Andrea Baccareli

Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

A distinguished scientist, Dean Baccarelli, investigates the molecular mechanisms by which a wide array of environmental exposures causes human disease. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for his pioneering work showing that social and environmental risk factors adversely affect the human epigenome, causing long-term health consequences. Beyond epigenomics, he has explored mechanisms including epitranscriptomics, extracellular vesicles, small non-coding RNAs, mitochondrial DNA, and the microbiome to understand how toxins and other stressors affect genetic expression and overall health. Dean Baccarelli’s work has been used by multiple agencies worldwide, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to help shape pollution control policies.

Before he took office as Dean of the Faculty in January 2024, he served as the Leon Hess Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. He also served as director of the NIH/NIEHS P30 Center for Environmental Health and Justice in Northern Manhattan and President of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology.

Dean Baccarelli worked as an associate professor at Harvard Chan School from 2010 through 2016. He earned a Medical Degree at the University of Perugia in Italy, a master’s degree in Epidemiology at the University of Turin, and a doctoral degree at the University of Milan.

Rose Gana Fomban Leke

Emeritus Professor of Immunology and Parasitology, University of Yaoundé I

Rose Leke is Chair of the Independent Review Committee at GAVI and an Emeritus Professor of Immunology and Parasitology at the University of Yaoundé I. Appointed in February 2023, the Gavi IRC is an independent committee of experts that are mandated to review countries’ applications for all types of new funding support, ensuring a holistic view of the broad portfolio of immunization and health systems support Gavi provides to countries, and to make recommendations for funding allocation to the GAVI CEO.

Her primary research interests center on the immunology of parasitic infections, particularly malaria. Professor Leke is keenly interested in global health issues and has been involved in the worldwide Polio Eradication Initiative, global malaria elimination activities, and health systems strengthening efforts. She has effectively trained the next generation of scientists, namely the empowerment of young female scientists and women overall. Higher Women Cameroon, a high-impact mentoring program, is one of her primary initiatives. In March 2013, she stepped down as Head of the Department of Immunology and Parasitology at the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and Director of the Biotechnology Centre at the University of Yaoundé.

Professor Leke served as Co-Chair of the 2020-2022 global engagement called “Rethinking Malaria in the Context of COVID–19” alongside Professor Dyann F. Wirth at Harvard University and serves as Executive Director of the Cameroon Coalition against malaria. She is Chair of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Secretariat, a member of the Canada Gairdner Foundation Global Health Award Advisory Committee, and President of the Federation of African Immunological Societies. Professor Leke is also a fellow of the Cameroon Academy of Sciences CAS, the African Academy of Science AAS, the World Academy of Science, and a two-term Council member of the International Union of Immunological Societies.

Professor Leke is Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Medical Research Institute and serves as Vice President of the Scientific Committee of Cameroon First Lady’s Research Centre. She is a member and Chair of the African Advisory Committee for Health Research (ACHR) and Global ACHR; a Board member of the Global Forum for Health Research; and served as Vice-Chair of the Technical Evaluation Reference Group (TERG) of the Global Fund to Fight HIV, TB, and Malaria. She was awarded a Plaque of Honor in recognition of her “outstanding Services and dedication in leading the TERG” in 2009.

She has served as a consultant on several past/current committees of the WHO, including the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee, the Malaria Elimination Oversight Committee, the Global Certification Commission, the Emergency Committee for Polio Eradication, and the Chair of the African Regional Commission for the Certification of the Eradication of Poliomyelitis. She also served as Chair of the Data Management Committee for a trial on Azithromycin-chloroquine. She was a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Ebola vaccine trials in Guinea.

In 2011, she was one of six women who received the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Award for Women and the 2012 Award for Excellence in Science from the Cameroon Professional Society. In 2014, she served as the Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lecturer at the University of Ghana and was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa (DSc). In 2015, she was elected International Honorary Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. In 2018, she was elected one of nine women as the Heroine of Health. She was celebrated at a special event in Geneva in the presence of the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Regional Director of the WHO/African Regional Office, and the Cameroon Minister of Health. On November 23, 2018, she was crowned by the Cameroon Medical Council as Queen Mother of the Cameroonian Medical Community.

