Below you can browse team members by country in alphabetical order.
Ethiopia
Addisu Tsegaye Getachew
NIHR PhD Student – OSSREA
Addisu graduated from the University of Gondar with a BA in Sociology and from Addis Ababa University with an MA in Sociology. He has worked as a Junior Sociologist at Bale Mountains National Park and as a Lecturer of Sociology at Wollo University since October 2014. He provided community service on: the role of community elders, religious leaders and stakeholders in reducing illegal migration; gender and harmful traditional practices, and community-based health insurance and local challenges. His research engagements include sociocultural aspects that people living with disabilities face, women’s fertility control and abortion decisions amid conservative socio-cultural normative processes and condemning religious interpretations, and diabetes outpatients’ lived experiences.
Alemu Tesfaye
Public Engagement Officer – OSSREA
Alemu Tesfaye has an MBA in Information Technology and is currently working as Knowledge and ICT Manager at OSSREA, Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He has been Communications Officer for various projects over the past eight years, where he has coordinated, collaborated and led communication efforts across various research projects in order to effectively deliver key messages on various issues concerning society in the IGAD Region. He has also worked as a communication and dissemination officer for various research projects studying issues regarding migration, government accountability, peace/security, education, food/nutrition, health, and others. He has practical experience in developing comms and dissemination strategies and products, online and offline.
Bikila Ayele
PhD Student – OSSREA
Bikila has been a lecturer at Jigjiga University for five years and at Salale University for two years. He has published three research articles on displacement and compensation, displacement and livelihood and pastoral and agro-pastoral women’s access to and control over livelihood assets.
Dereje Wonde
NIHR PhD Student – OSSREA
Dereje Wonde studied sociology at the University of Gondar for his undergraduate degree and went onto obtain a master’s degree in sociology from Addis Ababa University. He has been a member of academic staff in Jimma University since 2011. Dereje is interested in researching the socio-cultural dimensions of health and illness, the structural factors affecting the health behaviour of individuals, and health problems of vulnerable groups. Currently, Dereje is a PhD student at 5-S Foundation in BSMS. His PhD project aims to understand the socio-economic and political causes and consequences of scabies. In his project, Dereje seeks to investigate the everyday life of people affected with scabies by exploring the lived experience of scabies victims and community perceptions and reactions towards scabies in the Amhara Regional State of Ethiopia.
Garedew Yilma Desta
Project Coordinator – OSSREA
Garedew Yilma has a master’s degree focused in Development Studies majoring Sociology from Lund University, Sweden, and Bachelor Degrees focused in Sociology, Geography and Environmental studies from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. He is responsible for coordinating The 5-S Foundation undertaken by OSSREA in collaboration with the Department of Global Health (BSMS) in Ethiopia. His areas of expertise are programme and project management in the research industry; financial and budget management; planning and reporting; skilled in Social policy, child protection, child labour, child marriage, gender and FGM, environmental Issues and education.
Eyerusalem Kassahun
Film and Theatre Officer – OSSREA
Eyerusaleam Kassahun is a Film and Theatre Studies scholar and industry professional. She has a BA in theatre arts and two master’s degrees from Addis Ababa University in Theatre and Development and Film Production, where she now works as a Film and Theatre lecturer. She has been researching Ethiopian cinema and theatre, as well as their relationship to Africa and the larger black social, political, and cultural elements, an area in which she is most interested. “Women’s Participation in Ethiopian Cinema”, her first scholarly work, was published in the book Cine-Ethiopia: The History and Politics of Film in the Horn of Africa. She is also an Ethiopian filmmaker who has produced several short films and one feature-length Amharic film. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in African and Asian studies in the Art, Media, and Culture stream.
Professor Getnet Tadele
Co – Investigator & Partner Lead – OSSREA
Professor Getnet Tadele is a Professor at the Department of Sociology, Addis Ababa University and Honorary Professor at Jimma University, Ethiopia. He has been working on the interface of sociology/anthropology and health for over two decades with a particular focus on sexuality; HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health and rights; podoconiosis and other NTDs; enhancing gene*environment interactions; and many other issues related to children and youth. He has co-edited two books and published a book, as well as over 55 journal articles and book chapters.
