Nachiket Mor

Visiting Scientist, The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health

Nachiket Mor has a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. His work is focused on the design of national and regional health systems. He is a Visiting Scientist at The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy at IIIT Bangalore.

Tarun Khanna

Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School; Director, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University

Tarun Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School and Director of the Lakshmi Mittal & Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University. He studies entrepreneurship as a means to social and economic development across the emerging markets, is a co-founder and board member of several technology companies and non-profits across the developing world, and an occasional member of commissions of the Government of India related to education, scientific advance and entrepreneurship.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

Executive Chairperson, Biocon Ltd.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a pioneering biotech entrepreneur, a healthcare visionary, a global influencer and a passionate philanthropist. She is a pioneer of India’s biotech industry and founder of Biocon. Ms. Mazumdar-Shaw is the proud recipient of two of India’s highest civilian honours, the Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005). She was also honoured with the Order of Australia, Australia’s Highest Civilian Honour in January 2020. In 2016, she was conferred with the highest French distinction – Knight of the Legion of Honour. She has been named as the winner of EY World Entrepreneur of the Year™ 2020 Award, which is a testimony to her entrepreneurial journey of over four decades. She has been elected as a full-term member of the Board of Trustees of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, and also serves as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), USA.

Sharad Sharma

Executive Director, Population Foundation of India

Sharad Sharma has three decades of experience in the Internet, Enterprise Software, Digital Finance and Digital Health sectors and is a prominent voice in India’s technology ecosystem.
He co-founded iSPIRT Foundation, a non-profit technology think tank devoted to making India a product nation. Earlier, he Chaired NASSCOM Product Forum in its formative years and was a member of the NASSCOM Executive Council from 2009-13.
Sharad is an active technology angel investor with over two dozen investments. He was also instrumental in the success of India’s first IP focussed fund, India Innovation Fund. Earlier, he had co-founded Teltier Technologies Inc., a wireless infrastructure startup which is now part of CISCO.
He has held several senior R&D executive positions with leading technology companies, including Yahoo, VERITAS Software, Symantec, Lucent Technologies, and AT&T. He is a member of SEBI’s Financial and Regulatory Technology Committee. He has also served on RBI’s UK Sinha MSME Committee and National Digital Payments Committee.

K Sujatha Rao

Former Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India

Sujatha Rao, a 1974 batch IAS officer is a former Union Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. In her 36 years of service as a civil servant, she spent 20 years in the health sector in different capacities at the state and federal levels.
Ms. Rao was chairperson of the Portfolio Committee of the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM); Member of the Global Advisory Panel of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Founding member of the Public Health Foundation of India; Member of the Advisory Board of the Ministerial Leadership Program of the Harvard School of Public Health and Member of the High Level Panel on Global Risk Framework of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, Trustee of Population Council, USA, Board Member of AIIMS, Raipur, BSNL and served on Boards of UNAIDS and Global Fund for HIV, TB and Malaria.
Currently, Ms. Rao is Co Chairperson of High Level Expert Committee on Health Reform in AP, Member of the NHSRC, GOI, Board Member of PRITHVI Asset Reconstruction Company, Member on Board of NGO’s and Managing Trustee of the journal “The India Forum”.
She holds an MA from Delhi University, an MPA from Harvard University, USA 1991-92 and was a Takemi Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health 2001-2002 and Gro Harlem Brundtland Senior Leadership Fellow at HSPH in 2012. She is the author of the book entitled “DO We Care? India’s Health System” – published by Oxford University Press in 2017.

K Srinath Reddy

President, Public Health Foundation of India

K.Srinath Reddy is the President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Under his leadership, PHFI has established five Indian Institutes of Public Health (IIPHs) to advance multi-disciplinary public health education, research, health technologies and implementation support for strengthening health systems. He was appointed as the First Bernard Lown Visiting Professor of Cardiovascular Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in (2009-13) and presently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard (2014-2023). He holds advisory positions in several national and international bodies and recently published a book Make Health in India: Reaching A Billion Plus. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Emory and Sydney Universities. He is the first Indian to be elected to the National Academy of Medicine, USA and was awarded several prestigious international and national doctorates and fellowships. He was President of the World Heart Federation (2013-15).

Yamini Aiyar

President and Chief Executive, Centre for Policy Research

Yamini Aiyar is the President and Chief Executive of the Centre for Policy Research, one of India’s oldest and leading think tanks. Yamini’s research works sits at the intersections of research and policy practice. Her research spans the field of social policy (education, health and social protection), governance and public finance, federalism and the study of contemporary politics in India. In 2008, Yamini found the Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research. The initiative is credited with pioneering one of India’s largest expenditure tracking surveys for elementary education. Yamini has published in academic journals and the popular press. In addition, she serves on a number of government and international policy committees and boards of non-profits and think tanks. Yamini is an alumna of the London School of Economics, St. Edumunds College, Cambridge University and St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University.

Devi Shetty

Chairman, Narayana Hrudayalaya Limited

A cardiac surgeon of repute and a successful entrepreneur, Devi Shetty is a highly respected luminary for his ingenious ideas for reforms in healthcare sector. His visionary leadership to make quality healthcare affordable for all has drawn global recognition. He has worked along with the Government of India, state governments, trade bodies and global policy think tanks to develop vital healthcare policies. A strong advocate of technology for efficient healthcare delivery, Dr.Shetty takes deep interest in creating and developing software products and applications to achieve time and cost efficiency while minimizing clinical errors in healthcare delivery. In association with Karnataka government he pioneered Yeshaswini, a very inexpensive micro health insurance scheme benefitting more than 3.4 million rural poor. Dr. Shetty is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri, The Economist Innovation Award, Ernst and Young – Entrepreneur of the Year, Financial Times Arcelor Mittal ‘Boldness in Business’ Award, Nikkei Asia Prize for Economic and Business Innovation. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from University of Minnesota, University of Mysore and IIT, Madras.

Atul Gupta

Assistant Professor, Department of Health Care Management, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Atul Gupta is an Assistant Professor in the department of Health Care Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He joined Wharton in 2017 from Stanford University, where he received his PhD in Economics. His research interests are in Health Care, Public Finance, and Industrial Organization. His current research examines various determinants of productivity in US health care including performance pay for providers, consolidation among providers, and private equity ownership of providers. His previous work has been published in prestigious journals such as the American Economic Review and Health Affairs. Prior to Stanford, Atul received his MBA at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India and worked as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group for several years.

