CURRENT MEMBERS
Martin Nyaaba Adokiya PhD MPH is Associate Professor of Global Health and Vice-Dean at the School of Public Health, University for Development Studies, Ghana. He is a former Head of the Department of Health Sciences Education, Department of Pediatric Nursing, and Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Disease Control. He has taught, mentored and supervised many students from Ghana and other countries including Benin, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. He has also served as an external examiner at universities in Ghana and Nigeria. Martin has received more than 20 grants/fellowships/awards from Fogarty International Centre, Joint WHO-AFRO/TDR/EDCTP, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals. He has served as consultant to different national and international organizations. He is committed to Global North-South and South-South collaborations in education, research, and implementation.
Wentiirim Annankra MD grew up in Ghana and often travelled with an organization that mobilized volunteer medical personnel, medical resources, and visited rural areas in Ghana for the past two decades to offer free medical care. She focused her work on reducing health disparities in medically underserved areas. In 2016, Wentiirim graduated from Calvin University in Michigan with a BSc degree in Biochemistry (Honors). She also served as a chemistry research intern at AbbVie, in North Chicago, IL and with Franciscan Institute for World Health, where she helped synthesize a treatment of neglected tropical filarial diseases. In 2020, she graduated from Medical School for International Health (MSIH) in Beersheva, Israel. She is currently a pediatric resident at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.
A. Mark Clarfield MD* is triply certified in Family medicine, Community Medicine and Geriatrics. While still in Canada he was Head of Geriatrics and Asst. Dean of Students at McGill University. Moving to Israel in 1992, he headed the Ministry of Health’s Division of Geriatrics until 2000, then moved to Soroka Hospital/Ben-Gurion University (BGU) where he headed the Geriatrics Department from 2001-2009. From 2009-18 he was the Director of the Medical School for International Health and Vice Dean at the Faculty of Health Sciences at BGU. Having retired (from his salary) in 2019, he continues to teach at BGU and is head of the Faculty’s new Centre for Global Health. In his spare time, Dr. Clarfield enjoys reading, writing, travel and performing in his folk music band, The Unstrung Heroes.
David Davies PhD* is a graduate of the University of Birmingham in the UK and is currently Reader at Warwick Medical School and Deputy Chair of the Faculty of Science, Engineering at the University of Warwick. His education and research interests have centered around the use of technology to enhance learning in international settings. Dr. Davies has a long standing interest in international education, especially using technology to enhance learning, and has experience in forming and sustaining partnerships in education. He has worked with colleagues in Malawi and Tanzania to develop a model for clinical leadership and service improvement training. He has formerly been the academic coordinator for medical student electives exchanges, and is currently supervising a PhD doctoral research student investigating the qualities of effective global health education exchange partnerships.
Marilyn A DeLuca PhD RN is Founder and President of the consultancy Global Health-Systems-Philanthropy and adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Medicine and Associate Professor, College of Nursing, NYU. Her expertise incudes global health, systems strengthening, health workforce, and inter-professional and global health education. An advisor to public and private sectors, she consults on global and domestic health issues. A professional nurse, Dr. DeLuca held leadership roles in critical care and as a member of Executive Medical Center and Regional Management teams in the Veterans Health Administration. She earned a PhD in health policy, comparative health systems and the politics of reform at NYU and her publications include peer-reviewed journal papers, chapters and two books, including Transforming the Global Health Workforce. Recent impactful work includes as a contributor to the landmark WHO report, Global Strategy for Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030, which currently drives national SDGs and 2030 targets. Dr. DeLuca partners with stakeholders to advance education and training of health professionals and serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of Training for Health Equity and as a member of the BGHEI Leadership Group.
Ashti Doobay-Persaud MD is Associate Professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She leads the Section on Global Health, co-directs the Center for Global Health Education, assists the Master of Science in Global Health program, and is a core faculty member in global and community health. She is internationally recognized for her work in ethical practices and competency-based curriculum development in global health. She collaborates internationally to promote locally-driven teaching and training, focusing on palliative care, simulation education, and faculty development. As an active member of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), she has served and led various education-related committees and was awarded the prestigious CUGH’s Hall-Sewankambo Leadership Award. Additionally, she is an Academic Editor for PLOS Global Public Health and an editor for Pedagogy in Health Promotion and Frontiers in Education.
