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.

People Directory

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 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 Kwame Norvixoxo

Lecturer, Design, Teaching, Evaluating Research

African Leadership University

Photo of Joseph Owusu

, BA, MBA, PhD

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

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

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 Anteneh Belete

, PhD

Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics School of Pharmacy

Addis Ababa University

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Profile

Kwame Norvixoxo

Lecturer, Design, Teaching, Evaluating Research

African Leadership University

Kwame Norvixoxo is currently a Lecturer (designing, teaching and evaluating Research) at the African Leadership University, as well as the Director and Senior Consultant for Knorx Consulting Services.

His other roles in African Leadership University (ALU) include, Capstone Manager for the Global Challenges Faculty, Research Committee Chair for ALU, Head of Ethics and Research Faculty Lead.

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.

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.

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.

Profile

Anteneh Belete, PhD

Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics School of Pharmacy

Addis Ababa University

Dr. Anteneh Belete is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, College of Health Sciences (CHS), Addis Ababa University (AAU) trained in Ethiopia and in Germany.

He has served AAU in various capacities as Head of the Department, Associate Director for Staff Affairs, Academic Standards and Quality Assurance, Director for Research and Technology Transfer as well as Dean of School of Pharmacy in the CHS. He is routinely involved in teaching and research activities and has presented a number of research findings in both international and local conferences. He has published over 55 research articles in reputable local and international journals. He was the principal investigator of two thematic research projects at the AAU, co-PI of a Science and Technology Minister (MOST) supported research project and a co-investigator and core faculty member of CDT-Africa, a World Bank funded African Center of Excellence (ACE-II) project.