Sandhya Venkateswaran

Senior Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress

Spanning a career over three decades, Sandhya has engaged with a wide range of issues in the social sector spanning across health, nutrition, gender, natural resources, urban development and others. Over the last 15 years she has focused on policy issues and system reform, developing and leading the policy and advocacy portfolio in organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and CARE. She has worked with multiple grassroots campaigns and civil society organisations, as well as with government and international organisations. She has authored books, numerous articles and other publications on a range of social sector issues.

Shruti Slaria

Assistant Manager with Invest India

Shruti is a Policy Analyst with Swaniti Initiative where she focusses on livelihoods, healthcare, and monitoring and evaluation. Her work includes providing technical assistance on projects, designing and implementing M&E frameworks, analysing government schemes and policies, and preparing briefs for parliamentarians and wider information dissemination. She completed her bachelor’s degree from Lady Shri Ram College and holds a master’s in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and a master’s in Public Policy from Sciences Po, Paris. Shruti has worked with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Centre National de la Research Scientifique (CNRS) in the past.

Hasna Ashraf

Research Associate with the Social Protection Initiative at Dvara Research.

Hasna is a Research Associate with the Social Protection Initiative at Dvara Research. In this role she focuses on activating missing insurance markets. She completed her Master’s degree in Development Studies from Indian Institute of Technology Madras. She previously worked as a Senior Analyst with the Monitoring and Evaluation Division at the Centre for Digital Financial Inclusion, Delhi.

Tejasvi Ravi

Principal at Lightrock

Tejasvi Ravi leads the healthcare vertical at LGTLightstone, an impact focused venture capital fund. She has a decade of experience in private sector healthcare, serving as an advisor and board member of a variety of healthcare startups. Previously, she was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company with experience advising leading Indian & global companies. She also has operational experience as part of the leadership team at Medanta Hospital.

Sudheer Kumar Shukla

Sudheer is a Research Fellow at the Lancet Commission and currently in the final stage of submitting his Ph.D.with the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He holds M.Phil. degree in Population Studies from IIPS, Mumbai.

Sudheer is a Research Fellow at the Lancet Commission and currently in the final stage of submitting his Ph.D.with the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He holds M.Phil. degree in Population Studies from IIPS, Mumbai. He has more than 6 years of research experience conceptualizing, designing and execution of research concerning the broad themes of health care financing, shocks and welfare outcomes, health systems strengthening, inequality in health behaviours, food security & nutrition. He has been involved in the preparation of Human Development Report for Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. He has worked for several research projects and grants commissioned by agencies includingPopulation Foundation of India,3ie, ICMR, ICSSR, ADB, WHO and The World Bank.

Anjali Nambiar

Research Associate at the Social Protection Initiative, Dvara Research

Anjali is a Research Associate at the Social Protection Initiative at Dvara Research. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and holds a Master’s in Public Policy degree from National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore. At Dvara Research, her work is focused on the healthcare financing aspect of social protection and her research outputs have included aspects relating to community-based health insurance, commercial health insurance, and the design and performance of global health systems.

Aakriti Gupta

CEO, Unbound 2.0

Aakriti Gupta is the CEO of Unbound 2.0, a design and consultancy office bringing ‘Systems Thinking’ into practice. Unbound uses approaches such as System Dynamics, Futures Thinking, Network Analysis, etc. to lean on a data-oriented language for systems change across multiple time horizons, scales and contexts. Aakriti’s work focuses on revealing the power of the design of systems and the underlying paradigms that hold potential to enable progress towards resilient futures – while enhancing the inclusivity and agency of its participants. Her current areas of focus are health systems and the innovation ecosystem. Her work has spanned India’s Covid Oxygen scale-up, Covid predictive modeling, obesity modeling, patient empowerment, SURT innovation, among many others. She truly believes in the power of the whole-systems approach to healthcare and is seeking visionaries on this journey.

While her last firm was acquired, Aakriti has worked with consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain & Co and FSG in the past. She teaches Systems Thinking as visiting faculty at many prestigious universities, including IIM Calcutta.

Aparajita Bharti

Founding Partner, The Quantum Hub (TQH)
 

Aparajita Bharti is the Founding Partner of The Quantum Hub (TQH), a leading public policy research and consulting firm. She is also the co-founder of Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) which works with young people to increase their engagement with the democratic process. Before founding these two organisations in 2016, Aparajita was Manager, Corporate Affairs and Communications at Snapdeal. She started her career in public policy as a Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament. She holds a Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree from Oxford University and a Business Degree from Sukhdev College of Business Studies at Delhi University. She is also a World Economic Forum Global Shaper alumna from the New Delhi hub. Aparajita’s work spans across policy issues including gender, tech policy and structure of Indian democratic institutions.

Nikhil Iyer

Senior Public Policy Analyst, The Quantum Hub (TQH)

Nikhil is a Senior Public Policy Analyst at The Quantum Hub Consulting where he has worked on policy issues related to technology, health, and women’s livelihoods and economic empowerment. Prior to his current role, he was a LAMP Fellow, where he assisted a Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha through 2019-20. He has completed his graduation in law from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences.

Mayank Mishra

Public Policy Manager, The Quantum Hub

Mayank is a public policy professional with an extensive experience in the fields of economic & financial analysis, policy advisory, agency design, and regulatory governance. He is a Public Policy Manager at The Quantum Hub where he primarily works on the issues related to technology policy, public health and women’s economic empowerment. Previously, he was a Fellow at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) as part of their public policy team. At NIPFP, he worked on a wide spectrum of areas ranging from financial sector reforms and technology policy to institution design and government expenditure management. Prior to transitioning to public policy, Mayank worked with McKinsey & Company as part of its Credit Risk Management practice. He holds an M.Sc. (Integrated) in Economics from IIT Kanpur.

Sampriti Mukherjee

Project Associate – Project Management and Partnerships, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy

Sampriti Mukherjee is a Project Associate – Project Management and Partnerships with Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. Her work includes providing technical assistance, government advisory, research and analysis, as well as product design for the Swachhata App, under the broader domain of the Swachh Bharat Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. She has done her Masters in Public Policy and Governance (specialisation in Urbanisation) and Bachelors in Social Sciences, from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Sampriti has worked with the Andhra Pradesh Planning Board and Swaniti Initiative in the past.

