Organizing Committee

Rumbidzai Matilda Chidora works with Zvandiri as a mentor. She has been leading the scale up of the CATS model within the African region through a south-to-south learning approach. Rumbi is also a youth leader who provides mentorship to CATS and staff within Zimbabwe and regionally, creating opportunities where there are gaps, and sharing and celebrating where there are successes. Rumbi provides mentorship both professionally and personally as she guides and supports her peers, and advocates for care and pathways to access services and support.

Dr. Namusoke-Magongo is the founder of the International Paediatric HIV/AIDS Symposium for Africa (IPHASA). She is a Paediatrician & Child Health Specialist with 14 years’ experience designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating, and scaling up paediatric and adolescent HIV programmes in sub-Saharan Africa (Uganda). As the Senior Programme Officer (team lead) for Paediatrics and Adolescent HIV Care and Treatment, she is responsible for the overall leadership and coordination, policy development and review, capacity building, quality assurance, resource mobilization and implementation of the national paediatrics and adolescent HIV programme in Uganda. Dr. Namusoke-Magongo is a member of the WHO Adolescent HIV Service Delivery Technical Working Group (ASWG), Child Survival Working Group (CSWG) and more recently the WHO HIVReSNet Steering Group. In 2020, she participated in focus group discussions to develop the next UNAIDS strategy and has also participated in the development of WHO-lead technical briefs for the children and adolescents. She is a member of the NIH-Fogarty funded Adolescent HIV Prevention and Treatment Implementation Science Alliance (AHISA). Dr. Namusoke-Magongo is also the founder of the Paediatric and Adolescent HIV Learning Collaborative for Africa (PAHLCA), a meeting that brings together Ministry of Health, Paediatrics and Adolescent HIV programme managers and country stakeholders to promote south-to-south learning. Dr. Namusoke-Magongo research interests have focused on optimizing antiretroviral therapy for children and adolescents, improving viral suppression and HIV drug resistance. She is leading the establishment of the first national paediatric and adolescent HIV cohort in Uganda.

Dr Marcel Yotebieng serves as Associate Professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, providing leadership to the Global HIV and Infectious Disease Research Program. He started his professional career as a physician staffing a HIV and a tuberculosis (TB) clinic in a large regional hospital in Limbe, Cameroon. For the past two decades, Marcel has worked across multiple countries in Sub-Saharan Africa as a clinician, public health practitioner, and researcher. From 2009 to 2013, he lived full time in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) supporting the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program and teaching as a visiting faculty at the Kinshasa School of Public Health. His research focus is on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission and HIV care optimization for children living with, or exposed to HIV. He is the PI or mPI of the following ongoing NIH-funded studies: Long term outcomes of therapy in women initiated on lifelong ART because of pregnancy in DR Congo (CQI-PMTCT Study); HIV/ART, low birth weight, and mortality in HIV-exposed uninfected children: a translational mechanistic study; Einstein/Rwanda/DRC Consortium for Research in HIV/HPV/Malignancies; and the Central Africa International Epidemiologic Database to Evaluate AIDS.

Dr Angela Mushavi is the National PMTCT and Pediatric HIV Care and Treatment Coordinator in the Ministry of Health and Child Care, providing technical leadership and guidance for the expansion of PMTCT and Pediatric HIV and AIDS care and treatment programs in Zimbabwe. She is involved in policy formulation and guideline development both at national and international levels, and has previously provided technical expertise to the WHO HIV guidelines development process; in 2010 as an external reviewer to the PMTCT guidelines, and in 2013 as a member of the WHO GDG.

Prior to joining the MOHCC in 2010, Dr Angela Mushavi worked with CDC Namibia as a PMTCT Technical Advisor to the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services; and managed a large pediatric ART clinic in Windhoek, providing care and treatment to HIV exposed and HIV positive children and adolescents. She is strong advocate for the care of children affected by HIV and sits on the Steering committee of the African Network for the Care of Children Affected by HIV (ANECCA).

Dr. Martina Penazzato is the paediatric lead for the HIV, Hepatitis and STIs Department at WHO Headquarter in Geneva. Over the last 15 years, in addition to providing major contribution to several Guidelines development processes in the areas of HIV, TB and child health, she has set up surveillance projects to asses HIVDR in HIV-infected infants, contributed to shape the paediatric HIV research agenda and provided technical assistance to several countries in the African region. In her current role she leads the work of WHO on paediatric treatment and care and contributes to a number of global initiatives to improve access to better medicines for children and investigation of new ARVs for pregnant and lactating women.

