About Us

African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET): Dr Simon Nyovuura Antara

Dr Simon Nyovuura Antara assumed the role of Director of the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET) on February 1, 2020, following his appointment by the AFENET Board of Directors. Dr Antara is a distinguished medical epidemiologist renowned for his extensive expertise in public health practice and applied epidemiology.

Before his current position, Dr Antara served as the Director of Programs at AFENET, where he played a pivotal role in shaping and executing the organization's strategic initiatives.

Dr Antara has worked as a Resident Advisor to several Field Epidemiology Training Programs in different countries in Africa. These include the Rwanda Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program (FELTP), Namibia FELTP, and the West Africa FELTP- a regional program based in Ouagadougou for the Francophone West African Countries. Dr Antara has also previously worked as a Municipal Director of Health Service in Ghana and was a key member of the National Rapid Response Team.

Dr Antara has leadership skills and expertise in program and project management, monitoring and evaluation, surveillance, emergency preparedness & response, infectious diseases, training, mentorship, networking & collaboration. He is very focused and committed to his work and has won many awards as a student and in his work life. These include the US Ambassador’s award for exceptional dedication and technical excellence in supporting Namibia to respond to critical public health threats (2013), the University of Ghana School of Public Health award for best dissertation and best field practice student (2004), The Kwame  Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Medicine award for best student in Medicine and Clinical Methods (2000).

Dr Antara is a member of the Ghana Medical Association and the International Epidemiological Association.

Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC): Dr Yanping Zhang

Dr Yanping Zhang is the director of the Infectious Disease Control Division of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). He graduated as an MD in public health from Shandong Medical University in 1987 and graduated as an MPH from China CDC in 2007. He also graduated from the Chinese Field Epidemiology Training Program (CFETP) in 2004.

Dr Yanping Zhang worked in the Henan Provincial CDC after graduation from the university for 20 years. His main work duty is the prevention and control of zoonoses such as Japanese encephalitis, leptospirosis, rabies, brucellosis, HFRS, plague, and so on. Since 2007, he has worked at China CDC; his main research area is emerging and reemerging infectious disease control and prevention. He attended infectious disease response, including severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), pandemic (H1N1) 2009, human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Zika virus disease, COVID-19, and so on.

Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET): Dr Mohannad Al-Nsour

Dr Mohannad Al Nsour is a medical doctor and an internationally recognized expert in field epidemiology, operational research, and public health systems, and a fellow through distinction with The Faculty of Public Health at UK (FPH). Dr Al Nsour assumed several positions, such as a notable researcher, advisor, and director, during his career path.

He also served as a consultant on several assignments with international entities. Dr Al Nsour has been leading the Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) since 2009, providing strategic assistance and operational solutions and guiding the enrichment of Field Epidemiology Training Programs (FETPs) and public health initiatives in the region.

Under Dr. Al Nsour’s leadership, GHD|EMPHNET emerged as a prominent collaborative platform to serve the region and support national efforts to promote public health policies, applied epidemiology, surveillance, International Health Regulations (IHR), resource mobilization, and public health program development, among others.

Dr Al Nsour is a lecturer and speaker at regional and international levels, covering public health topics such as leadership, field epidemiology, delivering evidence-based recommendations, creating new opportunities, and being a catalyst for change. Some of his areas of expertise are infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases (NCD), and global health. Dr Al Nsour serves on several regional and global initiatives, associations, and networks. He currently serves as the Chair of the Steering Committee for the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) following his Deputy Chair role since 2022.

Dr. Al Nsour is also a member of the steering committees of the Global Field Epidemiology Partnership (GFEP) and the Roadmap on Public Health and Emergency Workforce (WHO), the FETP Enterprise’s Strategic Leadership Group (SLG), the IHR Review Committee of IHR amendments, the Middle East and North Africa Health Policy Forum (MENA HPF), the Lancet Commission Advisory Group, and many others. He is also the founder of the International Academy of Public Health (IAPH).

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC): Mr Thomas Hofmann

Mr Thomas Hofmann is heading the section “Emergency Preparedness and Response” at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm. This section also hosts the Secretariat for the EU Health Task Force, which supports countries in their national preparedness and response work. Moreover, he is leading ECDC’s collaboration project with Africa CDC as well as several collaborations and projects on preparedness and response with countries and national CDCs around the world. In this capacity, he has also been guiding the design and implementation of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Assessments (PHEPA), which became mandatory for all EU/EEA countries in 2024.

