Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program

Hina Afroz is a promising senior veterinary officer and microbiologist at the Veterinary Research Institute, Lahore, Pakistan. After graduating from the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan with excellence as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, in 2010, she started her professional career in the Livestock and Dairy Development Department, Punjab. She completed her Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Microbiology in continuation with her professional journey.

Comprehensively, for over 11 years, Dr. Afroz served her department in achieving goals and objectives of hemorrhagic septicemia and pleuropneumonia vaccine production, bio-fermenter operations, technical and administrative obligations. Her dedication, hard work, and progressive thinking tied her up to the Research and Development division for contagious and infectious diseases of zoonotic importance in 2021, where her responsibilities were extended to lead the Central Reference Laboratory, research activities associated with molecular diagnosis, advancement in vaccine development, project preparation, project evaluation, and other executive tasks.

During her time in the 2022-2023 Emory Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, Dr. Afroz desires to strengthen her leadership and organizational skills at international forums and endeavors to learn the strategies and policies for the control of contagious and infectious diseases of zoonotic importance. Her area of interest covers global health challenges in disease prevention, mitigation plans for specific emerging pathogens, antimicrobial resistance along with rational usage of antimicrobial drugs in developing countries like Pakistan and the One Health Zoonotic Diseases Prioritization process, which is a collective, multisectoral and multidimensional approach for achieving optimal health goals and objectives on the national and international level.

Dr. Sabanur Cavdar graduated from Gazi University Faculty of Medicine in 2010 and gained public health specialty at Istanbul University Cerrahpasa Medical Faculty in 2015. While working on improvement of healthcare services during her residency, she completed an Associate Degree program in Healthcare Administration and started in the Health Management PhD program. She currently holds the academic rank of Assistant Professor at Istanbul Medipol University’s School of Medicine in the Department of Public Health.

Before joining the academic faculty, she worked at the directorates of the Ministry of Health (MoH) at district and provincial levels in Istanbul. As a team member and unit manager, she worked in coordination and monitoring-evaluation of primary health care services, process improvement, research and development and projects in health management, pandemic management for contact tracing and vaccination coordination in vulnerable groups, community health services, and implementation of MoH’s plans and programs on health promotion and prevention at the local level. In addition to working on health information systems, collecting, and analyzing the data, she worked in cooperation with universities both to increase the efficiency of practice and to conduct scientific research. She also participated in international projects as a manager, researcher, and consultant. As an acting result of giving foremost importance to peer education and sharing experience with colleagues, she took roles at the organization of scientific meetings on public health held in her country and contributed to the primary health care strengthening project of WHO Azerbaijan country office.

Her main interest is in facilitating evidence-based decision making in public health, producing qualified evidence, and improving public health surveillance by applying economic evaluation methods in healthcare and improving health information systems.

During the Emory Humphrey Fellowship Program, she aims to increase theoretical knowledge, expand her network related to her field of expertise, and gain experience by working in key institutions and organizations. At the same time, she hopes to participate in research projects where she can learn while also contributing and starting long term partnerships.

Dr. Kezang Dorji has received his MBBS degree from India in 2006 and a Master of Public Health in Biosecurity and One Health Epidemiology Fellowship from Massey University, New Zealand, in 2016. He has started his career as GDMO (General Duty medical Officer) under the Ministry of Health, Royal Government of Bhutan in 2008. Since then, he has served in various district hospitals of Bhutan on both preventive and curative public health services.

He has served as Chief Medical Officer of Samdrup Jongkhar General Hospital, where he gained experience in dealing with infectious diseases such as scrub typhus, dengue, malaria, and Avian influenza outbreaks, in addition to HIV and Tuberculosis.

In the past 2 and half years of COVID-19 pandemic, he has headed the Medical desk of the District, as well as the Eastern region COVID-19 Task Force, which played a pivotal role in the prevention and control of COVID-19 in the six Eastern districts of Bhutan.

During 2022-2023, he is completing the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, with an interest in contagious and infectious diseases.

During the Fellowship, Dr. Dorji aspires to advance his leadership knowledge and skills, to learn more about global health, and transforming Public Health Surveillance and Epidemiology. He anticipates building a network to address local and global challenges on infectious diseases and fostering change for our collective good health.

From an early age, Tatiana Estrela decided to drive her career towards social causes, which influenced her professional path as a social worker. She is a permanent member of the Science & Technology staff of the Brazilian Ministry of Health.

Receiving a Master of Social Policy in 2007 from the University of Brasília, she has been working in national and international tuberculosis (TB) policy matters for 12 years. She also attended Oswaldo Cruz Foundation’s (Fiocruz) TB Control Program Management specialization course, with an emphasis on TB control in prisons.

