinus is currently the Director of Policy, Research and Analysis at the Western Cape Government in South Africa. There, she leads the behavioural insights portfolio (BI4GOV) and has done extensive work in implementing and evaluating behaviourally informed programmes and interventions within government, with the view to scale. Her recent work includes scaling a Growth Mindset pilot to schools in the Province and implementing a behaviourally informed smart water meter project during the recent water crisis in Cape Town. In her current role, she focuses on managing and implementing strategic programmes in the social sector in the Western Cape, as well as innovative research and policy development.

Anna Grimsrud

Position: Lead Technical Advisor in the Programmes and Advocacy Department

Affiliation: International AIDS Society (IAS)

Dr. Anna Grimsrud is the Lead Technical Advisor in the HIV Programmes and Advocacy Department at the International AIDS Society (IAS) where she leads the Differentiated Service Delivery portfolio of work. Dr Grimsrud has an MPH and PhD from the University of Cape Town and is a Deputy Editor of the Journal of the International AIDS Society.Her previous work includes research and teaching positions at the School of Public Health & Family Medicine at University of Cape Town and in monitoring and evaluation at the Treatment Action Campaign. Dr Grimsrud’s research focuses on differentiated service delivery and understanding loss to follow up in antiretroviral therapy programmes in collaboration with the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation,Médecins Sans Frontières and others.

Coceka Nogoduka

Position: Executive Manager for the National Strategic Plan (NSP)

Affiliation: South African National AIDS Council (SANAC)

Coceka Nogoduka has been with the SANAC Trust as the Executive Manager for the National Strategic Plan (NSP) Implementation since April 2019. She has also been acting as the Executive Manager for the Strategic Information Unit. She is a public health specialist with over eighteen years’ experience within the HIV and TB space. She is a graduate in medical technology and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Umea University in Sweden. Ms Nogoduka has previously served as a Director of HIV Programme in the Eastern Cape Provincial Government and has worked for various Non-Governmental Organizations inclusive of PEPFAR among others. She was seconded to SANAC by the Family Health International 360 to provide technical guidance to develop and design HIV prevention services for Key Populations (truckers, female sex workers, men who have sex with men), under a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Ms Nogoduka is a seasoned practitioner in HIV & TB response, policy implementation, stakeholder management, resource mobilization, strategic information management systems and good governance.

Dino Rech

Position: Chief Operating Officer for Health Programmes

Affiliation: The Aurum Institute

Dr. Dino Rech is the Chief Operating Officer for Health Programmes at the Aurum Institute and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the department of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University. He is a clinician, academic and social entrepreneur who has spent his career focused on how to use research, lean management principles, and technological innovation and apply them to clinical settings to improve efficiencies and outcomes in the primary health care (PHC) setting.Dr. Rech has worked across the spectrum of private, government and NGO healthcare sectors as a practising physician and as the founder and director of an emergency medicine practice as well as HIV prevention NGO, the Centre for HIV-AIDS Prevention Studies (CHAPS). More recently he worked at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation managing an international portfolio of investments focused on innovation to improve PHC service delivery and outcomes. He joined the Aurum Institute in 2018, as the Regional Chief Operating Officer responsible for Aurum’s health programme divisions. Dr. Rech is especially passionate about improving access to good quality healthcare on the continent and sees a careful balance of government, private sector and societal stakeholder needs and inputs as key to achieving this. He obtained both his Medical and MBA degrees at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Francois Venter

Position: Head of Ezintsha

Affiliation: Ezintsha

Professor WD Francois Venter, MD, FCP, PhD is the Head of Ezintsha at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where he received most of his training. He has an active interest in public sector access to HIV services. His work involves health systems research that directly translates into national programmes, most recently involving the antiretrovirals, dolutegravir and TAF. He leads multiple antiretroviral treatment optimisation studies, and is currently working on new first and second line options, as well as patient linkage-to-care interventions and self-testing projects. He has led large PEPFAR-funded HIV programmes in South Africa, focusing on men, women, children, young people, truckers, sex workers and LGBTI communities. For over 20 years he has been an advisor to bodies such as the South African government, UNAIDS and WHO, contributing to international, regional and national HIV guidelines. He was part of the South African government’s Ministerial Advisory Committee providing advice regarding a national response to the epidemic. He is currently a member of the Department of Science and Technology’s Research and Innovation Committee, advising on COVID-19 research and innovation needs. He has been involved in several HIV-related human rights cases within the Southern African region, and has an active interest in medical ethics. He supervises a large number of Masters and PhD projects. Recent work has included publications in Lancet HIV, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Communications, AIDS and PLOS Medicine.

