Dr. Alexandra Brewis (Slade) is a biocultural/medical anthropologist and President’s Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is senior editor (Medical Anthropology) for Social Science and Medicine, and recently served as President of the Human Biology Association. As an ASU administrator, she founded the Center for Global Health in 2006 and served as Director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (2010-2017) and Associate Vice President for Social Sciences (2014-2017).

Brewis’ research uses an array of theories and methods from social science to unravel the complex and fundamental intersections between culture, health, environment, and well-being. The main focus is how low social position and resource insecurity interact with social meanings, daily experiences, and felt emotions to exacerbate the psychosocial stresses that worsen physical and mental health. Basically: to unravel the mechanisms that connect low power to worse health, to reduce human suffering and create health and well-being. To do this, she works with large, diverse, collaborative teams both in and outside of academia (local communities, international development agencies, other state and private institutions like hospitals or NGOs, and/or elected leaders) to translate anthropological research into sustainable, meaningful solutions.

Her research program has produced six authored books, 5 edited volumes, and over 180 journal articles and book chapters. One recent book (with Amber Wutich) is the prize-winning Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health, described in reviews as a “boundary-breaking book that should be required reading for anyone interested in public health, medicine, and anthropology. It stands as an exemplar for public scholarship.”

Alex was trained in human biology, cultural/medical anthropology, and demography at the University of Auckland, University of Arizona, and Brown University. Before joining ASU in 2005, she taught at University of Auckland and University of Georgia. Committed to innovation in instruction, she designed and launched the nation’s first (and still largest) global health degree, has developed award-winning student abroad programs (in a dozen countries countries to date), co-leads a large social science laboratory on the Tempe campus where she collaborates on projects with around 30 undergraduate members each semester, and collaborates in research to test how we can best teach global health.

Dr. Edwidge Thomas is employed with Northwell Holdings, for-profit fully owned subsidiary of Northwell Health. As the clinical lead, Dr. Thomas provides strategic clinical guidance on business development, identifies, develops, commercially launch, and manage new business and clinical solutions/products with the goal of creating diversified revenue streams for scalable, high margin opportunities for Northwell Health for the betterment of patient care outcomes and experience while reducing total cost of care as well as improving efficiency in care delivery. Dr. Thomas served as Clinical/Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Health System’s Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program’s Performing Provider System from June 2015 to April 2021, Successfully lead and managed Performing Provider System (PPS) to earn the majority of their $400 million award by developing quality medical programs, designing, building, and piloting clinical and social programs to enhance clinical operations infrastructure, improve efficiency, patient care outcomes and experience.

Prior to her role in DSRIP, Dr. Thomas served as faculty and clinical lead at Columbia University School of Nursing and NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing and from 1995 to 2015. As a thought leader, she educated and integrated advanced practice nursing workforce in various clinical settings while incorporating clinical, behavioral, and social determinants of health needs of patients to help provide and expand access to quality primary healthcare with a focus on achieving the “triple aim” of improving health of populations through evidence based care and clinical outcomes, enhancing patient experience, and reducing costs as her north star in traditional clinic setting, on a mobile health van as well as foster care agency. As faculty and founding member at Columbia University School of Nursing’s Columbia Advanced Practice Nurse Associates (CAPNA), she drove innovation to create the first nationally known independent Nurse Practitioner primary care practice (CAPNA) to serve commercially insured patient population in a highly competitive New York healthcare market. Experienced and board-certified adult nurse practitioner with proven track record in strategic planning and with notable contributions to practice management, organizational development, inter-professional team building that pioneered nurse practitioners in primary care and other healthcare setting.

Dr. Thomas received her undergraduate degree in Nursing at Rutgers University, Master of Science and Doctor of Nursing Practice at Columbia University School of Nursing, and Master of Science in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Service Research at Cornell University and completed Wharton Nurse Leader Program. She’s a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and is an active board member of Nursing Education Fund, Columbia University School of Nursing Board of Visitors, Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies Advisory Board Chair, and Community Health Network. Currently engaged in clinical practice as adult nurse practitioner at a Federally Qualified Health Center and adjunct faculty at Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies and Columbia University School of Nursing with the goal of educating future clinicians to deliver a higher quality, compassionate, culturally appropriate and comprehensive care to all patients.