Before he joined the Centre in 2021, he was working for WHO and the WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) in various offices and functions. Besides directly supporting low- and middle-income countries with capacity building and during response operations, he was coordinating the implementation and application of the International Health Regulations (IHR) in the WHO European Region and supporting IHR Review and Emergency Committees as well as the COVID-19 Incident Management Support Team at WHO Headquarters. Mr. Hofmann was involved in several outbreak and crisis responses, on the national level by mobilizing support, e.g., during his earlier employment with the German Federal Ministry of Health, on the international level by coordinating support, and on the field level while being deployed, e.g., in Liberia during the EVD outbreak.

International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (ICDDR,B): Dr Lubaba Shahrin

Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Virales Humanas "Dr Julio I. Maiztegui" (INEVH)-ANLIS "Dr Carlos G. Malbràn": Dr Alejandra Morales

International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: Ms Gwendoline Eamer

Gwen Eamer is a humanitarian public health specialist with more than 15 years of experience in emergency management. Gwen is a public health in emergencies generalist, with experience implementing long-term community health programmes in conflict zones, in recovery from disasters and epidemics, and leading outbreak responses ranging from Ebola to cholera to COVID. She brings a wealth of experience in community-based emergency response, participatory planning and implementation of health programming, and training of local health workers and emergency responders. Gwen holds an M.Sc. in Global Health, and leads the Public Health in Emergencies file at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), where she is responsible for global epidemic response tools, coordination of health responses, and development of tools for volunteer-based action to improve health outcomes in emergencies.

International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC): Dr Gail Carson

Dr Gail Carson specialized in adult infectious diseases in the UK. In 2012 she moved from Public Health England to help set up the global federation of the hospital-based clinical research networks called ISARIC. She was frustrated with trying to provide fellow clinicians during outbreaks with clinical management advice based on weak evidence. ISARIC was set up to try to make sure that clinical research is done and done quickly during outbreaks. ISARIC responded to COVID-19 via CoCIN and ISARIC4C, via a pre-approved Clinical Characterization Protocol (CCP) in the UK and internationally with a database hosting nearly 1,000,000 patient entries from multiple countries, resulting in >50 collaborative publications. During and since the height of the pandemic, Dr Carson has focused on supporting the ISARIC LMIC partners.

Dr Carson graduated from Edinburgh Medical School in 1994 and completed her infectious disease training in Manchester in 2008. Over the past 20+ years, she has worked with WHO at the country level, responding to outbreaks, e.g., VHFs, the regional office on a new regional strategy for Europe and Geneva for SARS 2003, and the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. During the same time frame, she has sat on multiple WHO committees and working groups. In 2016 she was elected to the Steering Committee of the WHO-hosted Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network (GOARN) and asked to set up the research arm of GOARN. In 2018 she was elected Deputy Chair and became Chair in 2022 after leading the process to define the new GOARN strategy.

In 2018, she was awarded a Distinction in the Diploma of Organizational Leadership at the Said Business School, University of Oxford. Dr Carson is an Associate Fellow of the Oxford University Business School.

All of the above resulted in recognition in the King’s Honours List in 2023 by being awarded an OBE for her contributions to global health.

Medecins Sans Frontiers, International: Dr Daniela Garone

Dr Daniela Garone is a medical doctor from Argentina, specialized in infectious diseases, internal medicine, and clinical and pharmacological research. Daniela has more than 25 years of working in the clinical field and 16 years of experience managing medical programs in resource-limited settings, working with international organizations in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, India, Venezuela, Brazil, Malawi, South Sudan, and South Africa.

She has more than 20 years of experience working in clinical, pharmacological, and operational research as a study coordinator as well as a principal investigator. She has also always sought to integrate operational research into the clinical service delivery elements of her work in resource-limited settings to further extend the impact and efficiency of health services.

Dr Garone served as an HIV expert member in the Technical Review Panel (TRP) at The Global Fund and served as a technical advisory panel for the Pandemic Fund. She is also a reviewer of the JAIDS-AIDS, BMC-Lancet-TB union, and others.

