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 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 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 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

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

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

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.

Email Address
knorvixoxo@alueducation.com
Profile Type
Faculty
Country
Rwanda
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