Connecting Citizens to Science

In this week’s episode we hear from Dr Ana Bonell and Dr. Aliyu Nuhu Ahmed from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine about environmental degradations from climate change that impact health in The Gambia. The expected increase in heat and reduced rainfall in The Gambia is one of the most significant health threats caused by climate change. However, little is known about the gendered dynamics of exposure and response to heat stress; changes in land use and transmission of zoonotic diseases and children’s ideas for the future. Our guests discuss how they are engaging communities in identifying solutions to climate change impacts on health and hear about: 

• changes in agricultural land use due to climate change and how these impact health outcomes in rural communities, including transmission of zoonotic diseases  
• a project with pregnant farmers in The Gambia to understand how they perceive and act upon occupational heat stress  
• a “Climate Change Solutions Festival” with children in 50 schools who gave a unique insight into perceived climate change problems and scalable, affordable and creative solutions that could be implemented in their local area 
•  co-production approaches and how they are situated within the wider decolonising health agenda 

Dr Ana Bonell, Clinical Research Fellow 

Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Dr. Ana Bonell is a Wellcome funded Clinical Research Fellow working on maternal health and climate change. She has training in epidemiology, tropical medicine and advanced physiology. She is particularly interested in the nexus between climate change, maternal health, occupational heat stress and agriculture. Her research focuses on pregnant subsistence farmers in West Africa and the impact of maternal exposure to high ambient temperature, the physiological response to that stress and the impact that has on fetal health and wellbeing. Additionally she is interested in connecting with, learning with and from the youth on climate problems and solutions to the current crisis.   

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.785254/full 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.784915/full 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.31.22273092v1 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3965382 

Dr. Aliyu Nuhu Ahmed, PhD Student 

Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Rapid changes are occurring in agricultural systems in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Land-use changes, market dynamics, agricultural policy, environmental factors, cultural habits, and technology are all influencing and affecting crop farming techniques and animal husbandry for both commercial and subsistence purposes. However, the effects of these changes on zoonotic disease risk remain largely unknown, particularly in the world's poorest communities, where there is rising recognition that zoonotic illnesses have a significant impact on health and livelihoods. A better understanding of the mechanism by which environmental degradation endangers human health, especially in rural communities, will inform ways to optimise zoonotic disease risk mitigation and promote sustainable land-use that is more environmentally friendly. 

In this week’s episode we hear about citizen science approaches for tackling flooding and waterborne hazards in Ethiopia. Our guests Dr Alemseged Tamiru Haile, Senior Researcher from the International Water Management Institute and David Warne, Professor of Environmental Systems Modelling from Newcastle University are part of the GCRF Global Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub. Their work with citizen scientists aims to improve awareness and action on flooding risks and waterborne hazards in Ethiopia through co-creation of knowledge and development of new management systems for water. Our guests will share the value of citizen science approaches from enhancing community understanding of their environment to resolving data gaps for risk assessment, modelling, and better decision-making. They share with us: 

• Definitions and understanding of citizen science approaches and co-creation of knowledge 
• The involvement of citizens in testing water quality and flow, monitoring ecological status in aquaria, analysing and interpreting data and communicating findings to the community. 
• How climate change and resulting changes in rainfall and water flow created hazards for small scale farmers which stimulated the co-design of a new early warning system by scientists, communities and government 

Dr Alemseged Tamiru Haile

Senior Researcher, International Water Management Institute 

Dr. Alemseged Tamiru Haile is Senior Research of hydrology and hydrological modelling at International Water Management Institute (IWMI). He earned his PhD in Spatial Hydrology at University of Twente, The Netherlands. He is leading and contributing to several research projects that aim to improve water security, fill hydrological data gaps and improve flood risk management. Alemseged enjoys sharing experience with early carrier researchers and students. 

https://www.watersecurityhub.org/resources/citizen-science-bottom-management-shallow-groundwater  

https://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/2020/10/can-citizen-science-help-to-fill-hydrology-data-gaps-in-ethiopia/  

Dr David Werner

Professor Environmental Systems Modelling, Newcastle University 

Dr. David Werner is Professor of Environmental Systems Modelling at Newcastle University, UK. He earned his PhD in Environmental Sciences at EPFL in Switzerland. He works with colleagues and communities in Africa, South America, and Asia towards ubiquitous genomics in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) to achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 6: Clean water and sanitation for all. This includes the co-development and testing of a suitcase laboratory for water quality testing. David enjoys doing fieldwork with his colleagues and students, and life-long learning about the wonders of nature and human follies. 

