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Photo of Mabel Namubuya Nangami

, PhD

Associate Professor, Health Policy and Health Systems Management

Moi University

Photo of Joseph Wong

, PhD

Vice President, International

University of Toronto, Office of the Vice-President International

Photo of Trevor Young

, PhD

Vice-President, Provost

University of Toronto

Photo of Dawit Wondimagegn Gebreamlak

, MD

Associate Professor, Addis Ababa University Consultant Psychiatrist, Tikur Anbessa Hospital Associate professor, Addis Ababa University, Co-chair and Director, Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration-TAAAC National Lead, African Health Observatory Platform- Ethiopia National Centre

Addis Ababa University

Photo of Wilfred Ndifon

, PhD

Professor, Theoretical Biology and Chief Scientific Officer at AIMS

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

Photo of Gwen Burrows

Assistant Vice-President, International Engagement & Impact

University of Toronto, Office of the Vice-President International

Photo of David Palmer

Vice President, Advancement

University of Toronto

Photo of Charles Mberi Kimpolo

, PhD

Director, Industry Initiative and Head of the Next Einstein Forum

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

Photo of Chris Suzdak

Director, ALX Ventures

African Leadership University

Photo of Caroline Mbindyo

CEO, Amref Health Innovation

Amref International University

Profile

Mabel Namubuya Nangami, PhD

Associate Professor, Health Policy and Health Systems Management

Moi University

Mabel Namubuya Nangami is a distinguished researcher, trainer, and curriculum expert, with over 30 years of extensive experience in teaching and research work. She is currently an Associate Professor in health policy and health systems management and the Dean of the School of Public Health at Moi University. She has facilitated JAS 4 seminar under the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) doctoral program. As a trainer, she has consulted for the Ministry of Health-Kenya on the Leadership and Management support program under Management Sciences for Health to train in Health Systems Management; designed curriculum and manuals on Monitoring and Evaluation of Pillar 1 (HIV & AIDS); and middle-level managers and policymakers in health systems management under the Collaborative project between AMREF & MU. She consulted for the Institute of Health Policy Management and Research (IHPMR) on operations research under the Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS) for improving Service Delivery in Reproductive Health.

Mabel has been involved in undertaking situation analyses of Human Resources for Health training institutions and their networks in Eastern and Southern Africa, focusing on Health Systems Management activities, and conducted the evaluation of community health programs for Amref Health Africa and the Kenya Red Cross, among others. She has been a Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-PI on several grants and published research on HIV & AIDS, maternal and child health in areas with a policy and health system focus, as well as curriculum development in various areas of public health. She served as deputy project lead and co-Investigator on the NACOSTI/IDRC funded 1st Health Systems Research Chair awarded to Prof. Fabian Esamai at Moi University in 2014-2020, titled: A System Approach to Improving Maternal and Child Health Care Delivery in Kenya: Innovations at the Community Level and Primary Care Facilities. She was also a Co-Principal Investigator for the Cross Border Health Access project (which focuses on HIV&AIDS, delivery, and immunization services) funded by MRC/WELCOME TRUST and awarded to Makerere University in 2018-2020. Currently, she is working as a Co-PI with Prof. Constance Tenge on building the capacity of select counties to prevent Sickle cell disease (SCD) towards building a national registry for SCD and collaborating with the University of Toronto to set up a center of Excellence in health systems strengthening through a primary health care approach towards achieving Universal Health Coverage for devolved health units in Kenya.

Email Address
mabel.nangami@mu.ac.ke
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Kenya
Profile

Joseph Wong, PhD

Vice President, International

University of Toronto

Joseph Wong is the University of Toronto’s Vice President, International. He is also the Roz and Ralph Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, and a Professor of Political Science.

He was the Director of the Asian Institute at the Munk School from 2005 to 2014, and held the Canada Research Chair in health, democracy and development for a full two terms, 2006 to 2016.

Joe is the author of many academic articles and several books, including Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics In Taiwan and South Korea and Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia’s Developmental State, both published by Cornell University Press.

He is the co-editor, with Edward Friedman, of Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose, published by Routledge, and Wong co-edited with Dilip Soman and Janice Stein Innovating for the Global South with the University of Toronto Press.

Professor Wong’s articles have appeared in journals such as Annual Review of Political Science, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Politics and Society, Governance, among many others.

Professor Wong has been a visiting scholar at institutions in the US, Taiwan, Korea, and the UK; has worked extensively with the World Bank and the UN; and has advised governments on matters of public policy in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe.

Joe’s current research focuses on poverty and innovation. Professor Wong is the founder of the Reach Alliance at the University of Toronto (http://reachalliance.org/). He is also collaborating with Professor Dan Slater (Michigan) on a book about Asia’s development and democracy, currently under contract with Princeton University Press.