As International Medical Coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières International, Dr Garone is a member of the ICG for Ebola, Meningitis, Cholera, and Yellow Fever, GFTCC steering committee, GOARN SCOM since 2021, the Humanitarian Buffer, i-MCM-Net, the IA2030 outbreak group, and the STAG-IH member, as well as different working groups for disease elimination. 

Dr Garone is always looking to acquire the necessary skills and qualifications to perform her best in her responsibility toward high-quality outcomes that can improve patients health and well-being. 

National University of Singapore (NUS): Dr Louisa Sun

Robert Koch Institute: Dr Andreas Jansen

Dr Jansen is currently working for the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin as the Head of the Information Center for International Health Protection (INIG). He is a trained MD with a postgraduate degree in field epidemiology (EPIET), a diploma in Tropical Medicine and Travel Medicine, and a board certification in epidemiology.

From 2016-18, he worked at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. As part of the GOARN operation support team, his main task was to coordinate the work on Rapid Response Capacities. From 2010-2015, he was employed as Head of the Section for Scientific Advice Coordination at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm. He was responsible for developing and implementing SOPs and workflows for scientific advice at ECDC, including their IT implementation. Other responsibilities included country assessment missions, evaluation of public health measures, and production guidelines and recommendations based on the available evidence.

In 2015, he was employed as a senior consultant at the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila, as part of the response team for the MERS outbreak. In addition, he was a member of several public health emergency response teams (pandemic influenza, Q fever, EHEC) both on national and international levels. He has extensive working experience in outbreak response and was the principal investigator in several outbreak investigations.

University of Nebraska: Dr Ali Khan

Dean. Ali S Khan is a dedicated public health leader with extensive experience in global health security, emergency response, and preparedness. As Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska, Dr Khan oversees academic programs, research initiatives, and community engagement efforts focused on public health challenges. Dr Khan is a tenured Professor of Epidemiology, bringing a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the field.

Dr Khan has a distinguished career with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where they served for 23 years, culminating in the rank of Assistant Surgeon General with the U.S. Public Health Commissioned Corps. During their tenure at the CDC, Dr Khan played a critical role in establishing the nation’s public health preparedness program and a leadership role in numerous public health emergency responses, including outbreaks of infectious diseases and natural disasters. Dr Khan is a physician-scientist and a graduate of the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) fellowship program, a prestigious training ground for public health leaders.

Dr Khan's commitment to global health security is further evidenced by their membership on the Steering Committee of the World Health Organization's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). In this role, Dr Khan contributes to the development and implementation of strategies to strengthen global capacity for outbreak detection, response, and preparedness. He also remains an active responder to global emergencies.

Dr Khan is a recognized expert in public health, having authored numerous publications and presentations on a wide range of topics, including infectious disease epidemiology, global health security, and public health emergency preparedness. Dr Khan's recent autobiography, "The Next Pandemic: On the Frontlines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers," provides a firsthand account of their experiences in public health and offers insights into the challenges and opportunities facing the field.

Public Health Agency of Canada: Dr Eleni Galanis

Dr Eleni Galanis is a public health physician and Director-General of the Centre for Applied Public Health Sciences at the Public Health Agency of Canada. She is also a Clinical Professor at the School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia and Adjunct Professor at the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She obtained her medical degree from the Universite de Sherbrooke in 1995, a Master of Public Health from Harvard University in 1998 and her Fellowship in Public Health and Preventive Medicine in 2000 from the University of Toronto. Dr Galanis has practiced internationally and sub-nationally and nationally in Canada for over 25 years in infectious disease surveillance, prevention and control as well as outbreak investigation, risk assessment and emergency management.

American University of Beirut: Dr Ghassan M. Matar

Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Mr Sean Starmer

Central Department of Microbiology, Tribhuvan University, Nepal: Professor/Dr Prakash Ghimire

UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA): Dr Edmund Newman

Dr Ed Newman is the Director of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team—a partnership between the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), funded with UK aid by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, that responds rapidly to disease outbreaks in low- and middle-income countries around the world, conducts operational research into epidemic preparedness and response, and works with partner countries to help strengthen their own capacity for improved response. Under his leadership, the UK-PHRST continues to strengthen its reputation as a key global partner supporting response to some of the most pressing public health crises of our time.

