People Directory

Our team is the heartbeat of our collaborative efforts, comprising diverse experts from various fields. Each member brings unique skills and perspectives, uniting to drive innovation and impact in the health sector. Together, we are more than just a team; we are a community committed to transforming healthcare across Africa.

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People Directory

Photo of Wilfred Ndifon

, PhD

Professor, Theoretical Biology and Chief Scientific Officer at AIMS

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences

Photo of Nhlanhla Thwala

, PhD

Vice - Chancellor of Africa Leadership University

African Leadership University

Photo of Joachim Osur

, PhD

Vice Chancellor, Amref International University

Amref International University

Photo of Angela Owusu-Ansah

, PhD

Provost (Chief Academic Officer/Pro Vice Chancellor) at Ashesi University

Ashesi University

Photo of Ellis Owusu-Dabo

, PhD

Pro Vice-Chancellor, Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Photo of Papa Salif

, MD

Head of Health Initiatives, Mastercard Foundation

Mastercard Foundation

Photo of Mabel Namubuya Nangami

, PhD

Associate Professor, Health Policy and Health Systems Management

Moi University

Photo of Arti Singh

, PhD

Professor, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the KNUST School of Public Health

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Photo of Steve Reid

, MD

(Chair, Family and Community and Emergency Medicine)

University of Cape Town

Photo of Joseph Owusu

, BA, MBA, PhD

Professor, School of Business; Co-Chair, Health Ecosystem Pillar

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

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

Nhlanhla Thwala, PhD

Vice - Chancellor of Africa Leadership University

African Leadership University

Dr. Nhlanhla Thwala started his career in 1986 as a high school teacher in his native Eswatini after completing a BA in History and English, and a Diploma in Education.

In 1990, he completed an MA in Linguistics at Syracuse University. In 1994, he completed a PhD in formal Linguistics from the University of California in Los Angeles.

His post-PhD career started in Indiana University, Bloomington where he was a Visiting Scholar and Coordinator of the African Language Program from 1996 to June 1998. He then spent 16 years at Wits University, Johannesburg from June 1998 to May 2014 in various capacities including serving as the founding Head of the School of Literature, Language and Media (2001-2003), Director of the Wits Language School (2007-2014), Researcher at SOAS while on Sabbatical at Wits (2004-2006). In 2014, he left Wits and first joined Advtech (one the largest JSE listed private education companies in South Africa) as Head of the Institute of Independent Education (IIE). He then joined Pearson South Africa as Managing Director of CTI Education Group (a higher education company acquired by Pearson in 2013) from September 2014. In that time, he also served as the Academic Director of Pearson Institute of Higher Education from 2016 until his departure in September 2020 this year.

Nhlanhla’s education professional career spans 34 years. After starting as a Higher School teacher, in June 1996, he returned to the University of Swaziland in January 1997 as a Teaching Assistant in the English Department until June 1988.

During his graduate studies, he worked as a teaching assistant at Syracuse University and UCLA. He also had Summer Teaching roles at Yale University (1993), Boston University (1994), and Ohio State University (1996). In 1998, he started at Wits as Lecturer and rose to Senior Lecturer in 1999 before his appointment as Head of the School of Literature Language and Media in 2001.

Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Rwanda
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Joachim Osur, PhD

Vice Chancellor, Amref International University

Amref International University

Joachim Osur is a Professor of Public Health as well as a Sexual and Reproductive Health practitioner. He is the Vice Chancellor, Amref International University.

He is a leader with wide experience in building sustainable health systems in Africa. He is also a specialist in higher education with a focus in building fit for purpose health workforce for African health systems. He is a medical practitioner specialized in Sexual Medicine and continues to attend to patients in his line of specialization.

Email Address
joachim.osur@amref.org
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Kenya
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Angela Owusu-Ansah, PhD

Provost (Chief Academic Officer/Pro Vice Chancellor) at Ashesi University

Ashesi University

Angela Owusu-Ansah brings more than thirty years of academic and administrative experience in the United States and Ghana, West Africa, to her current role as Provost of Ashesi University. A member of the Phi Kappa Phi, a community of top scholars and professionals, she seeks to build an enduring legacy for future generations. She is a strong advocate for higher education quality serving on national university accreditation agency Boards such as the Ghana Tertiary Education Council (GTEC) and serving 18 years on the United States Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP, formerly NCATE).

As an education leader, Angela served as Elon University’s Associate Dean of the School of
Education and Associate Dean of Access and Success, Samford University’s Assistant Dean of Education Assessment, and currently, Ashesi University’s Provost. She leverages innovative approaches, such as the scholarship of teaching and learning to improve student learning, the science of learning for faculty optimization of instruction, and research capacity building to improve higher education experiences and outcomes. She served on one of the ten Regional Education Laboratories’ Board in the United States to contribute to policy direction and implementation to support research in education.