Dr. Natella Rakhmanina is a Professor of Pediatrics at the George Washington University and serves as a Director of the HIV Program at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, USA. Dr. Rakhmanina obtained her MD degree at People’s Friendship University in Moscow, Russia, and her PhD degree at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. For more than 20 years she has been providing clinical care to HIV-infected infants, children and adolescents, and continues her practice treating pediatric and adolescent patients in metropolitan DC area. She is certified in HIV medicine and is a successful clinical researcher, focusing her research on the treatment and prevention of HIV in children and adolescents and serving as a principal investigator of NIH, CDC and industry funded pediatric and adolescent HIV studies. Dr. Rakhmanina is also a Senior Technical Advisor at Elizabeth Glaser Pediatrics AIDS Foundation leading several projects on pediatric and adolescent HIV treatment in Sub-Saharan African countries. Dr. Rakhmanina is a Chair of the Committee on Pediatric AIDS at the American Academy of Pediatrics, member of the US Department of Health and Human Services Panel on the Pediatric Antiretroviral Therapy and Management Guidelines at the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council in National Institutes of Health, member of the Pediatric Advisory Working Group at the World Health Organization, and a Regent of the Board and Chair of the Bylaws committee at the American College of Clinical Pharmacology.

Nandita Sugandhi is a paediatrician with over 15 years of experience working in Paediatric HIV Care and Treatment.  After completing her training in New York in 2006 she spent four years working with the Baylor International Paediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI) to provide clinical care to HIV positive children in Swaziland, Botswana, Tanzania and India.  From 2010-2017 she worked with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) as a Senior Clinical Advisor to improve access to essential drugs and diagnostics for HIV Prevention and Treatment in resource limited settings.  She is currently an Associate Research Scientist at ICAP at Columbia University and an attending paediatrician at BronxCare Hospital in New York.   Dr Sugandhi also leads the Optimal Paediatric ARV Formulary sub-committee as well as the technical advisory panel for Paediatric AIDS Treatment for Africa (PATA), a network of over 250 clinics in sub-Saharan Africa dedicated to providing high quality paediatric HIV care.

Dr. Saeed Ahmed, MD, MSc, is a board-certified paediatrician with over fifteen years of experience in the comprehensive care and treatment of HIV-infected pregnant women, children, and their families. A member of the inaugural class of the Baylor Paediatric AIDS Corps, Dr. Ahmed has been living and working in Malawi since 2006. He is the founder and programme director of the USAID-funded Tingathe program, which utilizes community health workers to improve uptake and utilization of EID, PMTCT, and HIV care and treatment services in Malawi. Dr. Ahmed also serves as Chief of Party of the USAID-funded Technical Support to PEPFAR Programmes in the Southern Africa Region (TSP) project providing technical assistance and direct service delivery to ten Southern African countries. He holds a medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine and trained in paediatrics at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Dr. Ahmed is an Associate Professor of Paediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

Dr. Nadia Sam-Agudu is a clinician-scientist with expertise in pediatric infectious diseases. Her research interests are in the prevention and treatment of major infectious diseases among children and adolescents, including HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. She has further research and advocacy interest in rights-based adolescent sexual and reproductive health, especially as pertains to HIV and other sexually- transmitted infections.

Dr. Sam-Agudu serves in the role of Senior Technical Advisor for Pediatric and Adolescent HIV at the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria, as faculty of the Institute of Human Virology, University of Maryland School of Medicine. In these roles, she has implemented public health programs and research projects across Nigeria, while teaching and mentoring Nigerian and US students and trainees in maternal and child health, health services research and implementation science. Additionally, she has provided technical support to Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health in policy-making for HIV prevention and treatment for children and adolescents.

Dr. Sam-Agudu is a member and co-chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Adolescent HIV Service Delivery Technical Working Group and is also a member of the WHO Pediatric Antiretroviral Working Group.

Dr. Rachel Sturke joined the Fogarty International Center at the NIH in 2006 and currently serves as Deputy Director and Senior Scientist in the Division of International Science Policy, Planning, and Evaluation and the Center for Global Health Studies.  In this role, she oversees a portfolio of global implementation science projects and the program evaluation portfolio for Fogarty. Dr. Sturke’s work in implementation science includes a focus on building research capacity in implementation science in low- and middle-income countries and using innovative platforms to bring implementation scientists together with decision-makers and program implementers from LMICs.  Dr. Sturke has worked extensively in India, Ecuador, Peru, and sub-Saharan Africa. She is an active member of the NIH Dissemination and Implementation Science Working Group, leads a trans-NIH working group focusing on building capacity for global implementation science, and has co-chaired the global track for the NIH-sponsored Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation for several years.  Dr. Sturke obtained her PhD in population, reproductive, and women’s health from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health with a focus on gender, violence and HIV in South India. She received both a Masters in Public Health and a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University.

Dr. Anjuli Wagner is faculty in the Global WACh Center in the Department of Global Health at University of Washington who has been working in Kenya for 12 years. Her interests within global health include pediatric HIV, implementation science, and operations research and she specializes in systems analysis and quality improvement. She is passionate about working in collaboration with ministries of health to identify health system research priorities and address relevant questions with implementation science.