Poonam Muttreja

Executive Director, Population Foundation of India

Poonam Muttreja is the Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India and for the last 40 years has been a strong advocate of women’s health, reproductive & sexual rights and rural livelihoods. She has co-conceived the popular transmedia initiative, Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon – I, A Woman, Can Achieve Anything. Before joining PFI, she served as the India Country Director of the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation for 15 years and has also co-founded and led the Ashoka Foundation, Dastkar, and the Society for Rural, Urban and Tribal Initiative (SRUTI). An alumna of Delhi University and Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government, Poonam serves on the governing council of several non-governmental organisations, and is a regular commentator in India and globally for television and the print media.

Mirai Chatterjee

Director, Social Security Team, Self-Employed Women’s Association [SEWA]

Mirai Chatterjee is the Director of the Social Security Team at Self-Employed Women’s Association, (SEWA). She is also Chairperson of the SEWA Cooperative Federation of 106 women’s primary cooperatives. In addition, she is responsible for SEWA’s health care, child care and insurance programmes. She was Chairperson of the National Insurance VimoSEWA Cooperative Ltd and the Lok Swasthya Health Cooperative, and is actively involved in both as a board member and founder. She joined SEWA in 1984 and was its General Secretary after its Founder, Ela Bhatt.
Ms Chatterjee serves as Chairperson of the global informal workers and policy-makers network, WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment Globalising and Organising), and on the Boards of several organizations, including the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Save the Children, PRADAN and now the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. She was advisor to the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector and is in the Advisory Group on Community Action of the National Rural Health Mission. She was also a Commissioner in the World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. In addition, she was a member of the High Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage set up by the Planning Commission of India in 2010. Further, she was a member of the National Advisory Council (NAC), appointed by the Prime Minister of India in 2010, she was conferred the Global Achievement award by the School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University.
Ms. Chatterjee has a B.A. from Harvard University in History and Science and a Masters from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Public Health, USA.

Vikram Patel

Pershing Square Professor of Global Health, Harvard Medical School; Professor, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health; Co-founder, Sangath

Vikram Patel is the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. He co-leads the GlobalMentalHealth@Harvard initiative. His work has focused on the burden of mental health problems, their association with social disadvantage, and the use of community resources for their prevention and treatment. He is a co-founder of Sangath, an Indian NGO which won the WHO Public Health Champion of India prize. He is a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences and has served on the Committee which drafted India’s first National Mental Health Policy and the WHO High Level Independent Commission for NCDs. He has been awarded the Chalmers Medal, the Sarnat Prize, the Pardes Humanitarian Prize, an Honorary OBE and the John Dirk Canada Gairdner Award in Global Health. He was listed in TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential persons of the year in 2015.

Gagandeep Kang

Clinician Scientist and Professor in the Department of Gastrointestinal Sciences, Christian Medical College

Gagandeep Kang is Professor of Microbiology in the Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences at the Christian Medical College, Vellore in southern India. For the past 30 years, she has conducted research on enteric infections in children and their consequences on growth and development. In addition to generating insights into inflammation, intestinal function and the microbiome, she has evaluated a range of interventions from water treatment strategies to vaccination in clinical trials. Her work is internationally recognized, and she serves on multiple advisory committees at the World Health Organisation, for philanthropic organisations and international institutions. She is the chair of the WHO South East Asian Regional Immunization Technical Advisory Group and Vice-Chair of the Board of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

Vijay Chandru

Professor, Interdisciplinary Research, Indian Institute of Science

Professor Vijay Chandru (PhD MIT) has served on the faculty of engineering at Purdue University and now with interdisciplinary research in digital health at the Indian Institute of Science. An elected fellow of both the Indian academy of sciences and engineering, he is a distinguished alumnus of BITS Pilani and the MIT India program. An inventor of the Simputer, he is a founder of Strand Life Sciences, India’s leading precision medicine solutions company which he led as Executive Chairman from inception in 2000 till retirement in 2018. A technology pioneer of the World Economic Forum since 2006, he served with the IAC of WEF on the future of healthcare from 2014-16. In his work at the Centre for Health Equity and Transparency and OPFORD Foundation, Professor Chandru has been committed to orphan diseases outreach with scalable platforms towards the vision of “no disease orphan by 2030.

Leila E Caleb Varkey

Independent Public Health Researcher

Dr Leila Varkey is a Public Health Researcher and advocate for better women and children’s health. Starting her career as a public health nurse, she went on to complete a full time doctorate in public health and joined Population Council as a Fellow and left 10 years later. Currently she is Senior Advisor Reproductive Health at Centre for Catalyzing Change- C3 India. In 2009-11 she was a member of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage. In the last five years her work designing and implementing quality healthcare improvement programs by public health providers at CHCs, DHs, PHCs and larger teaching hospitals testing at-scale models for better quality of family planning and maternal health care. She has been a member of several the MoHFW’s and ICMRs Task Forces and National Advisory Groups e.g. for SUMAN, LaQshya and the Midwifery Initiatives. Leila is especially interested in the progress of nursing and midwifery as vibrant professions in India through their own professional bodies and associations supporting their career upgrades and leadership capacity.

Arnab Mukherji

Professor of Public Policy, Center for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore

Arnab Mukherji is a Professor of Public Policy at the Center for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore, and the founding Program Director for the Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship program – an academia-government partnership to build state capacity in district administration. He seeks to combine administrative and survey data to inform public policy, particularly in the domains spanning healthcare, and development economics. He routinely consults with different state governments and, union government ministries in India, and multi-lateral organizations such as the World Bank on matters related to policy design, their implementation, and evaluation.

Thelma Narayan

Director, Academics & Policy Action, SOCHARA

Dr. Thelma Narayan, a medical graduate from St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, India, with an MSc. in Epidemiology and doctorate in public health policy from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
She was a faculty member of the Department of Community Medicine, St. John’s Medical College and later co-initiated the Community Health Cell (CHC) in 1984 and the Society of Community Health Awareness, Research and Action (SOCHARA) in 1991.
She has been an advisor to various national health initiatives including the National Rural Health Mission; a member of the Advisory Group on Community Action for Health from 2005 till date; on the founding governing board of the National Health Systems Resource Centre for one term; member of the national ASHA mentoring group for the first seven years; and member of the National Mental Health Policy Group.
She is active in the People’s Health Movement in India (Jan Swasthya Abhiyan) and globally since their inception in 2000 promoting the Health for All goal.
She was a member of the Measurement and Evidence Knowledge Network of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2005-8) and on the Planning Committee of the Bamako inter-ministerial forum for research on health, development and equity (2008).