Evelyn Korkor Ansah

Professor and Director, Centre for Malaria Research, University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS)

Professor Evelyn Korkor Ansah is the Director of the Centre for Malaria Research at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana. She is a Public Health Physician, an Epidemiologist, a fellow of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow. Professor Ansah has served and continues to serve at global and national levels. She is currently a member of the Malaria Policy Advisory Group (MPAG) of the World Health Organization (WHO), providing independent, strategic advice to WHO on all technical areas relating to malaria control and elimination and the Independent Evaluation Panel (IEP) of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Together with Professors Daouda Ndiaye of the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar in Senegal and faculty co-founder, Dyann Wirth of Harvard University, she serves on the Joint Secretariat for “Science of Defeating Malaria,” a global leadership development (previously called “Science of Eradication: Malaria” before it transitioned to Africa in 2023).

Professor Ansah was Vice Chair of the Global Fund’s Technical Review Panel (TRP) to combat HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria from 2014-2018. She was also a member of the Malaria Elimination Oversight Committee (MEOC) of the WHO, the Technical Evaluation Reference Group (TERG) of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS and Malaria, and the Bellagio Academic Selection Panel of the Rockefeller Foundation. She recently co-chaired the workstream on Service Delivery for Malaria as part of a year-long global consultation on “Rethinking Malaria in the Context of Covid 19” – a collaborative effort between Harvard University and WHO, and has been faculty on Harvard University’s Flagship Malaria Science of Eradication Course since 2021.
She has additionally served and continues to serve on various global technical committees, including as Co-chair of the Technical Consultation on Urban Malaria, member of a Technical Committee to advise the WHO Director-General on Malaria Vaccine Supply, Expert Review Group on Guidelines for Malaria Elimination, Technical Consultation on Preferred Product Characteristics of Medicines for Malaria Chemoprevention among others. Prior to this, she was a member of the Steering Committee of the ACT Consortium (involving over 15 institutions in several countries) and the Malaria Capacity Development Consortium.

On the National front, she has contributed to several malaria control and surveillance guidelines as well as policy documents of the Ghana Health Service in a variety of roles, her most recent being Chair of the National Review of Malaria Case Management Guidelines, Member of the National Committee for Review of Antimalarial Drug Policy; and Chair of the National Technical Working Group for Malaria Case Management. Additionally, she provided support to the National Malaria Control Programme team in the development of Ghana’s most recent grant applications to the Global Fund for Malaria and COVID-19 Response Mechanism (2020-2022).

Professor Ansah has worked in clinical and public health roles at all levels of Ghana’s health system for over 25 years. In her clinical roles, she worked at the Ridge Regional Hospital and the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana’s Premier Teaching Hospital. Her Public Health roles in Ghana Health Service spanned a period of 15 years. As District Director of Health Services, she won several awards with her team as a District Health Leader. Before joining academia, Professor Ansah was Deputy Director of Research at the Research & Development Division of the Ghana Health Service. As the Deputy Director responsible for research at the National Level, she spearheaded the development of the Ghana Health Service Research Agenda for 2015-2019. Also, she initiated research capacity building for health professionals through a Continuous Professional Development Programme. Professor Ansah contributes to the capacity building of the next generation of Public Health Professionals as an adjunct lecturer at the Ghana College of Physicians & Surgeons, the Ghana Institute of Management & Public Administration (GIMPA), and the School of Public Health (University of Ghana). She has, over the course of her career, supervised several PhD and Masters students both locally and internationally. Evelyn’s key research interests are malaria case management, diagnostics, health systems, maternal health, and capacity building for health research. To this end, she has conducted a number of multi-country and local studies, including clinical trials and research into health systems. She is a reviewer for several peer-reviewed Journals and the Global Health Systems Conference and has several publications in peer-reviewed journals to her credit.

Ray Chambers

Ambassador for Global Strategy, World Health Organization

Mr Ray Chambers is a philanthropist and humanitarian who has directed most of his efforts towards helping children. He is the founding chairman of the Points of Light Foundation and co-founder, with Colin Powell, of America’s Promise–The Alliance for Youth. He also co-founded the National Mentoring Partnership and the Millennium Promise Alliance. Mr Chambers is the co-founder of Malaria No More with Peter Chernin. He is also the founding chairman of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and is the former chairman of Wesray Capital Corporation, which he co-founded with William E. Simon. In September 2018, he was appointed Ambassador for Global Strategy for the World Health Organization (WHO) by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. Prior to this role, he served as the Special Envoy for Financing of the Health Related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Special Envoy for Health in Agenda 2030 and for Malaria by UN Secretary-General Ki-moon. He is the first person to hold the newly created position.