Kibur Engdawork
Post Doctoral Research Fellow – OSSREA
Kibur Engdawork is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, Addis Ababa University. Kibur graduated with a PhD from Addis Ababa University in 2019. He currently works on social efforts that aim at reducing stigma and improve the health behaviour of people in rural areas. He has co-authored three articles on podoconiosis in peer-reviewed journals and has presented his study findings in several international conferences. Kibur has a credited certificate in Qualitative and Mixed Methodology in International Health Research from Belgium’s Institute of Tropical Medicine. He also obtained a certificate in Introduction to Stata and Data Management & Statistical Analysis Using Stata Course from Imperial College, London, UK. He further received a certificate in grant proposal writing from University of Cologne.
Tseganesh Mulugeta
Public Engagement Officer & PhD Student – OSSREA
Tseganesh Mulugeta is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Journalism and Communication, Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia. She has MA and BA degrees in Media and Communication from Addis Ababa University and Bahir Dar University. She is a PhD candidate at Addis Ababa University, currently working on a PhD dissertation entitled “Communication intervention for behaviour change: using community leaders in community conversations to improve well-being and reduce stigma against podoconiosis patients in Amhara region, Ethiopia”. She published an article on media coverage and the public awareness about child abuse and child protection in Ethiopia. She has several years of experience in teaching, research, and communication at Bahir Dar University, as well as being Vice Director for Internal Relations and Communication Directorate, Information and Strategic Communication at Bahir Dar University.
Rwanda
Anselme Nzeyimana
Project Coordinator
Mr. Anselme NZEYIMANA is the 5S Foundation Project Coordinator at University of Rwanda/SPIU. Before joining 5S Foundation, Anselme worked with a Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) funded project under SOS Children’s Villages Rwanda as implementing partner in a project with aim to improve the general health among the community through promoting safe hygiene practices for more than 4 years. He had also worked with USAID/IREX RWANDA Youth for Change Program for 3 years. Anselme hold bachelor’s degree in Allied Health Sciences, Dental Health Discipline from Kigali Health Institute with a background of nursing in high school and currently finalizing with his master’s degree in Project Management at University of Kigali (UoK).
David Muhwezi
Public Engagement Officer
David Muhwezi Nuwajira is the Public Engagement and Communication officer at the 5S Foundation for Rwanda. David is an Experienced Communicator, Former War Reporter, Public Relations Officer and Media Trainer, with a vast a special interest in health communication where he led communication in government hospitals in Uganda. He has consulted and advised many companies in different sectors, including: investigative journalism, counter terrorism, media management, crisis communication, reporting Child right protection and writing university curriculum. He was a member of peace journalism foundation of East Africa, African public relations association (APRA) and Academic staff representative in the university council.
Didier Nkurunziza
Finance Officer
Didier Nkurunziza has a bachelor’s degree in Economic Sciences and Management. He is a Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM). He is currently the Program Officer at the Centre for Gender Studies, University of Rwanda-CASS. His role includes communicating with all members of project teams, the College and University administration, and those outside the organisation. Additionally, he organises and maintains income and expenditure records for the projects and prepares annual financial reports and accounts for audit. Furthermore, he is responsible for the set-up, organisation and maintenance of the storage of access to hard copy and electronic copies of key project documents. Finally, he organises and administers project related meetings, workshops and conferences in collaboration with CGS and College and University staff.
Jean Paul Bikorimana
NIHR PhD Student
Jean Paul Bikorimana is a physiotherapist by profession and is currently a PhD student at BSMS under the 5S foundation, specialising in anthropology discipline. Jean Paul holds a master’s degree of Public Health (Epidemiology) obtained from Mount Kenya University. While working at Heart and Sole Africa, Jean Paul contributed to various activities related to Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in Rwanda, including the development of NTDs management guidelines and strategic plan 2019-2024. Jean Paul is committed to combating podoconiosis and empowering affected communities to access health, education and employment opportunities, thereby facilitating their social inclusion in society.
Dr John Peter Mugume
Co-Investigator & Partner Lead
Dr Peter Mugume is a lecturer at the University of Rwanda’s Centre for Conflict Management and the School of Governance from the College of Arts and Social Sciences. Dr Mugume has taught different courses/modules and supervised more than 40 students, both Post Graduate and Undergraduate programs at the University of Rwanda. Peter is currently the Coordinator of Post Graduate programmes at the Centre for Conflict Management. Peter has experience working with NUFFIC and Sida.