At the National Tuberculosis Program, she leads health communication, advocacy and interaction with the Brazilian Parliament and TB Caucus, while supporting social protection strategies developed by the Ministry of Health and beyond.

Her social policy skills allowed her to establish multisectoral approaches to improve TB response towards vulnerable populations. She has published on social determinants of TB, social protection, and human rights.

As an advisor at the Office for International Affairs at the Minister’s Cabinet, she built international partnerships on TB and acted as a focal point to antimicrobial resistance, intellectual property, and access to medicines in multilateral environments.

Building upon her social policies background and career as a public civil servant, Tatiana is also a J.D. candidate, focusing on Public Health Law, where she seeks to improve legal responses to TB, MDR-TB, and social protection strategies.

As a Humphrey Fellow, Tatiana seeks new partnerships in the U.S. to strengthen the TB responses in Brazil, still hugely affected by COVID-19. She hopes to contribute to existing Brazilian initiatives and aide with the National TB Plan implementation.

Her fellowship program connects strategies to end TB, through health surveillance, communication, funding, and advocacy, and public health legal issues focused on data protection and social vulnerabilities.

Tatiana Estrela proudly fulfills her commitment to social causes by promoting justice and better public health services to people affected by TB.

Dr. Meriem Fadli obtained her Medical Doctorate in 2013 from the Medical School of Blida University and pursued a Specialized Medical Studies in Metabolic Physiology and Nutrition at the Medical School of University of Algiers. She is currently working as a Specialist Physician in Nutrition at the Public Hospital of Laghouat in South Algeria. She is also an Assistant Teacher of Human Physiology at the Medical School of the University of Laghouat.

In her home country, she provides specialized healthcare in nutrition for patients with weight issues such as obesity, diabetes, celiac disease, and undernutrition. She also developed therapeutic artificial nutritional treatment plans for hospitalized patients with chronic non-communicable diseases including diabetes and chronic kidney failure.

As an Emory Humphrey Fellow, Meriem is looking forward to participating in seminars, while building networks with public health experts in nutrition and epidemiology, to enhance her knowledge in clinical research and nutrition. She is especially interested in exploring malnutrition seen in patients with chronic infectious diseases such as HIV. She also strives to improve her leadership, research, and communication skills through professional affiliations and internships.

Meriem is a Muslim woman who loves practicing her religion in every single detail in her life. She also likes traveling, learning languages, and cooking healthy food.

Dr. Sambo Guemgo is a United Nations (UN) clinic physician focusing on COVID-19 (UNDP) and UK-Med emergency medicine doctor. As a Bachelor of Natural Sciences and Doctor of Medicine (2008) from the University of Ndjamena, Chad. Currently, he is working on a master's degree of sciences in vaccinology from the University of Bordeaux, France, with defense scheduled for October 12, 2022.

He holds specialized certificates in emergency medicine, sexual and reproductive health, family planning and rights, along with project management and monitoring and evaluation (MEAL). With 16 years of national and international experience in primary health care and public health project management, he has worked for 8 years as Chief Medical Officer of remote Health Districts within the Ministry of Public Health, and for 8 years as a UN Clinic Physician and medical coordinator within UN System and International NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF)/World Vision International, Essential Air Services-Africa, Peschaud Oilfield Intl, and Center for International Health Support.

In 2005, he was awarded as Associate Fellow Researcher with World Health Organization (WHO)/ Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), and the Swiss Tropical Public Health Institute, focusing on pediatric TB in hospital settings and TB, HIV, AIDS among nomadic pastors in Chad.

During his 2022-2023 Emory Humphrey Fellowship, Dr. Guemgo plans to enhance his knowledge and skills on public health policy and management, leadership (policy formulation and advocacy, health system strengthening, and program management) with an emphasis in Community Health/Sexual and Reproductive Health/ Maternal Newborn and Child Health /Mental Health and routine immunization programs that contribute to Universal Health Coverage. He is determined to apply the learnt insights from the Humphrey Fellowship Program to uphold the health equity of women, children, and youths. He is also keen to build networks with public health institutions, indigenous NGOs and people of the USA for future partnership opportunities.

Dr. Guemgo is currently a member of Start Network-Forewarn in the UK and a tutoring coach for Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research/WHO online training program in Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health, Family Planning and Rights.

He enjoys continuous learning and professional development, making online consultancies, eating natural, organic meals on the weekends with his friends, and sharing knowledge with other people.

Richard R. Kambarangwe is a medical sociologist and public health expert with approximately 9 years of experience in leading and coordinating public health interventions, specifically on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Maternal Newborn and Child Health and Adolescent Reproductive Health Services and Family planning.