S V Subramanian

Professor of Population Health and Geography, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health

S V (Subu) Subramanian is a Professor of Population Health and Geography at Harvard University, and Chair of the Faculty Advisory Group for the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University. He was the Founding Director of Graduate Studies for the interdisciplinary PhD program in Population Health Sciences at Harvard. He is currently an Honorary Senior Fellow of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, Government of India.

Alok Vajpeyi

Consultant, Division of Gl Sciences, Christian Medical College. Velore

Current Position: Consultant, Division of Gl Sciences, Christian Medical College, Vellore I have spent the last many years engaging with multiple facets of the health system by working directly and indirectly with both the public and private health care systems in India. The broad areas of research that I have engaged with, and, have ongoing research work in, include:- a) Policy work with the government and international organizations in the areas of vaccines and infectious diseases, regulatory policy and clinical research and b) Policy development in academia, and c) Evaluation of government programmes in immunization and nutrition.

Dipa Nag Chowdhury

Director Programmes at Population Foundation of India

Dipa Nag Chowdhury is Director Programmes at Population Foundation of India where she leads the organization’s programmes on population, reproductive health, gender and youth empowerment. She is an international development professional with more than 20 years of experience in India, South Asia, and at the global level. Her sectors of work are gender; youth sexual and reproductive health and rights; maternal health; governance and accountability; HIV/AIDS; and secondary education. Her competencies are strategic planning, programme development and management; policy advocacy, research, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building. From 1998 to April 2019, Dipa worked at the India office of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In her role as Deputy Director, she led the Foundation’s grantmaking on maternal health, promoting young people’s sexual and reproductive health and girls’ secondary education. Prior to joining the MacArthur Foundation, Dipa has worked issues related with HIV/AIDS at Naz Foundation (India) Trust in Delhi and at the Mailman School of Public Health at the Columbia University in New York, USA. She was also employed at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC to do research on nutrition. Dipa has masters’ degrees in Public Administration from Syracuse University in the US and Political Science from Mumbai University.

Bijit Roy

Manages Secretariat of the Advisory Group on Community Action (AGCA),

Expertise in community mobilisation, social accountability; scaling up- frameworks and processes; government relations and partnership management; nutrition and sexual and reproductive health. Designed, led and delivered large and complex nutrition and health programmes, scaling up pilots, mentored civil society organisations.
Bijit is leading work on community engagement and action at Population Foundation of India. He manages the Secretariat of the Advisory Group on Community Action (AGCA), a committee constituted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) with a mandate to provide guidance to the state governments on community processes initiatives, particularly related to accountability under the National Rural Health Mission in 2005. Population Foundation of India serves as the Secretariat of the AGCA, currently providing guidance and support to 25 state governments. He has been with Population Foundation of India since 2007 and currently is Associate Director- Community Action and Accountability. Bijit has previously worked at CARE (1998- 2006) in the Policy and Advocacy Unit at the national level and managed implementation of nutrition, reproductive and child health interventions in the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

Siddhesh Zadey BSMS MSc-GH

Co-founder, Association for Socially Applicable Research (ASAR – असर), Pune, Maharashtra, India
Senior Research Aide, Department of Surgery, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham North Carolina, United States of America

Siddhesh Zadey is a co-founding director of nonprofit nongovernmental research and advocacy group based in India – Association for Socially Applicable Research (ASAR – असर). He is also a Research Aide in the Department of Surgery at Duke university School of Medicine (DU-SOM).He completed the Bachelor of Science Master of Science (BSMS) dual degree program at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune in 2018. For hisMaster’s thesis, he worked at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone on non-invasive brain stimulation markers for cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease. He completed his second Master’s from the Duke Global Health Institute in 2021, working with Dr. Joao Vissoci on surgical care access in rural India. At ASAR, he focusses on health systems modeling to investigate human resources for health, health expenditures, access to healthcare and impact evaluation of healthcare interventions. At Duke, he works in the Global Emergency Medicine Innovation and Implementation (GEMINI) Research Lab co-led by Drs. Catherine Staton and Joao Vissoci at Division of Emergency Medicine, DU-SOM focusing on behavioral phenotyping for substance use underlying injuries. He co-leads the Duke Bass Connections Team investigating cultural variations in alcohol use behaviors. He also works with Dr. Tamara Fitzgerald, Division of Pediatric Surgery, DU-SOM on designing and testing laparoscopes for improving access to gasless laparoscopy in low-income countries. He recently served as a member of the ‘Indian Academy of Pediatrics COVID-19 Task Force for School Reopening’ in 2021. He is a part of the Global Burden of Disease Collaborators Network, Mental Health Innovation Network, and Global Mental Health Action Network. His research and advocacy works have been published in the Lancet, British Medical Journal, BMJ Global Health, Global Health Now, Think Global Health, Wire Science, Neurobiology of Aging, and Brain Stimulation among other outlets.

Jacob John

Professor of Community Medicine at the Christian Medical College, Vellore

Jacob John is a Professor of Community Medicine at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. He received his MD in community medicine at the Christian Medical College Vellore and his PhD from the Imperial College London.
His research and public health focus are on the prevention and control of paediatric infectious diseases. He has been involved with efforts to define the burden of Hemophilus Influenza B, Rotavirus, and typhoid in India. Currently, he leads a research network estimating the burden of enteric fever in diverse settings across India and works closely with health authorities in India to support evidence informed public policy.

Anu Mary Oommen

Professor of Community Medicine, CMC Vellore

Dr Anu Oommen is a Professor of Community Medicine, CMC Vellore, involved in primary and secondary health care for rural and tribal populations; research and teaching/guiding students. Research interests include cancer prevention in women, screening, cardiovascular risk factors, epidemiology of NCDs, with a special interest in implementation research. She hopes to study approaches to cervical cancer screening to vulnerable populations, with an international team of researchers, as well as complete a PhD in the next few years.

Sophy Korula

Paediatrician at Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore

I am a Paediatrician and am based at Christian Medical College and hospital, Vellore. I also practice paediatric endocrinology and look after children with metabolic disorders.

