The Global Hygiene Symposium program is detailed below. This will be regularly updated as we define the session content, speakers, panellists and breakout session leads. Download the program here.
Clarissa Brocklehurst is a water supply, sanitation and hygiene specialist, and has worked for almost 40 years in international development. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering of the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously served as the Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at UNICEF and helped establish the global Sanitation and Water for All partnership. Clarissa has also played a role in the development of strategy and advocacy for the global WASH sector and serves on several technical advisory groups for sector initiatives.
Dr. Emmanuel Agogo, a seasoned healthcare leader with a focus on global health, brings a wealth of experience in project management, having managed major public health projects funded by the World Bank, the Global Fund and BMGF. With an educational background in Primary and Community Health and Tropical Medicine, he is well-equipped to drive evidence-based healthcare solutions. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, was recently honoured as a member of the Faculty of Public Health UK, and has held prestigious fellowships at CSIS and the Kofi Anan Public Health Leadership Fellowship. He is a trustee for several organizations in Nigeria and the UK. Dr. Agogo is a key player in shaping the future of healthcare. His insights at the Global Hygiene Symposium promise valuable perspectives on advancing global health initiatives.
Mary Eyram Ashinyo is a Public Health Physician Specialist with emphasis on Health Policy and Health Systems Management. With almost 15 years working experience, Ashinyo previously worked as a Medical Director of a district-type hospital for 8 years in the Ghana Health Service. She currently works as Deputy Director at the Institutional Care Directorate and Quality Lead of the Ghana Health Service and doubles as the National Focal Point for WASH in Healthcare Facilities.
Ashinyo has experience implementing several national and international flagship WASH-related projects and programs including the hand hygiene for all initiative, infection prevention and control (IPC), Patient Safety, air quality and health, antimicrobial resistance and one health programs. Ashinyo is a World Health Organization Consultant, especially in Patient Safety Strategic Planning. Ashinyo serves as the General Secretary for the Ghana Public Health Association and as the West Africa Regional Hub Representative for the Planetary Health Alliance. She also serves the WaterAid as the Global Lead Policy Analyst-Health Consultant.
Dr. Nahid Bhadelia is the Founding Director of the Boston University Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy and Research, Associate Professor at Boston School of Medicine and a board certified infectious diseases physician. She served the Senior Policy Advisor for Global COVID-19 Response for the White House COVID-19 Response Team in 2022-2023. Dr. Bhadelia served as the medical director of the Special Pathogens Unit (SPU) at Boston Medical Center, a medical unit designed to care for patients with highly communicable diseases until 2021.
She has previously led outbreak responses to viral hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in East and West Africa, and provided direct patient care during the West African Ebola Virus Diseases Epidemic in 2014-2015. She has served as a subject matter expert to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Defense (DoD), White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and World Bank, and was a medical contributor for NBC/MSNBC throughout COVID-19 pandemic.
Bethany Caruso is an Assistant Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. She is a social and behavioral scientist with over a decade of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sectoral research experience in low and middle income settings. She employs mixed methods approaches to understand how compromised WASH conditions impact physical and mental health, behavior, education, and empowerment, with a specific focus on girls and women throughout their life course.
Dr. Caruso is also interested in how water and sanitation environments can impact the practices and behaviors that women perform because of their sex or are expected to perform because of their gender—including menstrual hygiene, child and infant feeding, and the safe disposal of child feces—and how these behaviors and practices may impact varied health outcomes. Dr. Caruso’s work includes application of qualitative methods, measurement development, hierarchical modeling approaches, theory-based intervention design, and impact and process evaluation. In her work, she emphasizes translation to policy and practice through public scholarship and engagement with policy-makers. She has led research in Bolivia, India, Kenya, Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Uganda and has supported research in over a dozen additional countries.
Jenala Chipungu is a Social Behavioural Researcher and the Head of the Social and Behavioural Science Department at the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ). She has a wealth of experience developing and implementing research in rural and peri-urban areas of Lusaka. She’s currently a PhD student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and holds a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Liverpool.
Her experience in hygiene involves formative and exploratory research on topics including hand hygiene, menstrual hygiene, toilet hygiene and food hygiene, the development of theory driven and evidence-based behavioural change interventions and the evaluation of these interventions on the uptake of hygiene behaviours. She works closely with local and international institutions including relevant Ministries in Zambia, LSHTM, Emory University and World Vision to implement this research.