Josef Tayag

Position: Senior private sector financing advisor

Affiliation: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Josef Tayag is a global health expert in organizational design, healthcare marketing, health systems financing, and program management in emerging markets. He currently manages a portfolio of investments dedicated toward delivering health care services to marginalized communities. Mr. Tayag advises ministries of health on health system reforms and helps entrepreneurs grow health sector businesses. Currently, Mr. Tayag is the Health Economics Advisor for USAID Mission to South Africa. He works on multisectoral and private sector approaches in the HIV and AIDS global response within PEPFAR. He earned his M.S. in health policy and management at Harvard University, and a B.A. at the University of California Berkeley.

Justine Burns

Position: Professor 

Affiliation: University of Cape Town (UCT) Research Unit in Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics (RUBEN)

Prof. Justine Burns is a Professor in the School of Economics, and a research associate of the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit. Her research interests include behavioural and experimental economics, trust and social capital, discrimination, labour markets and social networks, and intergenerational mobility. Her experimental work has focused on the effects of racial identity and income inequality on individual decision-making, as well as group co-operation in the provision of public goods. More recently, she led a project that incorporated behavioural nudge principles into the design and implementation of provincial government policy in the areas of health, safety, energy efficiency and education. She has also completed work leveraging behavioural insights to increase hand washing practice amongst children.
 

Kevin Volpp

Position: Director and Distinguished Professor

Affiliation: University of Pennyslvania Center for Health Incentives & Behavioral Economics (CHIBE)

Dr. Volpp is the founding Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics (CHIBE) and the Founders President’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics and Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine and Health Care Management at the Wharton School. He is also the Division Chief for Health Policy for the Department of Medical Ethics and Policy and a Co-Director of the Penn Clinical and Translational Science Award initiative. He is a core faculty member of the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion (CHERP) and a board certified practicing physician at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. Dr. Volpp’s work focuses on developing and testing innovative ways of applying insights from behavioral economics in improving patient health behavior and affecting provider performance. He worked with a variety of employers, insurers, health systems, and consumer companies in testing the effectiveness of different behavioral economic strategies in addressing tobacco dependence, obesity, and medication non-adherence. Dr. Volpp has published more than 275 papers. Dr. Volpp’s work has been recognized by a number of awards including the Matilda White Riley Award for career achievement by the Office of Social and Behavioral Science at NIH, the Association for Clinical and Translational Science Distinguished Investigator Award for Career Achievement and Contribution to Clinical and Translational Science, the Alice Hersh Award from Academy Health, the John Thompson Prize from the Association of University Programs in Health Administration; a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the British Medical Journal Group Award for Translating Research into Practice, and multiple ‘best paper of the year’ awards from different societies. Dr. Volpp is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Association of American Physicians (AAP), and the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences (NAM).

Linda-Gail Bekker

Position: Physician-scientist

Affiliation: Desmond Tutu Health Foundation (DTHF)

Prof. Linda-Gail Bekker is a physician-scientist and infectious disease specialist with a keen interest in HIV, tuberculosis and related diseases. Her doctoral work focused on the host response to Tuberculosis both with and in the absence of HIV co-infection. ​As the current Deputy Director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre (DTHC) at the University of Cape Town and the Chief Research Officer at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation (DTHF), her research interests have expanded to include programmatic and Health Service research around antiretroviral roll-out and TB integration, prevention of HIV in women, adolescents, and men who have sex with men. She is passionate about community development and engagement; her most recent community projects have included community-based HIV treatment, peer-led community education, mobile health services (Tutu testers), a comprehensive youth centre providing recreation, education and SRH services to youth from peri-urban settings and dedicated adolescent HIV care services. Prof Bekker has served as advisor to the US President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Program ​and is a past president of the International AIDS Society. Her interest in prevention sciences​ and the testing of biomedical technologies including HIV vaccines, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and microbicides have given her international renown in these fields. In recent years, the ​DTHC & DTHF have developed expertise in a number of key populations including pregnant women, adolescents, men who have sex with men and other difficult to reach populations.

Marissa Courey

Position: Health Economist

Affiliation: Resource Optimization Team in the Office of Health Systems (OHS), Bureau for Global Health