Prakash S.S.

Professor of Community Medicine at the Christian Medical College, Vellore

Prakash Somi Sankaran works in the Department of Biochemistry, Christian Medical College Vellore, India. He does conceptual and theoretical research in Immunology and Biochemistry particularly in relation to the foundations and working of immune system and metabolic system, their interrelationships, and how they impact on biological evolution of living beings, in health and disease conditions. Diseases of interest include the broad understanding of the pathogenesis of obesity, diabetes mellitus and cancer. He is interested in epistemological issues related to biomedicine. In addition, he also does scholarship and research work in medical education specifically related to career choices, and curriculum design and innovations. He believes in top-down, systems and integrated approaches in both basic science and medical education research. His worldview is driven by the tenets of process philosophy.

Dr. Sajitha M.F. Rahma, MD, MCISc

Associate Professor, Dept of Family Medicine, CMC, Vellore

Associate Professor, Dept of Family Medicine, CMC, Vellore. Research in areas related to primary health care is my interest.

Arun Singh Jadaun

Program Officer in Society for Applied Studies, New Delhi

Working as Program Officer in Society for Applied Studies, New Delhi involved in the research in the domain of Maternal, Child Health and Nutrition.

Dr. Nonita Dudeja

Research Scientist at Centre for Health Research and Development, Society for Applied Studies, New Delhi

My name is Nonita. I am working as a Research Scientist at Centre for Health Research and Development, Society for Applied Studies, New Delhi. I have done my specialisation in Community Medicine from Lady Harding Medical College in New Delhi, India.

Madhumitha Balaji

Clinical psychologist and Researcher, Sangath, India

Madhumitha Balaji is a clinical psychologist and researcher, working for Sangath, India. She is currently the PI for an India Alliance funded case-control study that investigates the reasons for suicide attempts in young people in India. This study is being run in Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, at the Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital. She is also pursuing her PhD at the Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Netherlands.

Megha Rao

Senior Research Associate, Centre for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore

Megha is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Public Policy, IIM Bangalore, with more than five years of work experience in applied economics and public health. She graduated from the University of Warwick with an MSc in Economics in 2017. Her research experience includes examining the role of public policy reforms in improving population health equitably at the local level in India. She recently published a peer-reviewed article highlighting the institutional challenges and funding limitations faced by Karnataka’s local governments in decentralized health service delivery. Megha joined the Lancet Citizens’ Commission’s team in March 2021 and works with a multidisciplinary team of experts to design and implement a unique mixed-methods framework for district-level health system assessment in India. Her role focuses on developing a district-level UHC index that can assist sub-national governments in evidence-based planning and monitoring. She also works closely with the PIs to lead the project management team.

Dr. Ajay Nair

CEO, Swasth Alliance

Dr. Ajay is the CEO of the Swasth Alliance, a non-profit health collective that builds digital health infrastructure and standards for public good. He has been an advisor to digital health innovators, non-profits and governments after co-founding and leading one of India’s first telemedicine networks, MeraDoctor. Prior to his startup journey, he was a social impact investor at Acumen Fund in New York and Nairobi focusing on Health & Energy. As a doctor, he has also helped set up and run HIV/STD clinics for male and female commercial sex workers in Mumbai. He has an MBBS from Grant Medical College and an MPH from Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the seventh class of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Fellowship within the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Shivangi Sharan

Analyst, Swasth Alliance

Shivangi is currently an Analyst at Swasth Alliance, a not-for-profit working to build the digital backbone for integrated healthcare delivery in India. Her previous stint as a journalist ignited her interest in the intersection of communication and social impact. She has experience in community empowerment projects geared specifically towards women. She audited and advocated for the business growth of 100 Self Help Groups under MILAP – a joint rural accelerator between FICCI and the Maharashtra Government. Prior to that at UNHCR, she undertook a project to improve the menstrual hygiene management of Rohingya refugee communities in Delhi. Shivangi majored in Political Science at Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College for Women, with a minor in Economics.

Dr. Urvi Pai

Chief of Staff, Swasth Alliance

With over 10 years in varied roles in the health sector, across research, telemedicine, public health, health-tech entrepreneurship, and med-tech, Dr. Urvi Pai is currently the Chief of Staff at Swasth Alliance, a non-profit alliance that builds digital health infrastructure for public benefit.
She received her medical degree from the Mahatma Gandhi Mission’s College & Hospitals before she went on to pursue a 3-year cardiology research stint at Columbia University’s St.Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York. She has completed her Diploma in Emergency Medical Services from Mumbai’s Hinduja Hospital. She transitioned to the health-tech space by joining India’s first virtual telemedicine platform, MeraDoctor. She was key in setting up and running their novel platforms including MeraDoctor Pro & Paycillin. She has dabbled in healthcare consulting and has worked with Fortune 500 pharmaceutical, tech/digital health firms, and non-profits, to design innovative public health, medical and health-tech offerings.

Noah Carton-Rossen

MPH candidate in health policy, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Noah Carton-Rossen is a current MPH candidate in health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Noah received his BA in Anthropology and Sociology from Elon University in 2018. In his senior year, he won the Elon University Martha Smith Award for excellence in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Noah served as the 2018-19 post-baccalaureate Melvin Ember Research Intern with the Yale University Human Research Area Files. He then transitioned to Weill Cornell Medicine to work as the senior research coordinator for the Department of Surgery: Division of Trauma, Burns, Critical and Acute Care. Noah has served with this division for over two years and has continued his work throughout his time at Harvard. Noah has most recently been working with the monitoring and evaluation teams at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and the International Medical Corps on trauma stewardship for medical providers and citizens in Ukraine.

Dr. Sandul Yasobant

Co-Lead (One Health), Centre for One Health Education, Research & Development, IIPHG, India

Sandul Yasobant is Co-Lead (One Health), Centre for One Health Education, Research & Development at the Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar (IIPHG), India; a Postdoc fellow at the Institute for Hygiene & Public Health, University Hospital Bonn, Germany; an Associate Researcher at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Germany; an Adjunct Faculty at the Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences (DMIMS), India. He is serving as Editor-in-Chief with Dialogues in Health, Elsevier. He also holds editorial affiliations with Elsevier, Springer Nature, Frontiers, PLOS, and Taylor & Francis. His research incorporates One Health and disease prevention, health policy and system research, and environmental and occupational health. Yasobant has conducted extensive research in Southeast Asia and is currently engaged in research activities in India and Ghana. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed international journal articles and 05 book chapters and edited 02 volumes of the book.