Oliver Cumming is the Director of the Environmental Health Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – an inter-disciplinary group of researchers focused on the public health aspects of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). His research interests centre on the epidemiology of WASH across low-, middle- and high-income countries, and he leads multiple ongoing studies to assess the impact of different WASH interventions on a range of health outcomes.
His current research includes the Safe Start trial in Kenya to measure the effect of an early childhood food hygiene intervention on infection and disease, the SaniVac trial in Mozambique to assess the effect of poor sanitation on oral rotavirus vaccine immunogenicity and early childhood development, and the TISA trial in Senegal to assess the effect of WASH on recovery from Severe Acute Malnutrition. He has published extensively, including over a hundred scientific articles, and has advised various governments and international agencies, including the World Health Organisation, the World Bank and UNICEF.
Adrian brings extensive experience in market based approaches and Menstrual Health and Hygiene (MHH) to the team at SHF. He has fulfilled a senior leadership position in a leading menstrual product company and led UN wide efforts to mainstream MHH. This resulted in expanding the availability of reusable menstrual products to millions of women across sub-Saharan Africa, co-authoring the world’s first national MHH policy, developing a thorough understanding of challenges for market entry of menstrual product innovations and fulfilling a key role in the development of national, regional and global product standards and UN specifications.
Adrian leverages a diverse set of skills and experiences from corporate, consulting and entrepreneurial roles, with a strong focus on market development, innovation and scaling. These include a senior advisory role to Google’s Start-ups for Sustainable Development Program (SFSD) program, the company’s flagship program to support and scale start-ups working to tackle the SDGs; founder of a machine learning and community driven data initiative targeting COVID-19 in LMICs; and executive advisor to leading impact scale-ups. He will apply his insights to SHFs work and together with the team execute our ambitious action plan to drive systemic change in the menstrual hygiene market place.
Robert Dreibelbis is Associate Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Deputy Director of LSHTM’s Environmental Health Group. His research focuses on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) behaviours and their impacts on health and well-being as well as the design and evaluation of WASH behaviour change interventions.
Mr Chew Ming Fai currently holds the appointment of Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Public Health) and Director-General of Public Health at the Singapore National Environment Agency (NEA). A member of the senior leadership team,. In addition, Mr Chew also oversees policies, processes and operational capabilities environmental public health to meet current and future challenges.
Mr Chew is also an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore. Mr Chew previously held the appointments of Director, Food and Environmental Hygiene Department where he was responsible for safeguarding food hygiene standards in Singapore; Director, Vector Control and Sanitation Department where he oversaw policies on vector control and sanitation; Head of NEA’s North West Regional Office where he was in-charge of operations to ensure high environmental public health standards in the North West District of Singapore; and Deputy Director, Environment Technology Department where he leveraged the ops-tech process to introduce new technologies to NEA. Prior to joining NEA, Mr Chew was with the Singapore Economic Development Board and held portfolios in strategic planning, tax and grant policy management, industry development and investment promotion.
As Chief Scientist, Jeremy Farrar oversees the work of the Science Division, bringing together experts and networks working in science and innovation from around the world to guide, develop and deliver high quality health policies and services to the people who need them most.
Prior to joining WHO, Dr Farrar was Director of the Wellcome Trust. In his 9 years there, he oversaw a series of major reforms, restructuring and growth, with Wellcome now collaborating with partners around the world and focused on fundamental discovery research and three challenge areas of: infectious diseases; climate and health; and mental health, all with a commitment to ensuring that equity, diversity and inclusion are central to the science they support.
Before joining Wellcome, Dr Farrar spent over 17 years as Director of the Clinical Research Unit at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam. His clinical and research interests have been in integrated health research across a range of infectious diseases and noncommunicable illness including emerging infections, influenza, infections of the brain, dengue, typhoid, malaria, tuberculosis, antimicrobial resistance, opportunistic infections related to HIV and stroke. Dr Farrar was the founding chair of WHO’s R&D Blueprint and the founding director of the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) that led on to the work of the RECOVERY Trial and the UK COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium.
Dr Farrar trained in neurology and infectious diseases in London, Edinburgh and Oxford in the United Kingdom and in Melbourne in Australia. He has a PhD in Immunology from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom in partnership with the University of California in San Francisco in the United States of America.