Dr. Marissa Courey has recently joined the Resource Optimization Team in the Office of Health Systems (OHS), Bureau for Global Health as a Health Economist.  Prior to joining OHS, Dr. Courey was the CDC-South Africa Chief of the Health Systems Strengthening Branch, after serving as Prevention Branch Chief, Surveillance Lead, and Associate Director for Science for CDC Central Asia Region (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan). In South Africa, Dr. Courey led the deployment of patient-level health information systems, scaling differentiated service delivery, the development of human resources information system, the institutionalization of an e-learning platform for public sector workers, and contributed to intensive site-level monitoring and quality improvement initiatives. Dr. Courey served as the agreement officer representative for three cooperative agreements, the co-chair of the PEPFAR interagency Health System Strengthening Technical Working Group and worked closely with colleagues at the National Department of Health (NDoH) on health system investments underpinning the rapid scale up of HIV direct service delivery.  In Central Asia, Dr. Courey supervised both the HIV prevention and strategic information teams, served as primary investigator on the national integrated bio-behavioral survey to measure HIV prevalence and risk behavior among people who inject drugs and female sex workers, served as a senior technical advisor on monitoring and evaluation for seven cooperative agreements, and served as the regional interagency strategic information advisor.  In her three years working in Central Asia, she worked intensively with the Ministries of Health in Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan to expand quality harm reduction services for people who inject drugs with a key focus being the scale up of medicated assisted therapy for the treatment of opioid dependency to reduce HIV incidence and improve HIV treatment adherence for people living with HIV and opioid dependency.  Dr. Courey first joined CDC in 2011 as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Division of Global HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis (DGHT), working on priority scientific activities in the Office of the Director.  Following completion of her fellowship, Dr. Courey joined the Health Economics and Finance team, in the Health Systems and Integration Branch of DGHT.  From 2013-2014, she provided health economic and strategic information related technical assistance to PEPFAR programs in Malawi, Tanzania, Ukraine, Cambodia, India, Burma, and Papua New Guinea. She provided technical assistance on implementing PEPFAR data systems, developing protocols for program and economic evaluation, and economic and financial data use for decision-making.   In 2015, she was detailed to the Interagency Collaborative for Program Improvement (ICPI) at the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) where she supported the creation of data synthesis tools, target-setting methodologies, and developed data use capacity building materials. Dr. Courey completed her doctoral training in health economics and epidemiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and her Masters of Science in Demography and Economic Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science.  She has published on a range of topics including the role of gaming income on American Indian health outcomes, the role of future orientation in determining adolescent health behaviors, and economic evaluations of health technologies in resource-constrained settings.  Dr. Courey will serve as the Resource Optimization Team’s primary point of contact for economic evaluation, health technology assessment, private sector finance, economic data use and interpretation, and behavioral economics applications.  

Mosima Mabunda

Position: Medical and business professional

Affiliation: Discovery/Vitality

Dr Mabunda is the Head of Wellness at Discovery Vitality.  In her capacity as the Head of Wellness, she is responsible for developing wellness solutions and initiatives that encourage member adoption of protective health behaviours. Dr Mabunda has a diverse health industry experienced gained both in South Africa and the United Kingdom. She has worked as Assistant Product Development Director at Roche UK; Head of Wellness at Momentum Metropolitan Holdings, Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company and most recently Associate Director in Accenture’s Health business. Dr Mabunda holds an MBA from the University of Oxford and an MBChB from the University of Cape Town.

Quarraisha Abdool Karim

Position: Associate Scientific Director

Affiliation: Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)

Prof. Quarraisha Abdool Karim is an NRF A1-rated scientist, an infectious diseases epidemiologist and Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA. She is Professor in Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia University, New York and Pro-Vice Chancellor for African Health, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Prof Abdool Karim is the UNAIDS Special Ambassador for Adolescents and HIV and co-chairs the UNAIDS Advisory Group to the Executive Director.Her research over the past 32 years has focused on the evolving HIV epidemic and HIV infection in young women. Abdool Karim has over 200 peer reviewed publications; edited several books and contributed to several book chapters. She has played a central role in building the science base in southern Africa through the Columbia University - Southern African Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Programme.She holds Fellowships at the: The World Academy of Science, Royal Society of South Africa, Academy of Science of South Africa and the African Academy of Science and is a member of the USA National Academy of Medicine. Prof Abdool Karim’s scientific contributions has been recognised by more than 30 local and international prestigious awards. She received the African Union’s Kwame Nkrumah Prize for Science and Technology and the TWAS-Lenovo Prize from The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS); the ASSAf Science-for-Society Gold Medal; the South African Medical Research Council Gold Medal; the 2016 L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science award for Africa and the Arab States; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Human Virology in the US; the 2018 Ward Cates Spirit Award, 2020 Chistophe Merieux Award for Infectious Diseases Research and is the co-recipient of2020 John Dirks-Canadian Gairdner Global Public Health Laureate Award.She received an honorary degree (Honoris Causa) from the University of Johannesburg for her contributions to HIV/AIDS prevention research and the African Leadership Award in the scientific category from the Movement of Senegal Companies. Prof Abdool Karim is a member of the UNAIDS 2025 target setting and resource mobilization Steering Committee; the WHO ARV Guidelines Committee; the Alliance for Sexual and Reproductive Health; andScientific Advisory Board of the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). She is a Living Legend for the City of Durban – an honour bestowed by the city for citizens who have made an exemplary contribution to increase the profile of the city nationally and internationally. She is Executive Group Member of the WHO Solidarity Covid-19 Trials for Therapeutics and for Vaccines.