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/engineering/staff/profile/davidwerner.html 

https://www.ukri.org/about-us/research-outcomes-and-impact/lab-in-a-suitcase-could-provide-safer-water-for-millions/ 

https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/davidwerner/ 

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 states that we need to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. The consideration of energy is a central focus for climate change experts as it is responsible for “nearly three-quarters of global emissions”, with energy consumption being one of the biggest sources of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.  SDG7 calls for “affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” by 2030. Its core target includes: Ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services. In this week's episode we will be focused on learning about renewable energy and the links between sustainable development goals such as health and poverty alleviation. We will hear from guests how they are working with people and communities to adapt to cleaner energy whilst considering the impacts on other SDG goals. Flavia Ajambo from CREEC and Professor Jon Lovett from Leeds University share: 

• How the entertainment industry helps disseminate information around renewable energy in an interesting manner 
• The design of microgrids that supply multiple renewable energy sources to orphanages in Uganda. 
• How new energy technologies and innovations developed in a lab are transferred to communities in a sustainable way 
• The importance of capacity strengthening and knowledge dissemination such as policy briefs, massive online open courses, and movies!

Our co-host for this series 

Dr. Ajay Bhave 

Core Research Fellow - Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub, Newcastle University 

I am an interdisciplinary environmental scientist who uses methods from different disciplines to explore how to identify and prioritise actions and plans for adapting to a changing climate. I use scenarios and decision making under uncertainty approaches to co-produce knowledge with wide-ranging stakeholders regarding potential futures and adaptation options. Currently, he collaborates with researchers and stakeholders in Malawi, India, Malaysia, Colombia and Ethiopia to explore the diverse decision contexts, contextual priorities, climate change risks, and adaptation options. After receiving the Jawaharlal Nehru Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, he has worked at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of Leeds. 

Profile: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/engineering/staff/profile/ajaybhave.html  

Publications: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=55584569800  

Twitter: @ajay_bhave 

Flavia Ajambo is a Ugandan communication expert that has for 9years worked closely with renewable energy experts to influence the adoption of renewable energy technologies. On identifying the different patterns on how people absorb information and how it influences their adoption of clean energy, Flavia has worked closely with industry sector players to encourage and develop content packaged into movies, long foam content on YouTube, carousels, tv and radio drama series. These have demonstrated how renewable energy can be utilized and it’s benefits and has helped to drive impact towards the adoption and optimum utilization of renewable energy technologies. 

Professor Jon Lovett is Chair of Global Challenges in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds. He started working with engineers on renewable energy whilst leading the Technology and Sustainable Development group at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. This work led to collaborations on energy and Sustainable Development Goal 7 in Uganda, Tanzania, Congo Brazzaville, Nepal, Indonesia and Nepal. On moving from Twente to Leeds he developed a project on ‘Energy Gardens’ in Nepal funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. This then led to a series of projects with the partners in Africa on capacity building, micro-grids and biogas with support from the Royal Society, Engineering and Physical Science Research Council and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. 

https://cera.leeds.ac.uk 

Massive open online course on bioenergy with CREEC: 

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/renewable-energy-achieving-sustainability-through-bioenergy 

 Kampala TV series Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/Kampalatvseries 

In this week’s episode we hear from our co-host Robinson Karuga in his role as a Research, Evaluation and Learning Manager at LVCT. Robinson has been part of a team implementing a participatory action research approach to improve health and wellbeing in two informal settlements in Nairobi. Robinson shares with us: 

• How data collected with community co-researchers using photovoice (see S4E1) was presented to key stakeholders like chiefs, village elders, civil society organisations and community volunteers so they could identify and prioritise key health and wellbeing issues  
• The development of work improvement teams that were responsible for driving actions for change together with key decision makers, government bodies and those who held power such as police 
• The journey from data collection to problem identification, root cause analysis, developing actions and implementing them within the system 
• The role of researchers as facilitators, coaches, and morale support, as well as assessing and navigating power dynamics through reflexivity 