Vinod Joseph K J

PhD student, Department of Statistics, University of Bologna and the Laboratory of Digital and Computational Demography, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), Germany.

Vinod Joseph is a PhD student at the Department of Statistics, University of Bologna and the Laboratory of Digital and Computational Demography at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Germany. His research focuses on assessing the impact of climate change on demographic behavior. Prior to joining Unibo, Vinod was a senior research fellow at the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai. He holds a Master’s and MPhil in Biostatistics and Demography from IIPS and Bachelor’s in Computer Applications from Sacred Heart College, Kochi. Vinod’s research interests lie in the areas of population and environment, formal demography, survey research and population ageing.

Anand Chukka

Third-Year Medical Student, Harvard Medical School

Anand Chukka is a current third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School. He is originally from San Jose, California and attended university at Washington University in St. Louis where he studied American Culture Studies and Biochemistry. In college, he did research on youth HIV/AIDS peer education programs in eastern Uganda. After college, he worked as a case manager Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program helping people with psychiatric illnesses and substance use disorders find permanent housing. He is interested in community and people-driven efforts to democratize healthcare, integration of psychiatric care, addiction care, and primary care, as well as health system strengthening. He is interested in local and global community health, hoping to combine a career in both via primary care.

Priya Sarma

M.S. candidate in Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Priya Sarma is a second-year Master of Science Student in the Global Health and Population Department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research interests lie in health systems strengthening and reform in LMICs, particularly India. Recently, Priya worked at the State Capability Enhancement Project in Meghalaya, where she led a project on assessing the quality of care for institutional deliveries, based on user experience.

Sapna Desai

Associate, Population Council

Sapna Desai is an Associate with the Population Council, India, where her research focuses on women’s health, health systems and community-based interventions. She is co-lead of the Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups and studies to examine how women’s groups improve population health and nutrition outcomes. Sapna has been deeply engaged with generating evidence on and improving health systems delivery for gynaecological morbidity, in partnership with providers, policymakers and advocates over the past decade. She previously worked with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and its national federation, where she led community health worker and health insurance programs in several states. Dr Desai holds a PhD in epidemiology and population health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and MS from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

Sandra Albert

Director, Indian Institute of Public Health Shillong and Professor of Public Health

Sandra Albert is the Director of the Indian Institute of Public Health in Shillong (IIPHS), in northeast India. She is a dermatologist with an MD in Skin & Sexually Transmitted Infections from the Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, India. From clinical medicine she broadened her field of interest to public health and received a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. Subsequently she became the founding director of the IIPHS. Her research interests include health systems, health policy, skin disorders, sexual and reproductive health, vector borne diseases and indigenous knowledge. The IIPH Shillong was established to redress the limited institutional and systems capacity in public health in the northeast region of India. She also established the Regional Resource Hub for Health Technology Assessment in India (RRH-HTAIn) at the IIPHS; a collaborative initiative with the DHR, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. With a recent CRC award by DBT – Wellcome Trust India Alliance, Prof Albert and her team are setting up a Zoonotic & Vector Borne Diseases Training and Research Centre at IIPHS.

Mekhala Krishnamurthy

Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Ashoka University and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR)

Mekhala is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Ashoka University and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), where she leads the State Capacity Initiative, a new interdisciplinary research and practice programme focused on addressing the challenges of the 21st-century Indian state. Over the last eighteen years, her research, publications, policy and professional engagements have involved work within and across a range of field sites and subjects, including women’s courts and dispute resolution, community health workers and public health systems, agriculture and agricultural markets, and land, water and livelihood security. This has placed her in a variety of roles at the intersections of and in partnerships between academia, public policy, government, the private sector, and grassroots civil society organisations. She has trained at Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, and at University College London, where she completed her PhD in Anthropology as a UCL Global Excellence Scholar.

Radhika Gore

Radhika is Director of Research at the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone (FHC), a network of community-based health centers that serve low-income, diverse neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York.

In this role, Radhika partners with clinicians and researchers across NYU and beyond to grow a roster of FHC-based research projects, ensuring links between health research and health care practice. Radhika’sacademic and professional experiencespans US and global health and development, including assignments with the World Bank and UNICEF. Her research focuses on the social and political conditions that shape health care delivery, access, and quality, and draws on social science perspectives on state-society relations, political institutions, policy implementation, and bureaucracy. Radhika holds a PhD from Columbia University in sociomedical sciences, an interdisciplinary program integrating social science and public health. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in primary care research at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Population Health.

Bhushan Patwardhan

Distinguished Professor, Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India; Chair, Interdisciplinary AYUSH Research and Development Task Force of Ministry of AYUSH

Bhushan Patwardhan is a biomedical scientist and distinguished Professor at the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, Savitribai Phule Pune University, he has made original contributions in evidence-based Ayurveda especially in Ayurvedic biology, AyuGenomics, ethnopharmacology, natural product drug development and integrative approaches to improve public health system. He is founder and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine published by Elsevier. He is recipient of many orations and awards including Sir Ram Nath Chopra Oration and the Waldemar Haffkine Oration. He has received several research grants and has guided 20 PhD students, holds 8 Indian and 2 US Patents, with over 120 publications and 9900 citations. He is currently the Vice Chairman, University Grants Commission; Chairman, Indian Council of Social Science Research; Chairman, Interdisciplinary AYUSH R&D Taskforce, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India and Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog Committee on Integrative Health System.

Preethi John

Associate Professor and Deputy Director, UCL Global Business School for Health; Faculty of Population Health Sciences, UCL, London, UK

Dr Preethi John is a human resource healthcare consultant, Faculty in executive education programmes, and an advisor for several NGOs in healthcare. Her experience as an institute builder has seen her take on a leadership role as an Associate Professor and Deputy Director MBA Health, Global Business School for Health, being launched from academic year 2022. This new School is a part of the Faculty of Population Health Sciences, University College London. Prior to this role, she was the Founder Dean of a private university in North India for about a decade. She has also worked for over a decade at the WHO Collaborating Centre of Aravind Eye Care System. She has completed her Masters from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India and holds a PhD in Health Policy and HRH Management from IIT Madras, India. She is a visiting scientist and Harvard LEAD Fellow at Harvard School of Public Health, USA.