Susan Vorkoper joined the Fogarty International Center in 2014 and currently serves as a Public Heath Analyst in the Division of International Science Policy, Planning, and Evaluation and the Center for Global Health Studies, which serves as a hub for project-based scholarship in global health science and policy. Since starting, she has worked on several exciting topics including HIV and NCDs, mHealth, childhood obesity prevention, and adolescent HIV implementation science.

Susan started at Fogarty after two years as an NIH Presidential Management Fellow during which time, she completed rotations at Fogarty as well as NICHD, NIAID, and USAID. Prior to joining the NIH, Susan was a Program Officer at Meds & Food for Kids in Haiti developing and managing a nutrition research project. She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon where she improved the quality of health systems for maternal and child health among rural populations. Susan holds a dual-master’s degree in Public Health and Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis and a BA in liberal arts from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, a great books program.

Principal Research Fellow (Associate Professor), MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL, Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology, University College London (UCL), UK

Jeannie is an epidemiologist specialised in maternal and paediatric infectious diseases. She co-leads the paediatric component of the European Pregnancy and Paediatric Infections Cohort Collaboration (EPPICC) and has extensive experience working in paediatric HIV research and more recently expanded to viral hepatitis and SARS-CoV-2.  Her research interests include epidemiology, health economics and public health policy with a strong focus on global health. Jeannie has an MSc in Public Health in Developing Countries and a PhD in Epidemiology and Health Economics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), UK.

Dr. John-Stewart is a Professor in the Departments of Global Health, Medicine, Epidemiology and Pediatrics and co-Director of the Center for Integrated Health of Women, Adolescents, and Children (Global WACh) at the University of Washington. Dr. John-Stewart’s research is focused on improving global HIV treatment and prevention particularly among women, adolescents and children. Dr. John-Stewart’s global health research is focused in Kenya, where she was based for over a decade.  Her current research includes collaborative clinical trials, molecular epidemiologic and implementation science studies. Dr. John-Stewart enjoys mentoring the next generation of global health research leaders.

Miriam Nakanwagi is a medical doctor, public health specialist and epidemiologist. She is currently a program officer – Paediatric HIV care and treatment at the AIDS Control Program, Ministry of Health, Uganda. She has over 10 years’ experience in HIV, TB, SRH programming and related research. She is competent in: health program coordination and management, HIV and TB research, policy development /revision, program monitoring and evaluation, quality assurance, scientific writing and communication and resource mobilization. Miriam has published a number of articles on HIV and other health related topics in peer reviewed journals. Her research interests are in maternal and child health in resource limited settings including: PMTCT, Paediatric HIV care and Treatment, Paediatric TB and SRH.

Dr. Addy as she is fondly called is a renowned advocate for children and a passionate leader. Dr. Addy has been central to the establishment of the HIV paediatric unit at Uganda’s Ministry of Health and formulation of policies that have guided the implementation of pediatric HIV prevention, care and treatment.

As an Associate Clinical Professor of Paediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, her major focus over the last 10 years has been to reduce the inequalities of paediatric HIV service delivery by integrating paediatric and adolescent HIV services into main stream adult clinics in rural health facilities through a family-centered model of care.

Before appointment as Executive Director of Baylor-Uganda, she served as Senior Consultant Paediatrician and Clinic Director-Paediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic (2002-2004), while holding the portfolio of Team Leader Paediatric bacterial meningitis surveillance, WHO- Uganda in the same period; Clinical Coordinator Paediatric Laboratories (2000-2004); Head, Diarrhoea Treatment Unit, Mulago Hospital (1995-2004); Consultant Paediatrician (1995-2004); and Instructor and facilitator-Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (1996 -2000). She completed her paediatric residence in 1987 and became Registrar Pediatrician the same year.

Dr. Addy has been very instrumental in ensuring that Baylor Uganda contributes to policy on the elimination and treatment of paediatric and adolescent HIV nationally and internationally. She is the Clinical Research Site Leader for the Division of AIDS Studies at the Baylor- Uganda Centre of Excellence at Mulago Hospital. She has published over 50 papers.

She has spent over three decades as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor where she has tutored and mentored many of Uganda’s current health professionals.

Dennis Adoa is a public health specialist and currently the Program Officer Adolescent HIV Care and Treatment at the Ministry of Health Uganda. Dennis has over 10 years’ experience in supporting Pediatric and Adolescent HIV across the triple 95s cascade. He loves to support, experience and deliver on interventions that aim at ending HIV/AIDS among children and adolescents in Uganda by 2030 having done the same while working for pediatric and adolescent focused Organizations such as Baylor Uganda, Catholic Relief Services, The Clinton Health Access Initiative Uganda among others.

Jessica Jexler is the project manager for the Collaborative Initiative for Paediatric HIV Education and Research (CIPHER) of IAS – the International AIDS Society. She leads several projects focusing on addressing priority knowledge gaps in paediatric and adolescents HIV and accelerating the translation of research evidence into policies and programmes.