Robinson Karuga is a Health Systems and Policy Research specialist. His area of specialization is community health systems research, with a focus on community participation in governance and embedding of quality improvement approaches. Karuga is a co-investigator in ARISE (Accountability and Responsiveness in Informal Settlements for Equity), a multi-country research consortium that seeks to generate evidence on how to apply community-based participatory approaches to empower marginalized residents of urban informal settlements to advocate for improvements to factors that affect their health and wellbeing. Within ARISE, Robinson connects citizens with science through the implementation of community-based participatory research such as photo voice and building the capacity of co-researchers in reflexive methods. 

Robinson Karuga

Research, Evaluation and Learning Manager, LVCT Health 

As the Research Capacity Strengthening lead in the ARISE Consortium, Karuga is responsible for developing and implementing the Consortium’s capacity strengthening strategy that targets 29 early and mid-career researchers, a Ph.D. cohort of 9 candidates, and community co-researchers in four countries across Africa (Kenya, Sierra Leone) and Asia (India and Bangladesh).Robinson Karuga is currently the Research Evaluations and Learning Manager at LVCT Health, a Kenyan not-for-profit organization that seeks to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable and marginalized populations through research, technical support to governments, and policy advocacy.  

In this week’s episode we talk about COVID-19 and how travel and public health restrictions presented challenges to ensuring that urban marginalised voices were heard by researchers and policy makers in India and Bangladesh. Our impressive guests Professor Sabina Faiz Rashid and Senior Research Fellow Dr.Surekha Garimella discuss the importance of having established long-term relationships with people, communities and supporting organisations which enabled research to continue and ensured that the needs of people in urban spaces were reaching decision makers. Our guests share;  

• what happened when Covid-19 hit urban informal communities in India and Bangladesh 
• the personal and professional passion of researchers to work with communities, not only for research purposes but in solidarity for the struggles faced  
• their own career journeys of humility, unlearning, connectedness and shared humanity that shaped their lives and relationships with communities 

Dr Surekha Garimella

Senior Research Fellow, George Institute for Global Health, India

Garimella Surekha has a bachelor’s degree in Nutrition, a Master of Science in Nutrition & Food science, a Master of Philosophy in Applied economics, and a PhD in Public Health, Gender, and Work. Her research interests are in gender, women, work, and political economy; Gendered health systems and accountability; feminist theory and practice and ethics of research practice. She has worked in implementation and research in gender, nutrition, health and wellbeing among women, children, and adolescents in informal urban settlements in Delhi and Tamil Nadu as well as researched on the health and wellbeing experiences of women workers in urban informal settlements in Delhi. Currently she leads the work on health and wellbeing of waste workers under ARISE (Accountability for urban informality) in India. 

https://www.georgeinstitute.org.in/people/surekha-garimella

Sabina Faiz Rashid

Professor, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University

Sabina F. Rashid, PhD, is Dean and Professor at the BRAC School of Public Health, BRAC University. A medical anthropologist by training, she has over 25 years of work experience in Bangladesh. Her areas of research and teaching interest and experience are ethnographic and qualitative research, with a focus on urban populations, adolescents, and marginalized groups. She is particularly interested in examining the impact of structural inequalities and inequities and intersectional factors that affect the ability of these populations to realize their health and rights.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0916-2631

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sabina-faiz-rashid-5229671aa

Twitter: twitter.com/bracjpgsph

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/BRACJPGSPH

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bracu-jpgsph

In this week’s episode we will be discussing the intersections between research and activism for social change. With our guests Vinodkumar Rao and Joseph Kimani, we will be seeking to understand how lessons from activist approaches can be applied within research and vice versa. We will also explore how power, participation and social justice fits within the wider research agenda when seeking to engage communities in informal settings. Key points we hear from Kimani and Vinod include: 