Amrita Sekhar

Consultant, Division of Gl Sciences, Christian Medical College. Velore

Current Position: Consultant, Division of Gl Sciences, Christian Medical College, Vellore I have spent the last many years engaging with multiple facets of the health system by working directly and indirectly with both the public and private health care systems in India. The broad areas of research that I have engaged with, and, have ongoing research work in, include:- a) Policy work with the government and international organizations in the areas of vaccines and infectious diseases, regulatory policy and clinical research and b) Policy development in academia, and c) Evaluation of government programmes in immunization and nutrition.

Sitanshi Sharma

Co-investigator in a RCT

A practising pediatrician since last 10 years, clinical researcher in maternal and child health with primary health care, childhood nutrition, immunisation, Breastfeeding, IYCF practices being my areas of interest. Interested in Implementation Research, Community trials and clinical, evidence based research. Currently engaged as CO-investigator in a RCT.

M. Pranav Rohit Kasinath

Senior Resident at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences

Interested in Critical Care and Evidence based interventions, writing about medicine and reading crime and genre fiction.

Gayathri S.

Research fellow, Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory at Christian Medical College, Vellore

Gayathri received her undergraduate degree in MBBS from Thoothukudi Government Medical College, and a postgraduate degree (MD) in Community Medicine, with a focus on epidemiology, public health and health systems management, from Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry. She has worked closely with the public health care system throughout her college years in both caregiver and managerial roles. She has field experience in health program delivery and evaluation, and acted as an external monitor of Measles-Rubella and Intensified Mission Indradhanush vaccination campaigns in Tamil Nadu in association with World Health Organization. She is currently a research fellow affiliated to Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory at Christian Medical College, Vellore, and is primarily involved in work on vaccines; she manages two large multi-centric studies on impact of rotaviral vaccines, and a single-site study on immune responses to influenza vaccines. Other areas of interest include qualitative research methodology, life skills education and social epidemiology.

Parth Sharma

Junior Resident, Department of Community Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi

Public health and community awareness is my true passion. Currently working as an Emergency medicine physician, I hope to work in the field of public health and policy making one day. I believe a strong primary health care system is the need of the hour.

Linju Maria Joseph

Linju Joseph is currently engaged with Lancet Citizen’s Commission as a Fellow, exploring India’s progress towards universal health coverage (UHC). She is expected to complete her PhD in Global Health from University of Birmingham, UK by 2022. She has worked with Public Health Foundation of India for an implementation project for improving diabetes prevention in worksites after completing her Masters’ in International Healthcare and Management from University of Aberdeen, UK. Her research interests include management of chronic conditions, understanding health systems for implementation research and gender implications on management of chronic conditions.

Deepshikha Chhetri

Deepshikha Chhetri is a public health professional with academic qualifications in Nutrition from Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi (Bachelor’s), and S.N.D.T Women’s University, Mumbai (Master’s). She started her career working at the grassroots as a India Fellow in the tribal regions of Rajasthan. Deepshikha then moved to work with the Government of Haryana as a Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associate (2018) and later as a State Consultant (Health and Nutrition) for Women and Child Development (WCD) Department Headquarters to work on the implementation of State priority programs and policies. She has continued to actively work in different capacities with bureaucrats and politicians in policy research, advisory and consulting on a range of issues like maternal health, nutrition, primary healthcare, etc.
Currently, she is working as a Consultant with Samagra, a governance consulting company where she is responsible to work with the political and bureaucratic leadership at the state level to drive state-wide systemic transformations. She is also a Health Policy and Systems Research (HPSR) Fellow that has been awarded in collaboration with Health Systems Transformation Platform (HSTP), WHO Alliance for Health Systems and Policy Research, Institute of Public Health Bengaluru, Achutha Menon Centre for Health Systems Studies, The George Institute of Global Health – India, Nossal Institute of Global Health, Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp and India Health Systems Collaborative (IHSC). Funded by – HSTP, Tata Trusts, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Access Health International.

Dr. Shridhar Kadam, MD, MPH, PhD

Additional Professor and Deputy Director, Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar, Public Health Foundation of India

Dr Kadam with PhD in Global Health with especial focus on Human Resource Management from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK has 22 years of experience in public health. Earlier, he obtained Masters in Public Health in Health System Management and Policy from the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium in 2008. He received M.D. in Preventive and Social Medicine from Government Medical College, Nagpur in 1998.
Dr Kadam has worked with the World Health Organization for six years as State Coordinator in the states of Odisha and Bihar. He has also worked with government of Maharashtra for two years where he was involved in teaching, training and health service delivery.

At present he is working with Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) since 2008, initially at the Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad and presently at the Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar (IIPHB) as Additional Professor and Deputy Director. He is active part of PHFI’s research projects specifically focusing on health systems, healthcare financing, human resources and access to healthcare and equity. He has undertaken policy and management relevant research in the domains of human resources, health systems, health financing and insurance and programme management with funding from Wellcome Trust, DFID, Tata Trust, Access International, Government of Odisha and Government of Andhra Pradesh.

He is active member of various committees constituted by Government of Odisha predominantly related to the human resources for health as part of which he has contributed in developing public health cadre in the state.

Shikha Kukreti

Ph.D. Candidate in Public Health at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan

Shikha Kukreti, a Dentist and Public health professional from India, is a current Ph.D. candidate in Public Health at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan. Kukreti receive her Master’s in Public Health from Indian Institute of Public Health Delhi in 2018. Her previous experience includes working with government and non-government organizations in India. Kukreti has received NCKU’s exclusive Veritas et Conscientia Scholarship (VCS) for outstanding performance for three consecutive years. She has published high impact articles in highly esteemed Journals and few book chapter. Currently, she is also working as a research assistant on projects related to COVID-19 and have expertise in health promotion, mental health, and COVID-19 related research. In addition, Kukreti is also collaborating as a Co PI with the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay on a 2022 SATU Joint Research Scheme (JRS) project on gaming disorder.