Bishan Garg MD PhD* is Director-Professor in the Department of Community Medicine and Director of Dr. Sushila Nayar School of Public Health at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (MGIMS), Sewagram, Wardha, India. He is also in charge of the WHO Collaborative Centre for Research & Training in Community Based Maternal, Newborn & Child Health. Earlier, he was Dean of the Institute and at present also works as Secretary of Kasturba Health Society (Management body of MGIMS). He has been awarded more than 70 research projects, published more than 164 papers and served as consultant to WHO (SEARO), DFID, CRS, USAID and various International and National Agencies on issues of public health concern.
Janet P Hafler EdD* is Associate Dean for Educational Scholarship, Professor in Pediatrics, and works both in Graduate Medical Education and Undergraduate Medical Education. As Director of the Teaching and Learning Center her focus is on enhancing the work of the Yale faculty in their teaching, curriculum development, and assessment. Promoting, influencing and nurturing a climate in which physicians, residents and students can teach — and learn — has been foremost among her career objectives. Dr. Hafler is in medical education, with a focus on global health education. She collaborates with and mentors faculty on the elements of qualitative research in the field of medical education and in medical care. In turn, mentored faculty members have learned to develop and demonstrate the tools necessary to effectively teach and lead others.
Jianlin Hou PhD MA MSPH is an Associate Research Professor at the Institute of Medical Education, Peking University. Dr. Hou’s education background is in sociology and health policy management. He received a doctorate degree from China Academy of Social Science, a master degree from Beijing Medical University, and a MSPH degree from UNC-Chapel Hill. In addition to studying relevant international experiences on health professional education, he participated in writing a chapter, “Advancing Collaborative Global Education Programs,” in “The Transformation of Academic Health Centers: Meeting the Challenges of Healthcare’s Changing Landscape” that was published by the Academic Press (AP).
Binil Mathew Jacob BA was born in south India but moved (and kept moving) with his family from a young age. For the past 24 years, he has lived and studied in Romania, Indonesia, Morocco, Nigeria, India, the United States, France, Azerbaijan, and now Israel. These experiences have exposed him to significant inequalities in access and delivery of healthcare, and serve as reminders for the need for continued work in reducing these disparities. In 2018, Binil graduated from Washington University in St Louis with a double major in Biochemistry and French (BA, Honors) where he was involved with both Barnes Jewish Hospital and SSM St Mary’s Hospital and additionally worked as a Resident Advisor. Currently, he is a second-year medical student at the Medical School for International Health (MSIH) in Beersheva, Israel learning from the city’s rich confluence of cultures and the school’s emphasis on global health. He has worked with engineering students from Ben Gurion University of the Negev to develop health technology devices and is currently involved in research with neonatologists at Soroka Hospital and hospitals in Kumasi, Ghana.
Gautam Kalyatanda MD is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at the University of Florida. He serves as the Education Director and the Associate Program Director for the university’s Infectious Disease fellowship. His interests include building curricula that explore the role of anthropology and culture in health, using technology for collaborative learning in global health, and developing evaluation methods for global health learning. He collaborates and publishes with colleagues in India, South Africa, and Australia through his work in community health and tropical diseases.
Vikash R Keshri MBBS MD is a Senior Research Fellow with the George Institute for Global Health India and PhD Candidate with the George Institute and the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia. He is a medical doctor with specialization in Public Health and working in of global public health for more than a decade. He has worked closely with policymakers and health systems stakeholders in most resource constrained states in India and contributed significantly to policy change and health systems strengthening. His research interest centre around health policy analysis and human resource for health. He was inaugural ‘Keystone fellow’ for Health Policy and Systems Research in India and has received training in ‘Health Policy Analysis’ at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium. He has published in prestigious journals such as, the Lancet public health, BMJ Global Health, Human Resources for Health, Burns and spoken in many global and national
conferences.
Elsie Kiguli-Malwadde MBChB MMed MHPE is the Deputy Director and Director Health Workforce Education and Development at the African Center for Global Health and Social transformation (ACHEST), Kampala, Uganda. Before this, she was the Director of the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) Coordinating Center at the African Center for Global Health and Social Transformation (ACHEST). Until December 2010 she was an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Radiology at the College of Health Sciences, Makerere University. She is an Honorary Associate professor at the same University. She has served as external examiner at universities in Uganda, and Tanzania. She is a Fellow of the Foundation for the Advancement of Medical Education and Research (FAIMER). She is the Secretary General of the Network TUFH, President African Forum for Research and Education in Health (AFREhealth). Her main research interest is Health Professions Education.