• How slum federations in India and Kenya lead data collection with support from NGOs and researchers so they can demand rights and ensure they have a ‘seat ‘at the decision-making table  
• The role that researchers play within activist organisations to support knowledge generation, understand government policies and to decipher academic evidence so that communities can develop solutions or ask for resources from the state. 
• The organic growth of ‘movement’ building – when one community takes action another will follow and have an example to build upon 
• The importance of collecting data about slums, challenging government data, and producing evidence to ‘prove their existence, to prove their requirements and to prove the value that they bring to the city by inhabiting in the city.’ 
• How dominance and power within community structures is considered and managed within activism to promote inclusion 

Joseph Kimani

Executive Director, Shack Dwellers International-Kenya (SDI-K)

Joseph is an experienced community organizer, with a Masters in Community Economic Development. He has worked with Civil Society Organizations for the past 18 years in areas including civic and political rights, peacebuilding, economic development, and governance. Currently working as the Executive Director for Shack Dwellers International Kenya (SDI Kenya). SDI Kenya is composed of young professionals who provide technical support to Kenya Slum Dwellers Federation- Muungano wa Wanavijiji. The organization promotes and facilitates Community-based participatory research tools used by Slum federations and community organizations to use their data in the co-production of solutions with city authorities. 

1. https://pubs.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/10884IIED.pdf 
2. http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/gdi/publications/workingpapers/scaling-participation-horn-et-al.pdf 
3. https://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/index.php/idsbo/article/view/3115 
4. https://www.muungano.net/publicationssearch 

Vinodkumar Rao works within ‘The Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers’ or SPARC, an NGO based in India working with grassroots networks of slum dwellers across cities. He has close working experience with the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and Mahila Milan (‘women together’ in Hindi), two organisations of urban poor who negotiate for access to safe habitat and basic civic services, co-producing solutions with the state institutions. He is currently leading on the interdisciplinary action research project, ARISE, aimed at improving accountability and governance to produce health equity among marginalised urban people. 

Series 4 is brought to us by the ‘Accountability and Responsiveness in Informal Settlements for Equity’ abbreviated to ARISE. The ARISE consortium is all about promoting social change for improved health and wellbeing with communities and people living and working within urban informal spaces.  Together, across 10 partners in 4 countries – Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Sierra Leone- they are co-developing solutions with communities to health and wellbeing challenges. However, co-production of knowledge for action is challenging due to the many and intersecting inequalities and power relations between researchers, development professionals, activists and communities. We will be exploring how ARISE is working to overcome these, in partnership with people in urban informal settlements or slums, to stimulate change. 

In this week’s episode we are talking to Inviolata Njoroge from LVCT Kenya and Shrutika Murthy from The George Institute for Global Health (TGI), India. They have shared their experiences of using visual methods and storytelling to bridge the power-laden distances between lived realities of waste pickers, child headed households, the elderly and people with disabilities in urban informal communities and research and policy. We hear about: 

• methods that have been used to connect with the most marginalised and often hidden people in urban informal communities 
• how different intersecting identities and inequities add new layers of vulnerability in urban informal settlements  
• the use of participant shadowing as an activity to capture experience and context of vulnerable people and what needs to be considered before using this as a method to connect with people 
• how the photovoice method has brought out silent voices and stories that are often left unheard  
• The importance of considering researcher and community mental health when using these in-depth exploratory and creative methods with vulnerable populations 

Guest presenter for this series is Robinson Karuga

Research, Evaluation and Learning Manager, LVCT Health

Robinson Karuga is a Health Systems and Policy Research specialist. His area of specialization is community health systems research, with a focus on community participation in governance and embedding of quality improvement approaches. Karuga is a co-investigator in ARISE (Accountability and Responsiveness in Informal Settlements for Equity), a multi-country research consortium that seeks to generate evidence on how to apply community-based participatory approaches to empower marginalized residents of urban informal settlements to advocate for improvements to factors that affect their health and wellbeing. Within ARISE, Robinson connects citizens with science through the implementation of community-based participatory research such as photo voice and building the capacity of co-researchers in reflexive methods. 

As the Research Capacity Strengthening lead in the ARISE Consortium, Karuga is responsible for developing and implementing the Consortium’s capacity strengthening strategy that targets 29 early and mid-career researchers, a Ph.D. cohort of 9 candidates, and community co-researchers in four countries across Africa (Kenya, Sierra Leone) and Asia (India and Bangladesh).Robinson Karuga is currently the Research Evaluations and Learning Manager at LVCT Health, a Kenyan not-for-profit organization that seeks to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable and marginalized populations through research, technical support to governments, and policy advocacy.

