Scholars

Amina Abdulazeez is an International Development Researcher and Program Manager with over six years’ experience cutting across the public, private, and non-governmental sectors. Amina is skilled in the areas of communications for development, project implementation, and research. Amina holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Political Science from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto in Nigeria. While working as Researcher with Pan African Development Education & Advocacy Programme (PADEAP)/UK Open University, she helped conduct research at the intersection of gender, peace and conflict, and education. Her research was an exploratory study as it utilized participatory and arts methodologies to learn from community-based peace practices. As an Assessor with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), she led an assessment team to different northern states in Nigeria in order to assess vaccines and immunization supply chain in the states. Under the MacArthur Foundation funded Democracy Stability and Media Accountability project, she initiated an online campaign against hate speech in Nigeria. Amina has volunteered with several groups to teach girls photography and website design, including during the International Photography Festival and World Skills Day funded by UNESCO. She also volunteered as Peer Educator and Facilitator for organizations including British Council, Management Sciences for Health, and Moses Lake Medical Team.

Current Organization: Researcher Assistant at Pan African Development Education & Advocacy Programme

Anna Reutova was born in Seversk, Russia. She graduated from Tomsk State University with a Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Economics. While still a student, Anna was offered a position at the University’s Department of International Financial Reporting Standards. In this position, her main focus area is bringing Russian financial reporting into compliance with the international financial reporting standards of the government sector and thus making the university’s financial reporting transparent and accessible to its partners worldwide. Anna’s other significant focus area is working with international funds like Oxford Fund and European Commission funds, large international volunteering projects, international research projects, and grants. She oversees financial management of each project from budgeting and submitting an application to preparing a final financial report once a project is complete. Anna spends a lot of time consulting university employees about the intricacies of financial reporting, accounting, and tax accounting. In her spare time, Anna serves as a member of a nonprofit organization Association of Lawyers of Russia (Tomsk branch) where she is involved in several social projects aimed at providing free legal advice to underserved communities. Through her extensive work experience and continuous involvement with the nonprofit sector and socially important issues, Anna developed great expertise in financial management and strong project management skills. Anna is most interested in education and healthcare, where she is sure her skills will be most useful and for which there is a lot of room for growth in Russia.

Current Organization: Analyst at Tomsk State University

Brian Makani earned a Master of Science in Safety, Health and Environmental Management and a degree with honors in Geography and Environmental Studies at Midlands State University in Zimbabwe. Brian has served as an Environmental Officer for the Environmental Management Agency-Zimbabwe for seven years and is currently based at the Provincial Office in Masvingo City. His responsibilities include environmental education, publicity, planning and monitoring, and environmental law implementation. Brian is also tasked with developing sustainable waste management strategies, implementing Coping with Drought and Climate Change Projects, writing environmental reports and newspaper articles for publication, and formulating and implementing sustainable waste management practices and projects. His areas of particular interest in the nonprofit sector include environmental conservation, sanitation, and education.

Current Organization: Environmental Officer at Environmental Management Agency

Chibuonu Obiageli Ezennabike is a public health professional with nine years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Chibuonu earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Microbiology from Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Uli in the Anambra State of Nigeria. While working as the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer with Caritas Nigeria on the 4GATES Project, a CDC-funded HIV/AIDS program, she helped improve the PMTCT program monitoring and evaluation by designing reporting tools, building capacity of facility staff, and ensuring data quality in Eastern Nigeria. She also championed the monitoring and evaluation activities of the Pediatric and Adolescent Program and FLAGSHIP Program in Delta State and ensured consistent availability of data for tracking project progress. Previously, Chibuonu worked with a community-based organization to plan and implement community outreach events and a health fair and to promote health education. In this role, she was also responsible for research and monitoring and evaluation of Nigeria’s Epilepsy Care Advancement Program. Chibuonu volunteered as a data entry clerk for Realizing Interdisciplinary System of Excellence Global Health Initiative U.S, (RISE GHI) in Nigeria. Chibuonu enjoys focusing on adolescence, gender, and maternal and child health and has a strong passion for research. She is very optimistic that efficient and effective use of data in research and public health interventions will ensure sustainability and improvement of health systems in Africa.