J. Christopher Flowers

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC.

Mr J. Christopher Flowers is chairman and chief executive officer of J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC, an investment company founded in 1998 and specializing in financial services. The JC Flowers & Co. Fund has assets under management of US $8 billion. Mr Flowers previously served as a partner in charge of the Financial Institutions Group at Goldman Sachs from 1979–1998. Mr Flowers was among the founders of Goldman’s Financial Institutions Group in 1986 and became a general partner of Goldman in 1988.

Among Mr Flower’s philanthropic engagements include serving as a trustee of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, launching and supporting NetsforLife, co-founding the Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative in Africa, supporting the Harlem Parolee Initiative, and founding the J.C. Flowers Foundation. He graduated magna cum laude in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University in 1979.

Nobuaki Mito, MD

Managing Executive Officer and President, Health & Crop Sciences Sector, Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd.

Dr Nobuaki Mito graduated from the Department of Agricultural Chemistry at Nagoya University in 1983. He undertook doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Kozo Ishizuka at Tsukuba University in 1989. He joined the Department of Vegetable Crops at the University of California Davis to work with Professor Alan Bennett as a Visiting Scientist researching gene expression during tomato fruit maturation.

In 1985, Dr Mito joined Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. In 2007, He became Group Manager, Environmental Health Science Research at Agricultural Chemicals Research Laboratory (presently, Health & Crop Sciences Research Laboratory) at Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. He also served as General Manager of Vector Control Department in 2008, leading the development of a long-lasting insecticidal net, new mosquito larvicide formulation, and mosquito indoor residual spraying product.

In 2013, Dr Mito has been assigned as General Manager of the Intellectual Property Department at Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. He became responsible for Corporate Business Development as Managing Executive Officer in 2017. In 2019, he served as Managing Executive Officer responsible for Planning, R&D, and Pharmaceutical Chemicals Department at Health & Crop Sciences Sector. He became President of the Health & Crop Science Sector in 2020.

Daouda Ndiaye, PharmD, PhD

Professor and Head, Department of Parasitology and Mycology, Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy, Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD); Founding Director, UCAD’s International Center for Research and Training in Applied Genomics and Health Surveillance (CIGASS)

Professor Daouda Ndiaye is the head of the Department of Parasitology and Mycology in the Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy at Cheikh Anta Diop University. He is also head of the parasitology laboratories at LeDantec Research and Teaching Hospital and founding director of the newly established UCAD’s International Center for Research and Training in Applied Genomics and Health Surveillance (CIGASS) in Dakar, Senegal. Professor Ndiaye is the general secretary of the UCAD Center of Excellence CEA-SAME and a member of the UCAD scientific advisory committee. Professor Ndiaye manages field site activities in Senegal for a number of collaborating institutions, including Harvard University, Tulane University, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He serves as director of the International Research and Training Center on Infectious Pathogens and Genomics and Director of the Senegal Harvard Malaria Initiative. Together with Professors Evelyn Ansah of the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana and faculty co-founder, Dyann Wirth of Harvard University, he serves on the Joint Secretariat for “Science of Defeating Malaria,” a global leadership development (previously called “Science of Eradication: Malaria” before it transitioned to Africa in 2023).

Professor Ndiaye has extensive experience interacting with international collaborators and scientific bodies, having worked with collaborators from other malaria-endemic countries as well as with partners in Europe and the US. At the World Health Organization, He serves as a consultant on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Malaria Programme, including service as a technical advisor on malaria diagnostics, an expert on drug resistance and response, and a malaria expert and member of the WHO Malaria Elimination Certification Panel. Professor Ndiaye earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmacy and Parasitology from Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal and received a Fogarty Fellowship to study molecular biology in the laboratory of Professor Dyann F. Wirth at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In 2017, he was named a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene. He is a technical advisor on the USAID/PMI IMPACT Malaria partnership.

Daniel H. Stern

Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer, Reservoir Capital Group

Mr Daniel H. Stern is co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Reservoir Capital Group, a New York-based investment management firm. Prior to founding Reservoir Capital Group in 1998, Mr Stern co-founded and was president of Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment advisory firm. Mr Stern has participated in forming and developing numerous investment management entities, including Starwood Capital, Och-Ziff Capital Management, HBK Investments, Ellington Capital Management, and Anchorage Capital, among others. He previously worked with the Burden Family in New York and the Bass Family in Fort Worth, Texas.