Moira Alison Maley PhD MSc* originally trained as a medical research scientist, a matrix biologist, then a biomedical science/pathology teacher. She maintained a strong interest in experiential learning and sought formal qualification in medical education. As an Associate Professor in Medical Education Technology in The Rural Clinical School of Western Australia, she worked in a rural learning environment training rural doctors as teachers and academics, specializing in virtual resources, video learning and education technology. The rural context provided unique opportunities to work with highly motivated teachers and students trialing new approaches to improve learning outcomes. As a scholar her interests center on applying appropriate frameworks for reflection and transformative learning and in varied contexts.
Carmi Margolis MD MA* is a pediatrician and was founding Dean of the Medical School for International Health and Chair of the Center for Medical Education at Ben Gurion University. His three research areas are teaching clinical problem solving and decision making, the methodology of clinical practice guidelines and clinical algorithms, and implementation of clinical practice guidelines. During the last 11 years, he has invested much of his time in innovating methods for planning and evaluating Global Health Education.
Harriet Mayanja-Kizza MD* is Professor of Medicine at Makerere University. She was Chair of Medicine for 8 years, and Dean of the School of Medicine, Makerere University for 5 years. She is a former member of Senate and Council at Makerere University. She is currently the Director of the Makerere-Yale global health program. She has mentored and supervised many students and researchers at Makerere University, as well as in other African countries including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Namibia and South Africa, and has also served as external examiner at universities in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Africa. Harriet is a principal investigator at the Makerere Uganda CWRU research collaboration, mainly focused on tuberculosis research, specifically in the area of HIV/Tuberculosis co-interaction and immuno-pathogenesis. Harriet was a founding member of the Academic Alliance for AIDS Care and Prevention in Africa which developed the Makerere Infectious Disease Institute, an internationally renowned center of excellence in HIV/AIDS care, prevention and training.
Matthew McCabe MSc is a medical student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He is the student representative of his school’s World Medicine Pathway and the founding President of its Médecins Sans Frontières student chapter. His academic interests are in global health, women’s health, and the intersection of medicine and environmental conservation.
Thirusha Naidu PhD MClin Psych is a clinical psychologist practicing in the public health context in South Africa. Her interest in global health originates from her work as a Global South participant in global health research projects related to mental health and infectious diseases (HIV and MDR-TB). Her research focuses on global medical education exploring critical and theoretical perspectives including decolonial and feminist theories in health professions’ education, research and scholarship. She is a Fellow of the Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education.
Michael Peluso MD MPhil MHS* is an infectious disease clinical-translational physician-scientist at the University of California, San Francisco. His primary interests are HIV and COVID-19. He is involved with clinical and laboratory research aimed at understanding the HIV reservoir and implementing clinical trials to disrupt the reservoir with the aim of inducing antiretroviral therapy-free HIV remission. In addition, he manages a large observational study of people who previously had SARS-CoV-2 infection with the goal of understanding the long-term biological and immunological consequences of COVID-19, including post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) and Long COVID.
Kelsey Renning DNP APRN CPNP-PC is an honorary Massachusetts General Fellow in Global Clinical Education and previous Pediatric Critical Care Nurse Educator with Seed Global Health in Malawi. She has past experience as a nurse at Children’s Hospital Colorado and a Surgical Nurse Practitioner at Boston Children’s Hospital. In Malawi, she taught bachelor’s level pediatric acute and critical care courses, helped develop the nation’s first pediatric critical care master’s curriculum, and implemented a novel nurse preceptor program. She has a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree and Global Health Certificate from Duke University, where she served as co-president of Nursing Students Without Borders and led clinical trips to Guatemala and Tanzania. Kelsey is passionate about nursing professional development, pediatric quality improvement, and elevating the voices of vulnerable populations.
Jairo H Roa MD MSc Ed FACP is certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Medicine and Critical Care Medicine and has been a medical educator since 1988. He holds a Master’s Degree in Education with emphasis in curriculum development. He was an Associated Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana School of Medicine from 1994-1999. In 2004, he moved to the Fundacion Santa Fe de Bogota, and joined the effort to create a new medical school with the Universidad de los Andes. He was in charge of the international clerkships of medical students from 2005-2010. As chairman of the Department of Medicine of the Fundacion Santa Fe de Bogota, he is also responsible for placing medical residents in international rotations and receiving international medical students and residents in the Fundacion Santa Fe de Bogota’s network of hospitals and outpatient clinics.