Dr Newman is a distinguished operational leader in global health response, with a career dedicated to tackling global health security challenges. Ed is a virologist by training, receiving a doctorate in molecular virology of HIV from Kings College London in 2006 and with over ten years of technical expertise in applied research, surveillance, and response to emerging human high-consequence viruses with the UK’s Health Protection Agency / Public Health England at Porton Down.

His outbreak response experience includes providing and managing initial diagnostic mobile labs and operational research teams for Haemorrhagic Fever Virus outbreaks in Guinea (2014-2016), Sierra Leone (2015), and Uganda (2012).  Prior to joining UK-PHRST as director in 2022, he was Head of Global Operations at the UK Health Security Agency (formally Public Health England) for 5 years where he facilitated the delivery and operational management of the portfolio of Global Health Security capacity and systems strengthening programmes.  

Dr Newman was elected as (co)deputy Chair of the GOARN SCOM in December 2024, having been an active GOARN partner/focal point and SCOM member for nearly 3 years, and looks forward to his tenure of working closely with GOARN SCOM members, the Operational Support team, and all GOARN Partners to represent the network and the great work it does to improve coordinated national and local response wh

National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) : Dr Jacqueline Weyer

Jacqueline Weyer is the Head of the Centre for Emerging Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. For 17 years, she has been leading the team responsible for laboratory investigations of human rabies, viral heamorrhagic fevers, arboviruses, and other emerging zoonotic diseases (such as mpox) of concern to the health of the South African public. In the past 10 years, Jacqueline has authored and co-authored more than 60 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, and seven chapters in books, and achieved a National Research Foundation C2 rating since 2017. She serves on several national and regional committees and working groups pertaining to laboratory biosafety and biosecurity, rabies and other zoonoses, and One Health. She has been co-chairing the National One Health Forum in South Africa since its inception and a member of the National Rabies Advisory Group since 2008. She serves as the Deputy Chair of the ASSAf Standing Committee on Biosafety and Biosecurity and the Lead for the Implementation of the International Health Regulations in South Africa, Biosafety and Biosecurity work package.

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF): Dr Douglas Noble

Dr Douglas Noble (BSc, BMBCh, MRCS, MPH, MD(Res), FRSPH, FFPH) is the Associate Director for Public Health Emergencies Preparedness and Response for UNICEF. As the global lead for public health emergencies in UNICEF he is driven by a desire to ensure that girls and boys, families and communities are prepared and protected during public health emergencies.

Dr Noble first joined UNICEF in 2013 as the Regional Health Adviser for South Asia based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He later joined UNICEF China as the Deputy Representative from 2017 - 2023.

He has also previously worked in the UK National Health Service, Department of Health and Health Protection Agency, with the World Health Organization, and was a Harkness Fellow with the Commonwealth Fund. He has an honorary academic affiliation with the University of Oxford.

Dr Noble studied science at the University of St. Andrews and medicine at Oxford University. He has a master’s degree and research doctorate in public health from Johns Hopkins and Queen Mary University of London, respectively. He is a British national.

United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Dr Athalia Christie

Athalia Christie, DrPH, MIA, is the Principal Deputy Director for the Global Health Center at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Dr Christie supports Global Health operations and provides leadership and guidance in science, implementation research, and response activities, ensuring high-quality and comprehensive program delivery. Dr Christie received her Doctorate in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University and a Master’s in International Affairs with a concentration in public health from Columbia University. Dr Christie previously served as the Global Health Center’s Associate Director for Emergency Response and Preparedness, coordinating global emergency response work across CDC, the USG inter-agency and our global partners. During her time in this position, she served three times as the Senior U.S. Government Official overseeing interagency response teams spanning at least 12 federal departments and agencies, twice for Marburg Virus Disease (2023 and 2024) and for Clade 1 Mpox (2024). Previously, Dr. Christie served as the CDC's Ebola Response Lead in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as the Principal Deputy Incident Manager for DRC Ebola, COVID-19, Multi-national Mpox, and Marburg responses. Throughout her 27-year career at the CDC, Dr Christie has consistently displayed commitment to improving global health outcomes, successfully leading local, national, and international public health programs. Dr Christie has expertise in outbreak response, disease control, and policy. She has received many awards for her service, including the Watsonian Public Health Advisor of the Year, the Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service, and the American Red Cross’ Spirit of Excellence.