Dr. George is a Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist and environmental engineer. Her career focuses on implementing interdisciplinary approaches that promote health equity to solve complex environmental health challenges in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and other low resource settings globally. Dr. George has 16 years of experience conducting water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) studies domestically and internationally, including directing nine randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of community and health facility-based WASH interventions.
Her interdisciplinary research portfolio spans infectious disease and environmental epidemiology, genomics to investigate disease outbreaks, WASH RCTs, environmental engineering to evaluate water filtration technologies, and formative research driven by health behavior theory for the design and implementation of WASH behavioral interventions. Through employing these methods, Dr. George has partnered with communities to design effective WASH interventions to reduce diarrheal diseases and improve child growth in Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and reduce arsenic exposure in Bangladesh and in partnership with American Indian communities. Dr. George’s current research activities include directing seven WASH RCTs, and three cohort studies conducted in Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and in partnership with American Indian Nations.
Professor Adam Kamradt-Scott is the Dr Jiang Yanyong Visiting Professor of Global Health Security at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Adam’s research, teaching, and policy engagement work explores how governments and multilateral organisations respond to adverse health events such as epidemics, pandemics, and emerging health and security challenges. His most recent research has focused on civil-military cooperation in health and humanitarian crises, and the adoption of international legal instruments for health.
Prior to entering academia, Adam’s background includes having worked as a health professional specialising in emergency care and clinical risk management, a political adviser, and a public servant in national pandemic preparedness, and he holds formal academic qualifications in health, international relations, and international law. More recently, he has served as a consultant to the Australian Government and the World Bank on pandemic preparedness and the COVID-19 response, and he is continuing to advise the Australian Government on the latest proposed changes to the International Health Regulations and the pandemic treaty.
Adam is the co-founder and convenor of the Global Health Security conferences and currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Global Health Security Network, a multidisciplinary professional association dedicated to promoting evidence-based policies to improve health outcomes.
Dr. Albert Icksang Ko, an infectious disease physician, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale School of Public Health and Collaborating Researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazilian Ministry of Health. His research centers on the health problems that have emerged as a consequence of rapid urbanization and social inequity. Dr. Ko leads a research and training program on urban slum health in Brazil which combines multidisciplinary approaches to identify prevention and control strategies for emerging infectious diseases such as Zika, dengue and leptospirosis. He is also a Program Director for the NIH-supported Global Health Equity Scholars Program, which provides training opportunities for fellows and students at 21 international sites. Dr. Ko serves as a member of the WHO R&D Taskforce for Zika Virus and WHO R&D Blueprint Working Group on Clinical Trial Design.
Daniele is a Research Professor at the Feinstein International Center and Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. She has an interdisciplinary educational background, initially training as an engineer (MIT BS 1996, MIT M.Eng. 2001, PE 2003); she then received her Ph.D in 2011 from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her experience working in water, sanitation, and hygiene to reduce the burden of infectious disease began in 2000 with her Master’s, then continued with teaching in Environmental Engineering at MIT before joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2003-2010. She completed her post-doctoral work at Harvard’s Center for International Development from 2010-2012, and joined Tufts University as a Professor in 2012.
Over the past 23 years, she has provided technical assistance and research in more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia, and Central/South America in both development and humanitarian response contexts. She has published over 100 papers on water supply, water treatment, hygiene, and sanitation in low-income countries and humanitarian contexts. Her main research interest is how to reduce the burden of infectious diseases by investigating and evaluating the effectiveness of water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions. She runs an active research group completing laboratory, field, and policy research with funding from agency, government, NGO, foundation, and private sources. She enjoys backcountry hiking, state highpointing (50 state completer!), rocket ashtanga yoga, cooking vegan foods, and raising her two children with her husband.
Joanna is a Technical Officer for water, sanitation, hygiene and health (WASH) at the World Health Organisation in Geneva. She is a WASH specialist, with particular experience in the interface between evidence and practice. She has worked in a range of contexts including Brazil, Mozambique, Kenya and Bangladesh.
Joanna holds a BA in History and French and an MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. At WHO, she coordinates the global work on hand hygiene in non-healthcare settings, including strengthening global norms & standards and improving monitoring mechanisms & tools. Prior to working at WHO, she worked at LSHTM for seven years, on the UK government-funded SHARE Consortium, and the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub.