Mr Stern is president of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. He is a trustee of the Mt. Sinai Medical Center, the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He is a Board member of Harvard University’s Defeating Malaria: From the Genes to the Globe Initiative. Mr Stern earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and a master’s of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

David Walton

Global Malaria Coordinator, US President’s Malaria Initiative

Dr David Walton was appointed the Global Malaria Coordinator for the US President’s Malaria Initiative, by President Biden in 2022. He brings over two decades of experience working in global health, including working on the ground in Haiti to fight the 2010 cholera outbreak and on the front lines of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. Dr Walton has a proven track record of building local partnerships to expand access to care and providing primary health services to the hardest-to-reach populations.

Led by USAID and co-implemented with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PMI supports 27 partner country programs in sub-Saharan Africa and the Greater Mekong Subregion in Southeast Asia – accounting for over 80 percent of the world’s malaria burden. Together with global partners and national governments, PMI has helped save 10.6 million lives and prevented 1.7 billion malaria cases.

Dr Walton takes the helm of PMI after serving as the Senior Director of Global Health at the Butterfly Network, Inc., co-founding Build Health International, and 15 years with Partners In Health. Dr Walton was previously an Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He earned a Medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a master’s degree in Public Health from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he served as the first Doris and Howard Hiatt Global Health Equity resident.

Philip Welkhoff

Director, Malaria Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Dr Philip Welkhoff is director of the Malaria Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Previously, he served as director of research at the Institute for Disease Modeling. There, he helped develop computer simulations of malaria, polio, and other disease transmission dynamics to assist public health professionals and other scientists in planning the eradication of different diseases.

Dr Welkhoff received a Special Achievement Award as a Hertz Fellow in 2009 for his work on malaria modeling. He earned dual undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin, and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Princeton University. At Princeton, his work focused on biophysically-inspired models of neural circuits for perceptual decision-making. He has served on the Board of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation and he now serves as a senior interviewer. Prior to joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he served as a pro bono external advisor to various programs, including Agriculture and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene.

Dyann F. Wirth

Richard Pearson Strong Professor of Infectious Diseases, Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Professor Dyann F. Wirth has been a major malaria research leader for over 30 years. Recognizing the importance of bringing cutting-edge genomic science to the study of infectious diseases, she joined the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard shortly after its establishment to lead its infectious diseases initiative. two-term Using a multidisciplinary approach, her group explores challenges related to mosquito biology and the malaria parasite.

Leveraging the genomic tools of the human genome project, the group has applied state-of-the-art technologies and novel approaches to better understand the fundamental biology of the malaria parasite, its evolution, and mechanisms of drug and insecticide resistance. This work has provided new insight into how the malaria parasite has evolved, specifically in population biology, drug resistance, and antigenicity. The group’s current efforts seek to determine the number and identity of genes expressed by the parasite in response to drug treatment and to evaluate the role of these genes in parasite survival. This work aims to understand basic molecular mechanisms in protozoan parasites. Current findings have significantly contributed to advancing our understanding of malaria vaccine efficacy with long-term R&D goals to discover and apply preventive and therapeutic interventions against malaria infection. The group’s research activities are made possible through collaborative research partnerships with investigators, universities, and clinical centers in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

In addition to her research and teaching efforts, Professor Wirth directs Harvard’s Defeating Malaria: From the Genes to the Globe Initiative, a university-wide effort to produce, transmit, and translate knowledge to support the control and eradication of malaria. Together with Professors Daouda Ndiaye of the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar in Senegal and Evelyn Ansah of the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana, she serves on the Joint Secretariat for “Science of Defeating Malaria,” a global leadership development she co-founded in 2012 (then called “Science of Eradication: Malaria” before it transitioned to Africa in 2023).

Wirth is the past chair of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard Chan (2006–2018). From 2020–2022, Professor Wirth served as Co-Chair of a global engagement called “Rethinking Malaria in the Context of COVID–19” at Harvard University alongside Professor Rose Leke. Wirth is an Institute Member of the Broad Institute; a member and current Chair of the World Health Organization’s Malaria Policy Advisory Group (MPAG); a fellow and past President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH); a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and American Association for the Advancement of Science; and member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Wirth received the ASTMH’s Joseph Augustine LePrince Medal and was honored with BioMalPar’s Lifetime Achievement Award and USF Presidents Global Leadership Award in 2018. She is a past Burroughs Wellcome Fund and Marine Biological Laboratory board member.