Professor Wong is also writing a book for the Cambridge University Press on the political economy of the welfare state in East Asia. Professor Wong teaches courses in the department of Political Science, the Munk One program and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. Joe was educated at McGill University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Email Address
joe.wong@utoronto.ca
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Canada
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Trevor Young, PhD

Vice-President, Provost

University of Toronto

Trevor Young is Acting Vice-President & Provost at the University of Toronto.

Professor Young is Dean of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and and Vice Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions since 2015.

Previously, he was Physician-in-Chief, Executive Vice President Programs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Professor Young is a clinician-scientist who studies the molecular basis of bipolar disorder and its treatment. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and has held more than 35 peer-reviewed grants.

Email Address
trevor.young@utoronto.ca
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Canada
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Dawit Wondimagegn Gebreamlak, MD

Associate Professor, Addis Ababa University Consultant Psychiatrist, Tikur Anbessa Hospital Associate professor, Addis Ababa University, Co-chair and Director, Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration-TAAAC National Lead, African Health Observatory Platform- Ethiopia National Centre

Addis Ababa University

Dr. Dawit Wondimagegn is the former Chief Executive Director of the College of Health Sciences (CHS), Vice President of Addis Ababa University (AAU), Chair of AAU’s, Department of Psychiatry and Director of Graduate Programs for AAU, CHS in Ethiopia. Currently he is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at AAU, a Consultant Psychiatrist, Tikur Anbessa Hospital, Co-chair and Director, Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration-TAAAC and the National Lead, African Health Observatory Platform- Ethiopia National Centre.

Through his numerous activities as a clinical and health systems leader, global mental health expert, IPT expert, and researcher, he is helping to decrease stigma and improve access to mental healthcare. An Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at AAU, he co-leads with Marci Rose the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration to develop post-graduate subspecialty training programs in numerous areas of medicine, primary care and nursing in Ethiopia.

He has published in the areas of global mental health, family medicine, medical ethics, psychotherapy knowledge translation, and post-partum depression. He was a primary investigator of two Grand Challenges Canada funded projects – The Biaber Project, to scale up screening and mental health care in Ethiopian primary care settings; and to engage with Ethiopian traditional healers, using a collaborative care model to increase the identification and treatment of psychiatric disorders. He has culturally adapted IPT for Ethiopia (IPT-E) and led IPT workshops for psychiatry residents at AAU and University of Toronto. The Biaber Project enabled the training of >500 Ethiopian primary care nurses in IPT-E.

Email Address
dawit.wondimagegn@aau.edu.et
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Ethiopia
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Wilfred Ndifon, PhD

Professor, Theoretical Biology and Chief Scientific Officer at AIMS

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

Wilfred Ndifon is Professor of Theoretical Biology and the Chief Scientific Officer at AIMS, a Pan-African network of higher-education institutes dedicated to catalyzing Africa’s socio-economic transformation through advanced training and research in mathematical sciences.

He has made important contributions to a range of topics at the interface of mathematics and biology, including discovering a mechanism that allows flu viruses to escape from antibodies, with significant implications for the design of more effective flu vaccines; a physical mechanism that governs the generation of T-cell diversity via genetic recombination; and a unified mechanistic explanation for the age-old problem of the original antigenic sin. Recently, he led the development of a new mathematical approach to pooled testing, which has produced substantial testing-efficiency gains in field applications conducted in both Rwanda and South Africa. He took his PhD at Princeton.

Email Address
wndifon@nexteinstein.org
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Rwanda
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Gwen Burrows

Assistant Vice-President, International Engagement & Impact

University of Toronto

Gwen Burrows is Assistant Vice-President, International Engagement & Impact at the University of Toronto.

The Assistant Vice-President, International Engagement and Impact (AVP IEI) collaborates with colleagues across the university and internationally to advance the University of Toronto’s global excellence and impact in research, its translation, and in teaching and learning. The Assistant Vice-President leads and executes the University’s integrated international strategy across multiple dimensions, with a particular focus on region-specific engagement strategies and the development of partnerships to maximize global impact.

Gwen was Executive Director in the Office of the Vice President International for five years before becoming AVP IEI and in that role, supported the creation and implementation of the University’s first international strategic plan, and led the development of key international partnerships in a number of regions around the world. Gwen came to the University from The Hospital for Sick Children, where she held a number of leadership positions, including Executive Director, Public Affairs and Child Health Advocacy. As Director, Strategic Projects for the SickKids Research Institute from 2006-2013, amongst other accomplishments Gwen co-led a successful $227 million Canada Foundation for Innovation grant proposal and its implementation to support the vision guiding the development of the Peter Gilligan Centre for Research and Learning. Gwen holds a Master’s in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins and a BA from McGill University.