Mr. Anyitike Philip Mwakitalima, a Principal Environmental Health Officer from the Ministry of Health, Tanzania working as Head of Food Safety, Water Safety, Sanitation and Hygiene. He has a vast experience on WASH for over 18 years. He has a bold knowledge base on formulation of Policy, Guidelines and Regulations on WASH and has been the Coordinator for National Sanitation Campaign (NSC) since its inception in 2012 to date. He has led substantial transformation in the sector including the introduction and roll out of the National Sanitation Management Information System (NSMIS), the Social Behaviour Change Communication Campaign (SBCC) on Sanitation and Hygiene; and the roll out of localized CLTS approach country wide. He has also led the development of various Strategies, Guidelines, Standards and Manuals on Sanitation and Hygiene in Tanzania.
Henry Northover is a WASH policy consultant with over 27 years’ experience in international development. His previous roles included global policy director at the INGO WaterAid, senior policy analyst in CAFOD (Caritas England and Wales) and researcher with the UK Labour Party’s front bench foreign affairs and development teams. He specialises in WASH systems’ thinking and effective leadership. Some career highlights include setting up one of the first economic advocacy programs in Central and Southern Africa, advising the South African Treasury on NEPAD’s capital flows policy, setting up the End Water Poverty campaign and helping to create the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership and Agenda for Change coalition.
Dr Ebere Okereke is a public health physician with extensive experience in public health policy, strategy and programme development and implementation. She specialises in global health security, health system strengthening and leadership development and has won awards for her work promoting women and under-represented groups in public health leadership. She was recognised by the British Medical Association as a role model for women in academic medicine, and by the UK Government Science and Engineering Profession as an Inspirational leader in Science and Engineering.
Ebere is currently the CEO of the Africa Public Health Foundation. She was previously Lead Consultant in Public Health England’s International Health Regulations Strengthening Programme, Senior Adviser at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and Honorary Senior of Adviser to the first Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. She is on the governing board of the Albert Luthuli Institute of Leadership, Pretoria University; a founding member of the Africa CDC Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership Programme; and serves on many global health expert reference and advisory groups and scientific committees. She is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. She is a graduate of the University of Nigeria College of Medicine.
Dr. Isaac Olufadewa is a physician, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Healthcare, Infectious Diseases, Research (HIRe) Modeling Fellow and the Founder/pioneer Executive Director of Slum and Rural Health Initiative (SRHIN) an organization that takes quality healthcare to underserved people in urban slums, IDP (refugee) camps and hard-to-reach rural communities across several countries in Africa which is currently registered in four countries (Nigeria, Ethiopia, The Gambia and Sierra Leone). Dr. Isaac research focuses on health inequities, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, behaviour change initiatives, reproductive health, adolescent health, and mathematical modelling studies that informs public policy to drive positive change at scale.
He is an internationally renowned public health scientist, an astute researcher with over 50 publications and a multiple award-winning infectious disease and global health practitioner. Dr. Isaac won the Commonwealth COVID-19 Hero Award by the UK-based Commonwealth Foundation in 2021, the Royal African Young Leadership Award in 2022, Reckitt’s Scholarship to the One Young World Summit in 2019, and the African Union Commission’s Pan African University Scholarship Award in 2017. As an International Expert on the LANCET COVID-19 Commission Task Force on Humanitarian Relief, Social Protection and Vulnerable Groups, he worked with former policymakers, researchers, advocates, UN officials to propose recommendations included in policy documents for the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic period. He specifically led or co-authored two policy documents which are published on the Lancet Commission website – the first is on Children and youth and the other is on persons living with a disability.
Dr. Isaac also led the research on Reckitt’s Dettol School Hygiene Programme (the largest hygiene programme in the country) across several states in Nigeria for over 3 years. He earned his medical degree at Nigeria’s Premier University – the University of Ibadan and his postgraduate degree at the Pan African University of Life and Earth Sciences Institute (PAULESI) on a fully-funded scholarship from the African Union Commission, he also has a certificate on Public Administration and Management from the University of Minnesota, USA on a fully-funded opportunity from the US Department of States and IREX. He has won several grants/funding awards and over 50 peer-reviewed publications in reputable journals such as the Lancet Global Health, Journal of Global Health, Global Health Journal, the Lancet Public Health.