Inviolata Njoroge

Research officer, LVCT Health

Inviolata has 15 years of managing programs that target marginalized and vulnerable populations in Kenya. 

She implemented the ambitious 5-year DREAMS project at LVCT Health that targeted vulnerable adolescent girls and young women living in urban informal settlements and poor rural areas. In her role within DREAMS, she managed the delivery of life-saving interventions to 34,000 adolescent girls and young women. She was responsible for leading the social protection component of DREAMS. Inviolata is currently leading the implementation of photovoice research with children heading households, persons with disability and older persons living in Nairobi’s informal settlements. Inviolata is passionate about helping the most vulnerable persons.

Shrutika Murthy

Research Assistant, The George Institute for Global Health (TGI), India  

PhD Student, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), UK 

Shrutika Murthy is a Research Assistant at The George Institute for Global Health, India (TGI) and works in the Accountability for Informal Urban Equity Hub (ARISE). Shrutika possesses an inter-disciplinary background, having graduated with a Bachelors in Economics and a Masters in International Relations. Her work and research interests revolve around issues pertaining to caste, gender, urban poverty and health systems and policy. She is currently pursuing her PhD from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), wherein she is trying to understand the embodiment of stigma and discrimination among waste workers in Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) and its impact on their health, well-being and agency. 

1. https://www.georgeinstitute.org/people/shrutika-murthy 
2. https://www.ariseconsortium.org/learn-more/multimedia/shadowing-suvartha/ 
3. https://www.ariseconsortium.org/voice-quilt-search/ 
4. https://www.ariseconsortium.org/the-voice-quilt-amplifying-the-voices-of-waste-worker-communities/ 
5. https://www.ariseconsortium.org/learn-more-archive/viral-loads-anthropologies-of-urgency-in-the-time-of-covid-19/ 

Phumeza Tisile is a TB survivor, researcher and advocate for TB patients at TB Proof. In this episode Phumeza shares her moving and powerful lived experience of being an Extremely Drug Resistant (XDR) TB survivor. She starts her story describing the challenges of first understanding her symptoms and gaining an accurate diagnosis of TB, how this led to complex treatment of taking 30 tablets a day and an injection, followed by 2 years of hospitalisation and loss of hearing for 5 years. Her research is now focused on the immediate and long-term impacts of being a TB patient and survivor including managing stigmatisation, disability and mental health conditions. Phumeza calls for researchers to be aware of the language they use to describe people with lived experience and challenges scientists and decision makers for more affordable treatment strategies that meet patients where they are- geographically, financially and personally. 

• The Global Coalition of TB Advocates(GCTA) is a global platform of people affected by TB that amplifies community engagement and strengthens the capacity of TB activists at all levels .http://gctacommunity.org/?v=7d31e0da1ab9
• TB Proof Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TBproof/

This episode is a two-part feature with Charles Yu who has been a TB researcher for over 30 years and Mohammed Yassin from Global Fund. In this important episode we hear how lessons from TB informed the COVID response and how COVID 19 learning is shaping the future of TB and lung health. In Part 1 our guests share: 

• The importance of public-provider partnerships in responding to lung health conditions 
• How TB experts in the Philippines were drafted in to run the covid-19 responses 
• How the global fund applied learning from TB when responding to Covid-19 

In part 2 we hear about: 

• How TB survivors filled gaps as community workers during Covid-19 
• How community engagement of the poor and vulnerable was essential to respond to Covid 19 
• The unsung Heroes and stories of people on the frontline who continued to serve the community during COVID-19 when TB facilities were closed

Dr Charles Y. Yu

Charles Y. Yu, MD, MSc, FACP, FPCP, FPCCP is an internationally recognized expert on TB particularly on public-private mix DOTS (PPMD) and has personally directly treated thousands of TB patients almost 30years of practice often without financial gain and indirectly influenced the TB practice of hundreds of other physicians through trainings, guidelines and advocacies . He has proven his leadership by being national Chairman of the Philippine Coalition against Tuberculosis (2002-2004) presiding over some of the most important years of its existence, president of the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP), and president of the Philippine College of Chest Physicians (PCCP). He was a member of the Core Group of the WHO DOTS Expansion Committee, PPMD Subgroup, WHO consultant on TB-PPMD and past President of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development Stakeholders Association,which helped develop new TB drugs that are aimed to be affordable,accessible and is a much sought-after authority by WHO and developmental agencies as well as the Philippine Department of Health. He was member of the International Standards for TB care core group.