Dr Richard Kalisa
Post Doctoral Research Fellow
Richard is a PDRF on the 5S Foundation collaboration project between BSMS and University of Rwanda. He is also a Paediatrician, Health Economist and Researcher with over 10 years of experience in maternal, perinatal and new-born health. He holds a PhD in Safe motherhood from Vrije Universitet, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His research interests are in perinatal audit, maternal death, Confidential Inquires, and Social Science in Neglected Tropical Diseases focusing on podoconosis.
Ursin Bayisenge
NIHR PhD Student
Dr Ursin Bayisenge is a One Health Research Associate and Lecturer at the Centre for One Health within UGHE. His role is to support One Health academic processes and programs related to research and curriculum and develop new and promote existing relationships with One Health organizations and scholars across the world. Previously, Ursin worked as an NTD Research Senior Officer and National Coordinator of Malaria program at Rwanda Biomedical Centre where he contributed to the development, implementation and publication of several national NTD surveys as well as coordination of malaria control interventions within 2 districts. He also served as a clinician in 3 Rwandan district hospitals where he mostly served vulnerable people. Ursin holds a medical degree from the University of Rwanda and a Master of Science in Global Health Delivery from UGHE. His research interests are focused on finding practical solutions and needed evidences, to tackle NTDs through multidisciplinary collaboration. Ursin recently joined Brighton and Sussex Medical School as a PhD student for the 5S Foundation project.
Sudan
Abdel Hamid Balla Elnour
Public Engagement Officer – University of Khartoum
Abdel Hamid is an Associate Professor at the University of Khartoum, in the Faculty of Population studies. His work focuses on environmental Impact Assessment, Water Supply, Human development, urbanization and Housing.
Dr Ahmed Hamed Ibrahim Elfaig
Project Coordinator – University of Khartoum
Dr Elfaig has been working for the University of Khartoum since 1993 in various capacities, from Teaching Assistant, Lecturer, and Assistant professor; to Associate professor. He is currently working as Associate professor at University of Khartoum in the Faculty of Geographical and Environmental Sciences.
Dr Azza Aziz
PhD Supervisor – University of Khartoum
Dr Aziz holds a PhD in Social Anthropology, with a special focus on Medical Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her research focuses on cultural understandings of health and well-being, which largely feature an exploration of the interface between such understandings and biomedical configurations of health. She has in-depth experience working on these issues among individuals and groups whose lives have been subject to experiences of movement/migration in different forms. In 2006 she worked as a Research Fellow on a project related to the reproductive health of Bedouin women in Syria in conjunction with the Centre of Migration Studies, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. In London, she worked closely with migrants in situations of cultural and psycho-social dislocation, and refugees who have been subjected to torture. She is currently conducting field research among diverse southern populations residing in Khartoum in light of their altered legal status after the creation of the state of South Sudan in July 2011.
Badraldeen Ali Bashir Alnoor Ahmed
NIHR PhD Student – University of Khartoum
Baldreen has a MSc in Geographical and Environmental Sciences (Population and Human Studies) and BA Honors. He is experienced in papers and essays writing, field surveys and outreach communicating successfully in multicultural settings across language barriers and diverse communities. He is bilingual in Arabic, English and basic Chinese language, and has experience in teaching and research. He completed an internship at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle Saale, Germany from June 2018 to November 2018. During this period he undertook a wide range of practices in various fields of social anthropology. He also has experience in research and cooperating, and was associated from 2015 to March 2019 as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Khartoum, Faculty of Geographical and Environmental Sciences, Department of Population and Human Studies. He has been a Lecturer at the University of Khartoum, Faculty of Geographical and Environmental Sciences, Department of Population and Human Studies since March 2020.
Dr Hala Taha El Malik
NIHR PhD Student – University of Khartoum
Hala Taha El Malik is a graduate of Medicine from Ribat University, and completed her master’s degree in Health and Counselling Psychology from Ahfad University for Women. She is now working as a psychiatry registrar at Sudanese specialization board and as a PhD student in the 5S Foundation, based at the Faculty of Geography at the University of Khartoum, Sudan.