Dr. Koy Virya is a Deputy Director of Department Hospital Services, Ministry of Health. He is currently the Postdoctoral fellowship at Chulalongkorn University, the Chief Nursing Officer Nursing Focal Person in Cambodia for WHO-WPRO, and Chair Board of Cambodian Association of Nurses. Besides, he was one of the founders of the Cambodian Council of Nurses, Cambodian Midwives Council, and Cambodian Association of Nurses, which aim to promote nursing and midwifery professions in Cambodia. Dr. Koy served as President of the Cambodian Council of Nurses from 2013-2016. He is the first doctoral degree in nursing science in Cambodia, obtained his doctoral degree from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, in 2017. He has also been a member of Sigma Theta Tau International, a member of the Asia Pacific Emergency Disaster Nursing Network (APEDNN); and a member of the Asian Congress in Nursing Education. Virya has been an alumnus in Global Nursing Leadership Institute, organized by International Council of Nurses, Geneva in 2018.
Recently, he served as Adjunct Professor School of Nursing, Pittsburgh University. He has jointed some projects with Arizona University since 2018 until now. Virya has nominated editorial board reviewer of Journal of Nursing Management, Pacific Rim International Journal of Nursing Research, Journal of Nursing Research and Practice, Journal of Nursing and Midwifery, SAGE, and American of Nursing Science. He has published more than 20 papers.
Virya’s achievements include the development national nursing policy, Scope of practice, the standard of nursing practice, code of ethics for Cambodian nurses, code of ethics for midwives. He has also sat in some committees such as Infection Prevention and Control Committee, Antibiotic microbial Resistance committee, Nosocomial Infection Surveillance, and Quality Improvement for Private Sector Evaluation. Currently, he is responsible for Infection Prevention and Control for COVID-19.
David is a global leader in developing and executing investments in R&D, clinical science, and analytics to drive highly successful transformations in healthcare. This work has included delivering results across Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices and Medtronic’s Surgical Solutions businesses, as well as working with startup organizations as a consultant earlier in his career. He has consistently delivered development strategies and organizational designs, enabling the successful integration of new procedures and technologies into patient care, resulting in improved outcomes. As a result of his efforts, better, safer care is available to patients worldwide. David is currently the (Acting) Executive Director, Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute (RGHI). In this role, he is building an organization dedicated to improving the human condition by understanding and disseminating best practices in hygiene. The Institute is a public health research and innovation hub that will bridge epidemiology, public health, and behavioral insights to generate practical, high-quality scientific research that leads to enduring behavior change.
Robert Yates is a political health economist specializing in universal health coverage (UHC) and progressive health financing. He is executive director of the Centre For Universal Health at Chatham House. He is also an honorary associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His principal area of expertise is in the political economy of UHC, with a focus on advising political leaders and governments on how to plan, finance and implement national UHC reforms. He has previously worked as a senior health economist with the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the World Health Organization, advising numerous governments in Asia, Africa and Europe on health financing policy and health systems reforms. He holds a BA degree in natural sciences and economics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the University of Leeds.
Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner Dr Lisa Ackerley is Director Public Health and Hygiene Engagement, at Reckitt and Chair of the Board of Reckitt Global Hygiene Institute.
She has worked in the public and private sector, academia, and as an expert witness. Her PhD was based on consumer behaviour in relation to hygiene in the home. For over 30 years she has been an independent hygiene and safety adviser providing advice and support to many industry sectors providing expert input to the mass media on hygiene and safety issues. For five years was Food and Safety Adviser to UK Hospitality, working closely with many industry and government stakeholders on development of guidance and implementation of legislation.
A Professorial Fellow of the RSPH, Lisa is Chair of their Food Special Interest Group and Industry Trustee and Scientific Adviser to the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH) where she works with Professor Sally Bloomfield particularly on publications regarding Targeted Hygiene.
For COP26 she developed the concept of a risk-based approach to hygiene at the event in partnership with the UK Government; this approach was subsequently used for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and Dubai Expo. She is currently involved in studies on Targeted Hygiene and Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA).
Patricia Akweongo is an Associate Professor of Health Economics and Policy in the Department of Health Policy Planning and Management School of Public Health-University of Ghana where she teaches a number of courses at the PhD and master’s level and does administration, supervision and research. She was the Head of Department for Health Policy Planning and Management from 2018-2022 and She was also formerly the Head of Department of Epidemiology and Disease Control of the School of Public Health University of Ghana from 2012-2016.