Current Organization: Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at Caritas Nigeria

Dorice Damian is a committed, results-oriented, and enthusiastic young professional with three years of experience in the community integrated initiatives through the youth-led organization, Sustainable Health Initiative (SHI). Dorice has a degree in Environmental Health Sciences with IT from Ruaha Catholic University in Iringa, Tanzania. As SHI’s Executive Director, since 2019 she has been designing and organizing interventions intended to develop community capacity in Nutrition, WASH, and Sexual and Reproductive Health by using locally available resources. Prior to the foundation of this initiative, as a passionate professional aspiring to make an impact in her community, she volunteered through a collaborative project between the Tanzanian government and NAFAKA. In this role, she served as a nutrition champion by leading radio sessions advocating for the use of fortified food for the reduction of malnutrition rates. She also volunteered for community-based organization Afya Plus Tanzania for two years to improve the menstrual health of young adolescents through hygiene education delivery and provision of sanitary pads. She excels in organizational, coordination, and communication skills, while centering her core principles of accountability in every decision she undertakes. Her compassion for underserved communities is attested by the efforts she has taken to build resilient communities that own their health by utilizing their surrounding local available resources. Dorice is a Mandela Washington Fellow for 2021.

Current Organization: Environmental Health Officer at the Sustainable Health Initiative

Ei Ei Aung has nearly eight years of progressive experience as a public health specialist and international health researcher. With a scholarship funded by the Japanese government, Dr. Aung earned her PhD in health promotion with a dentistry background from Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan. Dr. Aung has academic and professional experience in analytical strategies for research on the burdens of diseases and clinical trials research. She worked as a Policy Researcher at the International Health Policy Program Foundation under the Thailand Ministry of Public Health and wrote a successful grant proposal for the ASEAN-CHINA Cooperative Fund. She demonstrates a solid track record of peer-reviewed publications and also contributed to capacity building training on the national burden of diseases in research methodology. She was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship for young foreign researchers in Tokyo and successfully received a research grant from the Futokukai Foundation in Japan.

Current Organization: Doctor at Coalition for Global Health Innovation

Geoffrey Omondi Otieno has over six years of experience working in the nonprofit sector. Geoffrey earned a Bachelor of Science in Population Health from Kenyatta University and a Certificate in Civic Leadership from the YALI Regional Leadership Center, East Africa. He is a Co-founder of the Begin Life Safely Community-Based Organization, which educates expectant mothers in rural parts of western Kenya on safe practices for motherhood. Geoffrey currently serves as a Youth Advisory Board Member at Youth Combating Neglected Tropical Diseases and recently worked with the Aga Khan Development Network as a Country Monitoring and Evaluation Officer. Geoffrey previously worked with Abt Associates Inc. as a Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant, where he was mainly responsible for data collection and verification, training of community mobilizers, and report writing. He also previously worked with Education Effect Africa as a WASH Training Consultant for four years, during which he was responsible for developing WASH training curricula, training school health committees on the prevention of WASH diseases, and monitoring the implementation of the school sanitation plans. Geoffrey is highly skilled in development of data collection tools and quality checklists and data collection and analysis. Geoffrey also has deep experience in proposal development, research preparation, data quality assessment, training of data collectors, and coordination of data collection exercises.

Current Organization: Public Health Professional at Youth Combating Neglected Tropical Diseases

Lukman Baihaqi Alfakihuddin completed his Master’s degree in Environmental Resource Management at Florida Institute of Technology (2016-2017). Inspired by his research in 2017, Lukman’s action with the Plastic Action Network addressed the massive and unforeseen expansion of plastic garbage which overwhelmed local and national governments. Through his work, he measured two different approaches to this problem: including creating a support network in universities to adopt a watershed-beach ecosystem, then comparing the outcomes generated and challenges detected against a privatized, professional plastic garbage reclamation unit. Lukman found that the two approaches complement each other. Lukman has inspired innovation in the Plastic Action Network by joining with college programs and planning outreach events for participants to clean the water catchment areas that feed into rivers and the sea. The Plastic Action Network has planned events, including cleanups, seminars, music events, and contests, to reward the community members who participate. Lukman has also mobilized social media campaigns to enhance the image of the youth finding solutions to plastic garbage and environmental degradation. Lukman is deeply passionate about the environment and plastics reduction due to the large impact that plastics production has on climate change. Plastics are often created using energy from fossil fuels, which results in billions of tons of carbon pollution every year.

Current Organization: Project Coordinator at Pesona Orchid