Robert “Bob” Rohrbaugh MD* is Professor of Psychiatry, Deputy Dean for Professionalism and Leadership, and Associate Dean for Global Health Education at Yale School of Medicine. In the latter role he oversees elective course offerings, an international elective for preclinical students, a clinical elective program at 12 partner sites in low and middle income countries and in low resource sites in the US, and a Certificate in Global Medicine program for students meeting stringent requirements. In addition, Yale hosts over 100 international students to do a clinical elective at Yale, including students from partner sites. Along with Carmi Margolis and Anne Kellett, he obtained Rockefeller Foundation funding to host the inaugural BGHEI conference in Bellagio, Italy. He has consulted on the development of a competency based model for residency education at Xiangya School of Medicine, a version of which has been approved for dissemination throughout China.
Janette “Jenny” Samaan PhD* has been a BGHEI member since its inception and an international and medical educator for 30+ years. She has held numerous leadership positions in higher education institutions. She spent a decade with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), where she served as founding director of GHLO, a global network of medical schools, teaching hospitals, and NGOs that facilitated international rotations for medical students. Currently, Jenny is an independent consultant in global health education and international higher education. She holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa with a focus on international education and an M.A. in International Studies from Ohio University. As a bilingual, bi-cultural professional who has lived and worked internationally her entire career, she is committed to developing intercultural perspectives and global mindsets.
Boaz Shulruf PhD is Professor in Medical Education at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. His main research interest is in the area of psycho-educational assessment in higher education, particularly within the context of Medical and Health Sciences Education. Boaz’s expertise is in quantitative research methodologies and educational assessment and psychometrics. Boaz is an active member of a number of research groups in Australia New Zealand and overseas.
ALUMNI
Timothy F. Brewer MD MPH is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests focus on the prevention and control of infectious and emerging diseases in populations and on improving of outbreak surveillance programs. He has served on advisory boards and/or review panels for the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention among others. Dr. Brewer previously was Vice Provost, Interdisciplinary and Cross Campus Affairs at UCLA, Director of Global Health Programs at McGill Medical School and the founding Program Director for the International Society for Infectious Diseases. Dr. Brewer is the past Chair of the Board of Directors for the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.
Tobin Greensweig MD, a graduate of Ben Gurion University (BGU) Faculty of Health Sciences, Medical School for International Health. Tobin is currently an Internal Medicine and Pediatrics resident at Indiana University with an interest in global health informatics. Dr. Greensweig is an active contributor to the Open MRS software platform, an open source electronic medical records (EMR) system for use in the developing world. As part of this work, Dr. Greensweig established a partnership with the BGU Information. Systems Engineering department that paired medical students with engineering students to develop new additions to OpenMRS that were beta tested at a clinic for refugees in Tel Aviv, Israel. During his time as a medical student, Dr. Greensweig was an active member of the Global Health Working Group that collaborated with them to innovate on school’s global health curriculum. Dr. Greensweig presented this work at the GHEC/CUGH meeting in Montreal in 2011.
Susan van Schalkwyk PhD MPhil* is Professor in Health Professions Education and Director of the Centre for Health Professions Education in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University. Her work encompasses multiple facets of health professions education scholarship including the supervision of Master’s and PhD students, and faculty development. Research interests cover a range of topics related to learning and teaching in the health professions, with a specific focus on transformative learning theory, as well as strengthening postgraduate studies, doctoral supervision, and academic writing. She is currently the PI of a multi-institutional study that is placing undergraduate curricula under the spotlight in terms of their potential to deliver graduates who are both clinically competent AND critically conscious of the contexts within which they will work. The project seeks to advance a social justice agenda, an imperative that also characterizes her work on doctoral supervision and doctoral writing, and the powerful socio-political context within which debates around doctoral writing and the supervision thereof occur in South Africa.
Stephen C. (Steve) Schoenbaum MD MPH* is Special Advisor to the President of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. His particular interests include interprofessional education and collaborative practice as well as eliminating discrimination in health professions education. He has extensive experience as a clinician, epidemiologist, and manager. From 2000-2010, he was Executive Vice President for Programs at The Commonwealth Fund and Executive Director of its Commission on a High Performance Health System. Earlier, he was the medical director and then president of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of New England, a mixed model HMO delivery system in Providence, RI. In 2014, he chaired an ad hoc external committee that reviewed the medical schools in Israel; and he is an associate editor of the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research.
Juan Pablo Uribe MD* is the former Minister of Health and Social Protection of Colombia. He was formerly the Director General of the Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá, a leading organization in Colombia working in health care, health education and public health. Previously, he was the World Bank´s Health Sector Manager for East Asia and the Pacific. With master degrees in public health and public administration from the University of Michigan, he has held various positions in the public and private sectors, nationally and internationally, including former Vice Minister of Health for Colombia and senior health specialist for the World Bank in Latin America
*Founding members
Bellagio Global Health Education Initiative 