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2016/08/17/dr-charles-y-yu-the-dlshsi-vice-chancellor-has-found-his-rightful-place-under-the-sun/

https://www.dlshsi.edu.ph/news/dr-charles-yu-pcp-exemplar-awardee-distinguished-researcher

Dr Mohammed Yassin

Dr Mohammed Yassin (MD, MSc, PhD) is a public health physician and Infectious Diseases Epidemiologist by profession. He works at the Global Fund, Geneva as a Senior TB Advisor where he provides technical leadership on TB/MDR-TB, TB/COVID-19 and advises Global Fund teams and countries to ensure resources are prioritized for key interventions and populations and to maximize impact. He started his career as physician and district medical officer treating TB patients in Ethiopia over 25 years ago, managed the regional programme for communicable diseases. Before joining the Global Fund in 2010, he has worked in Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK and designed, implemented, and managed several multi-country projects. He promotes innovation and partnership and has worked with national programmes in several countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Western Pacific. He collaborates with technical partners globally as member of several global task forces and contributes to policy development and accelerate implementation.  

This episode is a two-part feature with Charles Yu who has been a TB researcher for over 30 years and Mohammed Yassin from Global Fund. In this important episode we hear how lessons from TB informed the COVID response and how COVID 19 learning is shaping the future of TB and lung health. In Part 1 our guests share: 

• The importance of public-provider partnerships in responding to lung health conditions 
• How TB experts in the Philippines were drafted in to run the covid-19 responses 
• How the global fund applied learning from TB when responding to Covid-19 

In part 2 we hear about: 

• How TB survivors filled gaps as community workers during Covid-19 
• How community engagement of the poor and vulnerable was essential to respond to Covid 19 
• The unsung Heroes and stories of people on the frontline who continued to serve the community during COVID-19 when TB facilities were closed

Dr Charles Y. Yu

Charles Y. Yu, MD, MSc, FACP, FPCP, FPCCP is an internationally recognized expert on TB particularly on public-private mix DOTS (PPMD) and has personally directly treated thousands of TB patients almost 30years of practice often without financial gain and indirectly influenced the TB practice of hundreds of other physicians through trainings, guidelines and advocacies . He has proven his leadership by being national Chairman of the Philippine Coalition against Tuberculosis (2002-2004) presiding over some of the most important years of its existence, president of the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP), and president of the Philippine College of Chest Physicians (PCCP). He was a member of the Core Group of the WHO DOTS Expansion Committee, PPMD Subgroup, WHO consultant on TB-PPMD and past President of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development Stakeholders Association,which helped develop new TB drugs that are aimed to be affordable,accessible and is a much sought-after authority by WHO and developmental agencies as well as the Philippine Department of Health. He was member of the International Standards for TB care core group.

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2016/08/17/dr-charles-y-yu-the-dlshsi-vice-chancellor-has-found-his-rightful-place-under-the-sun/

https://www.dlshsi.edu.ph/news/dr-charles-yu-pcp-exemplar-awardee-distinguished-researcher

Dr Mohammed Yassin

Dr Mohammed Yassin (MD, MSc, PhD) is a public health physician and Infectious Diseases Epidemiologist by profession. He works at the Global Fund, Geneva as a Senior TB Advisor where he provides technical leadership on TB/MDR-TB, TB/COVID-19 and advises Global Fund teams and countries to ensure resources are prioritized for key interventions and populations and to maximize impact. He started his career as physician and district medical officer treating TB patients in Ethiopia over 25 years ago, managed the regional programme for communicable diseases. Before joining the Global Fund in 2010, he has worked in Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK and designed, implemented, and managed several multi-country projects. He promotes innovation and partnership and has worked with national programmes in several countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Western Pacific. He collaborates with technical partners globally as member of several global task forces and contributes to policy development and accelerate implementation.