Email Address
gwen.burrows@utoronto.ca
Profile Type
Staff
Country
Canada
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

David Palmer

Vice President, Advancement

University of Toronto

Since 2007, David has served as Vice-President, Advancement for the University of Toronto.  Under David’s leadership, U of T launched Boundless which concluded in 2018 as the largest campaign in Canadian history with $2.64 billion raised.   

David is a Senior Fellow of Massey College, a Council for Advancement and Support of Education Laureate and former trustee, an executive committee member of the National Council of Foundation Executives, and a director of the Earth Rangers Foundation. He earned his Master of Fine Arts in musicology from Princeton University and began his career as a Lecturer in the Faculty of Music at Western University, his undergraduate alma mater.

From 1999 to 2007, David served as President and Executive Director of the Royal Ontario Museum Board of Governors. From 1993 to 1999, David led a ground-breaking campaign for the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University, ushering in a new era in professional-faculty fundraising in Canada.

David was recognized in 2011 with the Outstanding Fundraising Professional Award by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. In 2016 he was recognized with the Outstanding Achievement Award by the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education.

Email Address
davidnpalmer@utoronto.ca
Profile Type
Staff
Country
Canada
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Charles Mberi Kimpolo, PhD

Director, Industry Initiative and Head of the Next Einstein Forum

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

Dr. Charles Lebon Mberi Kimpolo is the Director of the Industry Initiative and Head of the Next Einstein Forum (NEF) at the Global Network Secretariat of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences – Next Einstein Initiative (AIMS-NEI).

For the last couple of years, Charles brought strategic oversight and direction to the AIMS Industry Initiative across the Network, with the aim to broaden the scope and breadth of partnerships with industry in Africa and beyond. Charles leads the implementation of Work Integrated Learning programs at AIMS to develop new industry needs-driven capacity development programs and support AIMS graduates in their transition to employment, entrepreneurship and further study. Charles’s dream is to position AIMS-NEI as the industry’s leading academic partner in Africa that achieves industry and economic advancement of the continent. 

Charles is a passionate scientist, technologist and change agent with over 15 years of industry experience in data analysis, business intelligence and project management. Charles’s experience includes teaching and research in the field of Computational and Applied Mathematics. He also has hands-on experience in agile software development, delivery and consulting; and client engagement working in Africa, the United States and Asia. Charles holds a Ph.D. in Computational and Applied Mathematics from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in South Africa.

Charles has contributed to several global consultations and conferences on the global education industry, in particular. He has authored several blogs and articles to share his perspectives on a number of topics including Work-Integrated Learning as a pathway to stimulate youth transition to employment and entrepreneurship in Africa. Charles is a member of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. Charles joined a group of global experts to participate in the Programme Committee for the United Nations World Data Forum (UNWDF). He is also a member of the Global Strategy Council of the World Association for Cooperative Education (WACE)

Charles founded the Young African Technologists (YAT) that is aimed at promoting education through technology in underprivileged African communities. During his 2-year stay in India, Charles supported African students through the Knowledge Sharing Campaign (KSC) that he founded to empower the African student diaspora and reverse brain drain. 

Email Address
ckimpolo@nexteinstein.org
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Rwanda
Governance
HEMP Pillar Advisory Commitee
Profile

Chris Suzdak

Director, ALX Ventures

African Leadership University

Chris Suzdak is based in Mauritius and serves as the Director of ALX Ventures, which develops, connects and funds early-stage tech entrepreneurs emerging from the African Leadership Group ecosystem.

Chris also leads The FutureList, a global platform and community that spotlights tech innovators and connects them with investors, talent and partners. He previously started and scaled up teams in the fintech, agtech and edtech sectors across Africa. He’s passionate about finding and supporting the next big thing.

Email Address
csuzdak@sandtech.com
Country
Rwanda
Governance
HEMP Pillar Advisory Commitee
Profile

Caroline Mbindyo

CEO, Amref Health Innovation

Amref International University

Ms. Mbindyo is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Amref Health Innovations.

She is an experienced leader at the intersection of digital innovation, global health, and international development. She has extensive experience in driving complex program deployments in multiple countries, scaling innovations, and developing new business opportunities through innovative financing models in emerging markets. She has over fifteen (15) years of experience running and growing entrepreneurial ventures in the non-profit and commercial space, implementing access programs, and deploying innovative approaches for profit, purpose, and sustainability. Ms. Mbindyo is a Board Member of D-Tree and Qhala and is on the Advisory Board of Analytics for a Better World.

Email Address
caroline.mbindyo@amref.org
Profile Type
Staff
Country
Kenya
Governance
HEMP Pillar Advisory Commitee