Kambarangwe is a graduate of University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 2011, majoring in medical sociology, and Master of Public Health in 2020 from Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is also a member of the Public Health Association in Tanzania.

As a compassionate and motivated young professional, Richard worked and led multi-disciplinary teams in working to provide technical support to healthcare providers in the Local Government Authorities (LGAs) under the projects funded by U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on comprehensive HIV/AIDS care and treatment program specifically on linkage and retention services to People living with HIV, Tuberculosis, Maternal Newborn and Child Health for Community Health Workers, Adolescent Reproductive Health Services, and community quality improvement initiatives. In recent years, under the Global Fund project, he has been working with one of the leading indigenous NGOs in public health in Tanzania, known as Tanzania Health Promotion Support (THPS), as a coordinator for the HIV/AIDS prevention project for key, vulnerable, and other at-risk populations in northern Tanzania.

During his time with the Emory Humphrey Fellowship Program, he strives to create partnerships and collaboration with U.S. counterparts in the public health arena, as well as learn global approaches, including HIV prevention programs for at-risk populations. As a public health professional, he is an advocate for inclusive and equity health programs that aim to eradicate infectious diseases, especially HIV/AIDS - whereby he believes that everyone counts in beating pandemics.

Philip Kutjok is the program manager at MedBlue pharmaceutical company, in Juba, South Sudan, bringing ten years of experience in Medical Laboratory Science.

Philip completed his undergraduate degree from the University of Science and Technology, Sudan, in 2010. He received his postgraduate studies and training from Alexandria University, the American University in Cairo in 2016, and Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg.

Having participated in managing three outbreaks in the East African region as a member of a regional response unit, he has extensive experience and knowledge in utilizing and teaching field-based molecular diagnostic solutions, particularly diagnosis of high biosafety containment (BSL3/4) pathogens, infectious diseases control and management, and training pools of medical personnel over the years. The outbreaks covered where Ebola 2018, dengue fever 2019 (which led to the detection of DENV-1 strain in Tanzania), and more recently COVID-19 (which led to the detection of Omicron variants for the first time in S. Sudan in 2022).

Believing in education and academia as a critical key to solving many of the community’s persistent problems, Philip also is lecturing full-time at the department of community medicine at the Upper Nile university and St. Mary College, in South Sudan.

Also believing in giving back to the community, he and a group of his friends established a nonprofit called Girls’ power Mentorship program, launched in 2022 with a vision to inspire, motivate and empower girls between the ages of 13 to 18 to build a positive mindset to help them defined their goals and achieve confidence. There, he serves as Health Director, assisting in designing appropriate health content for the program alongside relevant stakeholders.

In joining the Emory Humphrey Fellowship Program, his area of interest is finding novel techniques in the detection and screening of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases (ID), including next-generation sequencing techniques. He is also interested in epidemiology of ID, recent topics on Global health security and topics on Biosafety and biosecurity.

During his 2022-2023 Humphrey Fellowship period, Philip aims to further his knowledge in laboratory quality management systems, as this is a prerequisite to achieving universal health coverage and security globally. He also aims to increase his experiences in strengthening public health laboratory systems and to broaden his networking for future opportunities and collaborations in the diagnostic and public health field.

Heba graduated from Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, and is a holder of the prestigious Egyptian fellowship of clinical pharmacy.

The spark of her passion towards antimicrobials started with her participation in the implementation of Antimicrobial Stewardship Program for Adult ICUs at a governmental hospital in Cairo, where she worked as a senior clinical pharmacist and as a mentor for Clinical pharmacy fellows. She also participated in the Egyptian point prevalence survey for antimicrobial use and resistance held by the Central administration of pharmaceutical affairs (CAPA), Ministry of Health during 2017 and 2018.

In 2016, she was selected to be an instructor for the Department of Research and Training at CAPA, Ministry of Health. To-date, she has conducted training programs targeting more than 5500 pharmacists, from 20 governorates all over Egypt, on Clinical pharmacy in critical care settings and antimicrobial stewardship programs. She also worked with Princess Fatma Academy in training 500 pharmacists about the emerging role of clinical pharmacists during the pandemic.

Since 2019, Heba contributed to the start of the Universal Health Coverage in Egypt through her work as a clinical pharmacy supervisor in Egypt Healthcare Authority (EHA) at Port Said. She also executed many initiatives in the primary care facilities including the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship programs in 34 primary care facilities based on CDC core elements and implementation of medication error and Adverse drug reaction reporting systems.

Heba held technical positions at the general administration of EHA branches affairs and at the general administration of Internal Audit and Governance. In these roles, she participated in supervising EHA massive Covid-19 vaccination campaign, monthly analysis and evaluation of clinical and operational performance indicators of healthcare facilities in Port said, Luxor, and Ismailia. She designed analysis tools for monthly monitoring of hospital deaths from communicable and non-communicable diseases in the 3 governorates. She utilized clinical knowledge to perform clinical audit activities to ensure adherence to clinical and operational standards.