Before joining the School of Public Health, Patricia had worked as a Research Scientist at the Navrongo Health Research Centre for 13 years and as the Head of the Social Science Unit from 2005-2008 at the Research Centre.
Patricia’s research work and experience has been in the areas of health services costing, economic evaluation studies, health systems governance of social protection programmes, health systems strengthening, health policy and system analysis, health financing, community engagement and empowerment, Human Resource management and attraction and retention, gender and cultural studies economics of health care, malaria, equity and access to health care, sexual and reproductive health, violence, socio-economic issues on meningitis, economic evaluation, epidemiology of communicable and non-communicable diseases, etc. She has over 90 peer review publications to her credit.
Her current research projects includes; Addressing the Research Capacity Gap in Global Child, Adolescent and Family Health Disparities Utilizing Implementation and Data Sciences among vulnerable Populations in resource-Limited Settings, Evaluating the effectiveness of Adolescents Health Check-ups on their well-being, evaluation of Human Resource Management policies and practices in attracting and retaining essential health workers in deprived and underserved areas and ensuring the equitable distribution of the health workforce in Ghana.
Dr. Kelly K. Baker is an Associate Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health and Epidemiology at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Her teaching, service, and research aims to build Global One Health research and impact capacity globally and locally. Her current research focuses on identifying developmental interventions that prevent the transmission of enteric pathogens between humans, animals, and the environment; developing rapid low-cost surveillance and diagnostic tools for enteric and antimicrobial resistant pathogens; and measuring how climate events influence microbial environmental exposure.
Research uniquely relevant to the Global Hygiene Symposium includes the PAthogen Transmission and Health Outcomes Modelling of Enteric disease (PATHOME) study, which is developing a virtual laboratory that draws upon climate, socio-demographic, behavioural, spatial, environmental, clinical, zoonotic, statistical, and computational disciplines to identify interventions that disrupt enteric disease ecology in eastern African cities.
Dr. Baker serves on several national boards and committees, including the National Academies of Medicine Board of Global Health and the National Institutes of Health, and is Chair of the One Health committee for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and a Senior Editor for the CABI One Health Journal.
Sally Bloomfield is currently Chairman of the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH, www.ifh-homehygiene.org). IFH is working to raise awareness of the importance of hygiene in home and everyday life settings and developing and promoting hygiene practice based on scientific principles. This includes developing understanding of hygiene issues such as the hygiene hypothesis and AMR.
Sally was an Honorary Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2003-2019) and, Senior Lecturer at Kings College London (1972-1997) She is also Hon Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health. She has published over 120 papers on infection prevention, hygiene and antimicrobial agents.
Kondwani is an Academic Member in the Department of Public & Environmental Health at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS). He is also the new RGHI Senior Research Fellow. He is an Environmental Health and Behavioural Scientist with a specific focus in LMICs. He employs mixed methods approaches to understand how compromised WASH impacts food hygiene, mental health, child health, and behavior. Kondwani is also interested in how hygiene and sanitation environments can impact the practices and behavior of young children and their caretakers while in Nursery and Primary school setting; and how these behaviors and practices may impact varied health outcomes.
I currently work at LSHTM as an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Health Group which is the focus of the School’s work on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and health, and currently includes approximately 30 researchers and support staff working on range of research areas. I have a particular interest in programme design and how to use both quantitative and qualitative data from existing monitoring and evaluation frameworks to improve programme implementation.
My research is focussed on the epidemiology of WASH related diseases including cholera and undernutrition, and how climate change will impact the infectious disease burden globally. I have been collaborating with a range of implementing organisations, multilateral agencies and donor agencies including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Action Contre La Faim (ACF), UNICEF, and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
Dr. Matthew Freeman is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Environmental Health at Emory University in Atlanta, GA USA. His research focus is on the impact of environmental and WASH drivers of infectious disease.
His work includes experimental field trials and implementation science methods to assess the impact and sustainability of WASH programs on health; environmental microbiology to understand the role of animal feces, food hygiene, and animal source enteric pathogens on exposure risk; transmission modeling to assess environmental pathways of enteric infections; and the development and validation of measures for WASH outcomes and exposures, including on climate resilience and extreme weather.