Romy Overmeyer

Position: Senior Technical Advisor

Affiliation: South Africa Department of Health (DOH)

Ms Overmeyer has worked at senior management levels in private and the public sector, with extensive experience in funded environments.She currently plays an advisory role at the South African National Department of Health (NDoH) working directly with the Deputy Director General of Communicable and Non-communicable diseases, Prevention and Rehabilitation for the last 3 years, HIV/AIDS, STI, TB, MNCWH and NCD program managers, as well as the Monitoring and Evaluation, Health Management Information Systems, District Health Services, and the Strategic Planning units at the NDoH.She is the Project Lead for Operation Phuthuma at the NDoH which is responsible for managing and driving implementation of key interventions to achieve HIV and TB program targets across South Africa.
At the NDoH, Romy has led the work on national target setting, cascade development, and operational plan development at District-level for the last 3 years. She collated and wrote the HIV section of the 2015 Antenatal Surveillance Survey report for publication and was a co-author on the 2019 District Health Barometer, published by HST.Romy led the Monitoring and Evaluation work on the implementation of the Ward-based Primary Health Care Outreach Team (WBPHCOT) Policy and Framework, which involved developing the M&E framework, indicator set and data collection tools for the program. She was the NDoH project lead for the District Implementation Plans, and the PEPFAR Surge program.Romy has worked across all provinces in this capacity and have engaged with SANAC, PEPFAR, UNAIDS, WHO, Office of the Deputy President, and other major funders and government organisations.She is a member of the global HIV Monitoring Technical Advisory Group (MTAG) coordinated by WHO and UNAIDS, as well as the core working group responsible for redrafting the WHO Strategic Information Guidelines.

Solange Baptiste

Position: Executive Director

Affiliation: International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC)

Solange Baptiste is Executive Director of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC). She leads community activists and allies across the globe to deliver ITPC’s mission to enable people in need to access optimal and affordable HIV treatment through treatment education, demand creation, community-based monitoring and interventions to make medicines more affordable. Solange has over 15 years of global program management and advocacy experience and specializes in monitoring and evaluation. She has a depth of knowledge in social epidemiology, health financing and community systems strengthening in the developing world through her work on USAID/PEPFAR health and development, bilateral and multi-county projects across Africa and Asia. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Tuskegee University and her Master of Science in Population and International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Solange is committed to ensuring that the voice of affected communities contributes to and influences the decisions and policies that affect their lives.

Sydney Rosen

Position: Research Professor in the Department of Global Health at the Boston University School of Public Health and a Co-Director of the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO)

Affiliation: Boston University (BU)

Prof Sydney Rosen, M.P.A., is a Research Professor in the Department of Global Health at the Boston University School of Public Health and a Co-Director of the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO) of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research addresses the economic consequences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and in particular the outcomes, costs, cost-effectiveness, and benefits of HIV treatment interventions and models of service delivery. She is also involved in research on tuberculosis, hepatitis C, and noncommunicable diseases. She is the principal investigator of multiple USAID-, NIH-, and foundation-supported studies and evaluations in South Africa, with other research underway in Zambia, Malawi, and elsewhere. She is also the author of policy and review papers on the business response to AIDS, the rationing of antiretroviral therapy (ART), the retention of patients in HIV/AIDS care and treatment programs, and same-day ART initiation. Professor Rosen’s technical training is in policy analysis and applied economics. She holds a BA magna cum laude from Harvard University and an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Caroline Govathson Mandimika

Position: Indlela Senior Nudge Associate

Organization: Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office

heroza/caroline-mandimika

Caroline joined Indlela upon its inception in 2020, as a senior nudge associate. She is a qualified pharmacist, epidemiologist and health economist with over nine years’ experience in research across Zimbabwe and South Africa. Her work has been focused on HIV/AIDS Prevention of Mother to Child transmission trials (HPTN 046 and PROMISE), costing of different health delivery models, and HIV/AIDS & TB epidemiological studies. She has also worked as a faculty member at the University of Zimbabwe School of Pharmacy and the University of the Witwatersrand School of Public Health in South Africa. Caroline is currently a researcher at the Health Economics and Epidemiology Office (HE2RO) and holds an appointment with the University of Witwatersrand. Whilst at HE2RO, she has been a part of efforts to build capacity in health economics by working in collaboration with the World Health Organization to hold cost-effectiveness and costing workshops. One of her main interests is in the use of differentiated models of care to increase access and utilisation of HIV services. Some of her recent work has been using discrete choice experiments to quantify preferences of different groups for HIV services.

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