Dr Osama Abu Zied Nogid El Nour
Post Doctoral Research Fellow
Committed to research, training, and education, Dr Osama became actively involved in research, lecturing and supervision of graduate researchers. Osama’s current research is an evaluation of an existing intervention for mycetoma in Sudan. His research interest includes issues pertinent to protection, governance and development, marginalization and wellbeing. Dr. Osama Abu Zied holds a PhD from Kyoto University in Japan. He is also a master’s degree holder in Disaster Management and Refugee Studies.
UK
Dr Anne Roemer – Mahler
Co – Investigator – University of Sussex
Anne is an Associate Professor (Reader) in International Relations and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Health Policy. Originally from Germany, Anne did her DPhil at the Oxford Department of International Development where she worked on the role of the Indian pharmaceutical industry in the ‘access to medicines’ debate surrounding HIV/AIDS. She then worked as a Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), where she was involved in a project on transformations in global health governance. Since 2013, Anne has been at Sussex and focused on the role of pharmaceuticals in ‘global health security’. More recently, she has worked on ‘health security’ in Africa and, in particular, the emergence of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
Corinna Thellmann
NIHR PhD Student – BSMS
Corinna has a BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Ludwig Maximilians University Munich and a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, including a exchange semester at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. After her graduation Corinna gained work experience in HR Marketing and Recruiting at a consultancy firms (2017-2020), then she decided to pursue another master’s in MSc in Global Health from Maastricht University, including an exchange semester at McMaster University in Canada (2019-2020).
Esther Garibay
Communications Manager – BSMS
Esther is the Communications and Impact Manager for the Department of Global Health and Infection based at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She is responsible for the day to day comms strategy for the department, particularly taking research findings and developing them into messages for policy, practitioner, media and lay audiences. She has over 15 years’ experience working in various comms and project management related roles for the academic and NGO sector. She completed her BA in Communication Science at ITESO University in Mexico, and has a MA in Transnational Communication and Global Media from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Professor Gail Davey
Co-Director – BSMS
Professor Gail Davey is Co-Director of the 5S Foundation and Professor of Global Health Epidemiology at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She trained at Master’s and doctoral level at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She moved to Ethiopia for 9 years to work with national colleagues in the School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University. There, she initiated a multidisciplinary program of research into podoconiosis. The programme has covered distribution, aetiology, consequences, management of disease and also to raise the local and international profile of podoconiosis, advocating for inclusion in the WHO list of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). In 2010, Gail returned to the UK on a Wellcome Trust University Award to expand podoconiosis research within Ethiopia and other endemic countries.
Dr Gemma Aellah
Post Doctoral Research Fellow – BSMS
Gemma is a social anthropologist with interests in global health research and intervention in Africa. Before joining the 5S Foundation as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow, she carried out fieldwork around the practices of medical research, first on mental health trials in East London and then on transnational medical research in both urban and rural Kenya. She is interested in exploring medical research and intervention within the realms of social, economic, and political life and also working on developing creative ways to communicate anthropology knowledge.
Dr Hayley McGregor
Co-Investigator
Dr Hayley McGregor originally trained as a medical doctor in South Africa, at the University of Cape Town, and worked clinically in the Eastern Cape Province. She pursued further studies in Social Anthropology and completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2003 on the experience of mental disturbance in a low-income urban settlement in South Africa. Her research interests include emerging infectious disease; the anthropology of antimicrobial resistance; informality in health provision; and concepts of care and chronicity in responses to lifelong illness, principally HIV. Hayley’s primary ethnographic work has been in South Africa, but she is involved in work elsewhere in Africa, and in SE Asia. She has been a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies since 2007 and co-lead the Health and Nutrition research cluster. She retained clinical registration with the General Medical Council of the UK, with a focus in psychiatry.
Professor James Fairhead
Co – Investigator – University of Sussex
James Fairhead is an environmental and medical anthropologist who has conducted fieldwork principally in West Africa (Republic of Guinea) and Central Africa (Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo). More recently his has also been rewriting the early history of the discipline, recovering its more radical roots. Before his appointment to the Chair in Social Anthropology at Sussex in 2001, James Fairhead was Reader in Social Anthropology at SOAS, University of London and, earlier still, Lecturer in Anthropology and Development at Oxford (Queen Elizabeth House). He holds an MA and PhD in Anthropology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and BA in Agricultural and Forestry Sciences from the University of Oxford (St. John’s College).