He has focused on implementation and translational science related to the intersection of WASH and education, the neglected tropical diseases, and food safety. He has conducted field trials in Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mali, and India, has published over 175 peer-reviewed papers, and serves on the global Soil-Transmitted Helminth Advisory Committee and as a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission of Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Health.
Dr. Angela Huston Gold is the Director of Strategy and Innovation at IRC, an international think-and-do tank for water, sanitation and hygiene. She uses systems thinking to address issues of governance, planning, sustainability, and equity in public services, and has worked in partnership with governments in over 15 countries with a focus on eastern and western Africa. Angela is the Strategic Director of the WASH Systems for Health Facility, a partnership with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Leeds, supporting the United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. She is also a monitoring advisor for global partnerships like Sanitation and Water For All and the Agenda for Change. Angela has a PhD in Civil Engineering from McGill University, Canada, and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Chemistry from the University of California.
Hongying Li is a senior program manager and senior research scientist at EcoHealth Alliance. She has an interdisciplinary background in conservation, public health, and social science, with >10 years of experience working with communities, academic, and governmental partners in Southeast Asia and China for emerging zoonotic disease research and zoonotic risk mitigation. Hongying manages emerging zoonotic disease research projects to identify zoonotic risks for early warning strategies and leads programs to develop human behavioral and policy approaches to mitigate zoonotic spillover risks at high-risk human-wildlife interfaces. Her work helps foster collaborations and establish networks for emerging infectious disease research, preparedness, and response across multiple sectors and disciplines. Hongying obtained a bachelor’s degree in Biosciences, a master’s degree in Public Health, and a PhD in Science, Social care, and Education.
Dr. Arundati Muralidharan is a public health professional with two decades of experience in public health programs, research and policy advocacy in India. She has worked on several pressing public health issues, including HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health and rights, Universal Health Coverage in India, menstrual health, and social determinants of health, including gender and water, sanitation and hygiene. She is a passionate advocate of menstrual health, and works globally and in India to build and strengthen the menstrual health ecosystem through knowledge sharing, evidence generation, policy advocacy, financing, and innovations. Dr. Arundati is the Founder of MHAi, an ecosystem enabler for menstrual health in India, and the Coordinator of the Global Menstrual Collective, a global advocacy network.
Hello, I’m Shahpara Nawaz. With a background in Environmental Science and Public Health, my passion lies in mitigating public health challenges arising from environmental pollution and climate change. Currently as a Research Fellow at ICDDR,B, my works focuse on inclusive hygiene interventions and climate-resilient WASH initiatives. I’m thrilled to participate in the Global Hygiene Symposium 2023. Let’s explore innovative and inclusive hygiene solutions, addressing the challenges posed by climate change.
Dr Om Prasad Gautam is a public health expert and behaviour change scientist with more than 22 years of work and research experiences in Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH), health, behaviour change, child health, immunization, food safety, diseases surveillance and HIV/AIDS programme. Dr Om holds PhD from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), UK and Two Master’s Degrees, one in Public Health and another in Social Sciences. Dr Om currently works at WaterAid UK as a Senior WASH Manager – Hygiene (global lead on hygiene behaviour change). Dr Om is passionate about the role that sustainable behaviour change programme play through WASH and health programme in human development and brings his skills to the Health and WASH sector to improve the health, hygiene and wellbeing of the poorest and vulnerable groups in low and middle-income countries. He leads SuSanA Behaviour Change Group and guest lecture in few UK universities.
Ian Ross is a health economist with 15 years’ experience in the economics and financing of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. He completed his PhD in health economics at LSHTM with ESRC funding, and hold an MSc Development Economics. Ian’s work focuses on economic evaluation of WASH interventions, especially measuring and valuing quality of life outcomes beyond infectious disease.
Ian co-organises the WASH Economics Conference and rusn the WASHeconomics.com blog, as well as being on the management committee of LSHTM’s Global Health Economics Centre. Before joining LSHTM, Ian established and grew a six-strong water team at Oxford Policy Management, leading WASH consulting projects for the World Bank, DFID and UNICEF. Prior to that, Ian was in WaterAid’s policy team working on a variety of research and advocacy, including a period based in Timor-Leste.
Tom Slaymaker is Chief of the WASH Data Unit in the Division of Data, Analysis, Planning and Monitoring at UNICEF Headquarters in New York. He has over 25 years of experience working on water, sanitation and hygiene in Africa and Asia and currently co-leads the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP).
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