Dr. Joyeeta Gupta is full professor of environment and development in the global south at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education. She is also the Faculty Professor on Sustainability (2019-2024) and leads the programme group on Governance and Inclusive Development, managing 10 permanent facult members, 3-4 post-docs and approximately 60 PhD candidates. Finally, she is also the Co-Convener of the University’s Centre for Sustainable Development Studies, for which she coordinates and leads all related activities, including the recent and successful third annual (virtual) conference – which saw over 1900 registrations and participants from over 30 countries. Joyeeta Gupta is co-chair of UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook-6 (2016- 2019), published by Cambridge University Press, which was presented to governments participating in the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2019, and was covered in newspapers worldwide. It has just won the Association of American Publishers PROSE award for Environmental Science. She has also been named as co-chair of the Earth Commission (2019-2021), set up by Future Earth and supported by the Global Challenges Foundation, together with Johan Rockström and Dahe Qin.

Dr. Michael Makanga is a clinician-scientist with 28 years of professional experience of working on health and poverty-related infectious diseases in Africa. This includes 24 years of work experience on medical product development and clinical regulatory activities. He holds a Medical Degree from Makerere University, Uganda; a Master’s Degree at the University of Liverpool, and a PhD Clinical Pharmacology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dr Makanga is the Executive Director of The European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials (EDCTP). Before joining EDCTP, Dr Makanga was first in clinical practice and academia, and later clinical research and research management. Moreover, he has served in various scientific and policy advisory boards for international product development, philanthropic organisations, World Bank and pharmaceutical companies involved in developing medicinal products for poverty-related and neglected diseases.

Dr. Motoko Kotani’s journey in academia is marked by a series of notable achievements and leadership roles. She previously served as the Executive Vice President for Research at Tohoku University and was the Director of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative – Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR).

She has further been Executive Director at RIKEN, and currently also serves as a Member, Board of Governors, OIST – Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology School Corporation.

Dr. Kotani was recently appointed to the 10-member United Nations Working Group tasked with advising the UN’s Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI). by the UN. She has further served as Executive Member of the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI) of the Cabinet Office of Japan.

Dr. Kotani’s recent appointment as a science and technology co-advisor to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2022 further exemplifies her standing in the international science policy and and science diplomatic community. Her leadership has been instrumental in various capacities, including her tenure as Vice President of the International Science Council and her significant involvement with the Mathematical Society of Japan, where she served as the first woman president from 2015 to 2017.

Professor Akiça Bahri is a Tunisian agricultural engineer. She brings extensive experience in water resources management, with particular expertise in the agricultural use of marginal waters, biosolids, and their environmental impacts. Professor Bahri served as Tunisia’s Minister of Agriculture, Water Resources and Fisheries from 2020 to 2021, following her role as Secretary of State for Water Resources and Professor at the National Agricultural Institute of Tunisia. Her international career includes serving as Director for Africa at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) based in Accra, Ghana (2005–2010), and as Coordinator of the African Water Facility (2010–2015) at the African Development Bank. Earlier, she was Director of Research at Tunisia’s National Research Institute for Agricultural Engineering, Water and Forestry.

Her contributions to science and water management have been widely recognized. She has received honors from the Guinness Foundation (1984), the International Foundation for Science (1993), and the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (1996). She was awarded the 2009 Prof. C.N.R. Rao Prize for Scientific Research and the International Water Association’s “Women in Water” Award in 2018. In 2005, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Davis. Professor Bahri holds an Agricultural Engineering degree from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Agronomie de Toulouse, a Doctor-Engineer degree from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, and a Ph.D. in Water Resources Engineering from Lund University.

Prof. Yap Boum II is a public health leader, epidemiologist, and microbiologist with extensive experience in epidemic preparedness and response across Africa. He currently serves as Deputy Incident Manager of the Mpox and Cholera Incident Management Support Team (IMST), led by Africa CDC and WHO, where he contributes to strengthening continental systems for outbreak detection, coordination, and control.

He is a former Director General of the Institut Pasteur de Bangui and previously served as Africa Representative for Epicentre (MSF), leading research and response efforts across multiple countries. Prof. Boum is also an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Yaoundé I, where he has trained and mentored a new generation of African scientists.

He is also the co-founder of The Village, a novel digital platform that leverages artificial intelligence to match needs and resources, breaking barriers and borders by connecting researchers, clinicians, students, institutions, philanthropists, and publishers globally. https://globalhealthvillage.org/about-us. He is also the co-founder of Kmerpad, an initiative that empowers women through the production and distribution of reusable sanitary pads in Africa. https://www.kmerpad.com

His work focuses on advancing equitable global health, strengthening health systems, and promoting African leadership in research and innovation.