Angela fosters entrepreneurial and innovative thinking for improving Africa by building spaces for students’ problem solving, integrating southern theory where feasible, and contributing to the development of Africa’s first university ranking system designed for appreciative inquiry of Africa’s systematic growth. Her research interest is in impact evaluation and change in Africa’s higher education, specifically digitized higher education instruction, higher education teaching and learning as a science, intercultural understanding among African students, and African women in Higher Education leadership.

Email Address
aowusuansah@ashesi.edu.gh
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Ghana
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Ellis Owusu-Dabo, PhD

Pro Vice-Chancellor, Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Dr. Ellis Owusu-Dabo is a Consultant Public Health Physician, Teacher and Researcher.

As a Professor of Epidemiology and Global Health, his area of expertise is in Medical Epidemiology and applied public health technologies. As a teacher, he has trained undergraduate and postgraduate 2 students, as well as mentored young faculty at both local and international levels.

Ellis is a demonstrable astute university administrator and a research project management consultant. He is highly driven in his research interest area, mainly non-communicable diseases in low-income country settings. He also has considerable interest in population genomics of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Ellis has secured and managed multimillion United States dollar research grants from principal granting institutions such as the European Union, National Institutes of Health (NIH), The World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) as well as many bilateral organisations. He serves on several boards at both local and international levels, and has a massive network of individuals and organisations he works with. Dr Owusu-Dabo has published over 250 research articles in peer-reviewed journals. As Perelman International Scholar of the University of Pensylvannia School of Medicine, his passion is in building capacities of next generation scientists and health systems to help solve Africa’s health problems through scientific research collaborations.

Email Address
owusudabo@yahoo.com
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Ghana
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
Profile

Papa Salif, MD

Head of Health Initiatives, Mastercard Foundation

Mastercard Foundation

Papa Salif joined the Mastercard Foundation in September 2021 as Head of Health Initiatives with a focus on Health Employment, Health Entrepreneurship and Health Ecosystems.

He is a Professor at the Faculty of Medicine University of Dakar (Senegal) and Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases (2002-2012). Then, Papa Salif joined the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, in 2012 as Senior Program Officer in Global Health HIV/AIDS supporting resource-limited settings in Africa in collaboration with key stakeholders, government, academic institutions, and communities. On January 3, 2017, Papa Salif joined Gilead Sciences (US Biopharmaceutical Company), as Vice President for Access Operations & Emerging Markets, Africa/Geneva, supporting HIV, Viral Hepatitis B/C and Capacity building programs for African countries.

Papa Salif trained as a physician at the University of Dakar and received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1987. He completed his training with a Master of Sciences at the Institute of Tropical Medicine of Antwerp in Belgium in 1992 and in Nagasaki University Japan in 1993.

Profile Type
Faculty
Governance
Executive Steering Committee
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

Arti Singh, PhD

Professor, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the KNUST School of Public Health

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Dr. Arti Singh, a public health physician and faculty member at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana.

Her research areas of interest are non-communicable disease and tobacco control. She is also an advisory committee member on the Health Ecosystem Pillar of the Mastercard Foundation Health Collaborative program.

Email Address
artisingh_uk@yahoo.com
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Ghana
Governance
HECO Pillar Advisory Committee
Profile

Steve Reid, MD

(Chair, Family and Community and Emergency Medicine)

University of Cape Town

Professor Steve Reid is a Professor of Primary Health Care at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

He is a Family Physician with extensive experience in clinical practice, education and research in the field of rural health in South Africa. He is the Chair of the Primary Health Care and the Head of Department of Family, Community and Emergency Care in the Faculty of Health Sciences, UCT.

Email Address
steve.reid@uct.ac.za
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
South Africa
Profile

Joseph Owusu, BA, MBA, PhD

Professor, School of Business; Co-Chair, Health Ecosystem Pillar

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

Joseph Owusu is the Pillar Lead for Health Ecosystem at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Mastercard Foundation Africa Health Collaborative and Academic Programme Coordinator for O. R. Tambo Africa Research Chair Initiative in Entrepreneurship and Employability.

He is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Strategy at KNUST, Ghana. He also serves as the Co-Chair for the Health Ecosystem Pillar Advisory Committee and Chairman of the Technical Committee to develop MSc. Health Entrepreneurship Management for the Health Collaborative. His research has been published in the International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research, Journal of Business and Management, Cogent Business and Management, Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, Investment Management and Financial Innovations, and International Journal of Research in Business and Social Sciences. Joseph received his Ph.D. from the University Malaysia Kelantan.

Email Address
Josephowusu87@yahoo.com
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Ghana
Governance
HECO Pillar Advisory Committee