As a Humphrey Fellow, Heba is planning to focus on the latest strategies in combating antimicrobial resistance in USA, on both institutional and national levels, and to further explore the role of health system digitalization in building surveillance systems. She is also eager to learn more about health policy development and innovative ways of strengthening healthcare systems.

Monzur Morshed Patwary is a public health practitioner with over 11 years of professional experience in organizations such as Novartis and BRAC. Monzur obtained his Bachelor of Science in Business degree with a concentration in Information Science in 2010 from University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

During his time at BRAC as a Senior Programme Manager, he has led several large-scale projects involving COVID-19 response, maternal and child health, and digitalization of training for community health workers. He has also driven BRAC’s strategic partnership with the government of Bangladesh to support 8500 government-run community clinics across the country for strengthening primary health care.

He has collaborated with UN organizations and international donors (such as USAID, FCDO, DANIDA, and GAC) and helped mobilize $25 million through project design and proposal development. Monzur represents Bangladesh on global platforms such as ParisWHO, Global Leadership Forum and HPAIR Harvard Conference. His articles on public health issues have been published on peer-reviewed journals such as BMC Health Services Research (Springer Journal) and Harvard Public Health Review (HPHR).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Monzur’s initiatives led to the distribution of 3.5 million reusable masks, installation of more than 500 handwashing stations, identification of 8,000 suspected COVID-19 cases, creation of change agents in 151 schools, and awareness raising (on the importance of vaccination and preventive measures) through 3,400 community religious leaders in Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar.

Monzur, a graduate of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, was the recipient of the “Global Excellence Scholarship”. Most recently, he has been named a transformational leader at BRAC in recognition of his contributions to pandemic response and fostering innovation in program operation.

Monzur aspires to continue working on addressing the current and emerging health challenges in his country. As an Emory Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow, he strives to learn more about pandemic preparedness and response, and the health impacts of climate change, while exploring avenues of collaboration between U.S. and Bangladeshi public health-focused organizations.

Dr. Eman is a public health professional with over 10 years of experience.

She received a bachelor's degree in pharmacy in 2010 and a master's degree of science in public and tropical health in 2014 from the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Sudan. She has contributed to health research, policies, and partnership agreements, such as the Family health policy in Sudan, 2016. Also, an external evaluator for Tailoring Antimicrobial Resistance Programs (TAP) in 2019 for the Ministry of Health and WHO. Dr Salih coordinated UN agencies' department planning, monitoring, fund tracking, and reviewing the joint plans between MOH and (WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA). Currently, she is the director of bilateral and multilateral relations at the Sudan Ministry of Health. The directorate is responsible for liaison partnerships and resource mobilization for supporting the national health system to achieve Sudan's health strategic objectives. The directorate team mobilized resources and built and revived good relations with health sector partners, co-founding five Covid-19 response projects that complement each other to secure COVID-19 vaccines, personal protective equipment, Oxygen ventilators, ambulances, human resources development and community engagement & risk communication. Dr Salih recently managed the Sudan COVID-19 Emergency Response project, a $121.9 million grant from the World Bank that secured 5.333 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in Sudan to vaccinate about 5% of the Sudanese population.

During her Humphrey Fellowship year, she will focus on programs that provide knowledge about the United States health system and the roles of different actors, also deepening her professional expertise in public health policy and management, international cooperation, and partnerships, particularly the governance and the decision-making process to strengthen her capacity in knowledge translation and enhance her skills in grant policy, management systems, governance, and accountability. Moreover, she is interested in understanding the health for peace approach, and how the USA responds to global health issues.

Dr. Yan “Sean” Song is a clinic-licensed medical doctor and associate professor from China, where he has been working in medical laboratories for nearly 20 years. He continuously concentrates on lab medicine and infectious diseases, including HRV, Flu, HIV, COVID-19, while researching on vaccine clinical trials.

Dr. Song has a background working in different 3-level grade hospitals, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBP), and China-U.S.CDC Emerging & Re-emerging Infectious Disease Office. After finishing his post-doctorate from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University in 2011, he became a research scholar and fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Emory University. During his career, he hosted and participated in more than 16 professional studies, including international and national, where over 40 professional peer-reviewed papers were published.

Dr. Song is a member of the China Association for Disease and Emergency Rescue Medicine, Chinese Preventive Medicine Association and U.S. Vaccine Dinner Club. As a deputy director of the Venue Experts Panel, Dr. Song participated in medical works for the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games.