Md Ilias Kamal Risat
Research Fellow – BSMS
Md Ilias Kamal Risat is a medical anthropologist with interests in global health research and interventions in lower and middle-income countries. Risat is part of The Social Science for Severe Stigmatising Skin Conditions (5S) Foundation, a social science study aimed at exploring severe stigmatising skin diseases – podoconiosis, mycetoma and scabies in Sudan, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
Dr Mei Trueba
PhD Supervisor
Dr Mei Trueba has an interdisciplinary academic background with degrees in Nursing, Socio-Cultural Anthropology, Occupational Health and Safety, Social Development and Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research Methods. She has over 10 years’ experience of work in the public and private health sectors and as an Occupational Health Adviser both in Catalonia and the UK. She also has experience of research and development work in Chile, Bolivia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, UK and the USA, where she worked for the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).
Dr Natalia Ivashikina
Senior Health Economist – BSMS
Dr Natalia Ivashikina is a Senior Lecturer in Global Health Economics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Her research expertise covers the economic evaluation of health care interventions, decision analytical modelling, systematic literature review and methodology of clinical trials. Natalia has special interest in neglected tropical diseases and applied health economics evaluations in low- and middle-income countries. She is currently a principal/co-investigator on four research projects including studies of neglected tropical diseases in Ethiopia and Sudan, optimising clinical monitoring of HIV-positive patients in South Africa and evaluation of non-medical prescribing in the UK.
Dr Papreen Nahar
Senior Research Fellow – BSMS
Dr Papreen Nahar has been conducting numbers of interdisciplinary research on diverse global health issues using medical anthropological and gender perspectives. Her research expertise are Health inequalities and Health system (Formal and Informal), Global public health and Research Methodology. Her current involvement is with Social Science Capacity Building for Sever Stigmatising Skin Diseases in 3 African countries. She also examines Capacity building on Non-communicable diseases and Comorbidity with mental health in three South Asian countries, and Co-design community engagement CVD risk reduction implementation among disadvantage population in UK. Furthermore, her focus is on Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) pathways in Bangladesh via formal and informal health system. Her Geographic area of work covers, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, The Netherlands, UK.
Rachel Jackson
Project Support Officer – BSMS
Rachel is the Project Support Officer for the Department of Global Health and Infection based at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She is responsible for supporting the research activities of two major research units; the NIHR Global Health Research Unit for Neglected Tropical Diseases and the NIHR 5-S Foundation. Prior to working at BSMS, she gained experience working for NGOs based in Brazil, Argentina and Peru and more recently in the UK Public Health sector. She completed her BA in Hispanic Studies at the University of Liverpool and then went onto gain her MA in Social Development at the University of Sussex, with a specialised focus on access to health services for disabled and Deaf communities.
Professor Shahaduz Zaman
Co-Director – BSMS
Professor Zaman Shahaduz has an interdisciplinary background with degrees in Medical Anthropology, Public Health and Medicine. He has more than 15 years of experience in conducting research and teaching in global public health. His research interests include hospital ethnography, Socio-cultural aspects of communicable and non-communicable diseases, death dying and end of life, refugee health, role of art in heath interventions, health policy and health systems in low income countries and medical history. He has conducted research in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Vietnam, Turkey, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Syria. He has received research grants from ESRC, AHRC, MRC, British Academy and WHO. Zaman is also a notable fiction writer in Bengali literature and the recipient of the ‘Bangla Academy Award 2016’ which is the highest national literary award in Bangladesh.
Dr Vasso Anagnostopoulou
Research Fellow in Medical Statistics – BSMS
Vasso is a Research Fellow in Medical Statistics at the Brighton & Sussex Medical School. After completing her PhD in Mathematics at Queen Mary, University of London, she held postdoctoral positions at Queen Mary, Imperial College London and TU Dresden. She joined BSMS in 2019 and currently works as a statistician in the NIHR Global Health Research Unit for Neglected Tropical Diseases, the NIHR 5-S Foundation, and the Clinical Trials Unit (REDUCe2 Study).
NTDs Research 