Dr. Ajay Bakshi

Neurosurgeon, Neuroscientist, McKinsey consultant and ex-CEO of Max Healthcare, Manipal Hospitals and India Operations of IHH/Parkway Hospitals

Dr. Ajay Bakshi is a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, McKinsey consultant and ex-CEO of Max Healthcare, Manipal Hospitals and India Operations of IHH/Parkway Hospitals. He has recently co-founded BuddhiMed Technologies which is an AI based health technology company that is working to merge modern medicine with computer science to benefit doctors, patients, well individuals and other members of the healthcare ecosystem. He is also a volunteer at iSPIRT – a Bangalore based technology think tank. Dr. Bakshi trained as a neurosurgeon at AIIMS, New Delhi from where he completed his MBBS and M.Ch. (Neurosurgery) in 1997. He then worked as a clinical neurosurgeon at a not-for-profit institution in New Delhi for four years. Thereafter he moved to the Department of Neurobiology at Drexel University to set up his stem cell transplantation lab. From both these stints, Dr Bakshi published 8 peer reviewed scientific papers including those in Journal of Neurosurgery, Journal of Neurotrauma, Brain Research and Cell Transplant. At this time, Dr. Bakshi also completed his Wharton Management Program from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Renuka Garg

General physician

Group Captain (Dr) Renuka Garg is a veteran general physician from the Indian Air Force (IAF) where she served for over 21 years. Her most significant contribution, while in service, was as Director Medical Services (IT), wherein she was instrumental in planning and implementing enterprise wide healthcare informatics projects spanning over 120 medical establishments of the IAF. She received the Chief of Air Staff’s Commendation Card for her efforts in this field. She is presently practicing as an independent healthcare IT and management consultant, using her expertise in medicine, informatics and project management to holistically view issues and provide innovative solutions, thereby bridging the gap between expectations and solutions in healthcare delivery. She is passionate about primary healthcare and patient empowerment and firmly believes that information technology is a key enabler in achieving these objectives effectively. She holds a Master’s degree in Defence & Strategic Studies and is a certified Project Management Professional

Raghu Dharmaraju

President at ARTPARK

Raghu Dharmaraju, President at ARTPARK, has spent the last two decades bridging innovations and societal impact. As a founding leader, he built the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a pioneering nonprofit in AI for social good, and launched innovations/ programs in global health and agriculture with partners such as the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, WHO, Better Cotton Initiative and several states. His team was the only winner of the global Google AI Impact Challenge from India and the only AI XPrize shortlisted entry from a developing country.
Previously, he took the the award-winning Embrace infant warmers from first users to scale, helping 300,000+ babies via WHO and nonprofits, several state governments, 300+ private hospitals in 100+ small towns, and ~20 countries. Prior to that he built commercialized and built new solar and environmental technologies at Duron, Xerox Parc and Corning. Raghu is an alumnus if Cornell, UMass Amherst, and IIT Madras.

Dr. Rukman Mecca Manapurath

Research Scientist in Centre for Health Research and Development – Society for Applied Studies (CHRD-SAS), New Delhi

Medical doctor specialized in Public health. Currently working as Research Scientist in Centre for Health Research and Development – Society for Applied Studies (CHRD-SAS), New Delhi- a WHO collaborating centre for Randomized Controlled trials. Interested in Body composition and metabolic disorders. Experienced in Systematic Review methodology and Meta analysis as part of WHO Guideline Development Group, Data Based Monitoring of Research Studies (Quality Control), Big Data Analysis.

Andrew Babu

Senior Reader and Head of Physiotherapy Unit at Christian Medical College, Vellore, India

He had completed his Bachelor of Physiotherapy Course in1988 at the Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore, India and worked for 2 years at the same hospital and then completed his Master of Physiotherapy Course from Seth GS Medical College and King Edward Memorial Hospital, Bombay, India in the year 1994. After the completion of PG degree he joined back CMC and continues to work till date. He has received “The Best Teacher Award” in the year 2012 from Dr.M.G.R Medical University, Chennai. He is Physiotherapy Task force Expert for National Curriculum Review Committee, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. He has held many administrative posts in CMC viz Head of Physiotherapy Unit, Warden, Dorothy Joske Hostel, Onsite Clinical Coordinator for the Overseas Elective Physiotherapy Students, University Guides for MPT and BPT students, MPT and BPT Student Selection committee member, , Member of Board of Studies in Physiotherapy, Dr.M.G.R Medical University(2005), External Examiner for MPT and BPT students, Member representative of Lifestyle Medicine Team, Occupational Health Team. Research collaboration with the following departs/units – Radiotherapy, Upper GI Surgery, Colorectal Surgery Endocrinology, Reproductive Medicine, Plastic Surgery, Vascular Surgery and Abdominal Wall Reconstruction Surgery.

Hannah Mary T Thomas, PhD

India Alliance Early Career Fellow, Department of Radiation Oncology, Christian Medical College, Vellore

I am setting up the first of its kind Artificial Intelligence lab in Radiation Oncology in India with necessary tools required to to translate quantitative imaging-based biomarkers (radiomic signature from Computed tomography CT) into routine cancer care to support clinical decision-making. I am working on the hypothesis pre-treatment imaging (CT)- derived radiomics signature can accurately identify advanced head-and- neck cancer patients with higher risk of failure and poor survival. Radiomics based prediction models have a potential for universal implementation as a cost-effective surrogate or replacement to genomics-based biomarkers. To achieve this it is necessary to standardize acquisition protocols for cancer imaging for radiomics feature extraction to correlate with outcome data to identify the ideal biomarker. Translation of developed biomarkers for clinical implementation and adoption in future clinical trials in India is possible with the selected disease site. Prospective observational study design involving uniform image acquisition, radiomics feature extraction, development of outcome prediction model using machine learning AI approaches and validation of the model on a prospective clinical cohort before implementation into clinics.

Dorcas Gandhi

Assoc. Professor, Clinical Supervisor and Telerehabilitation Consultant in the Dept.of Neurology, Christian Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana

A Neuro-Physiotherapist working as an Assoc. Professor, Clinical Supervisor and Telerehabilitation Consultant in the Dept.of Neurology, Christian Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana. She has more than a decade’s experience in the field of Neuro rehabilitation. Her main fields of interest are Stroke Rehabilitation, technology based rehabilitation methods, building capacity among rehabilitation professionals, developing and implementing Clinical Practice Guidelines for stroke care and low cost rehab services suitable for Low and middle Income countries. She has been awarded the ‘Young Fellowship Award’ by the Indian Federation of Neuro rehabilitation, ‘Young Investigator award’ by World Stroke Organization, ‘Emerging leader award’ by World Heart Federation along other accolades. Along with her clinical practice and teaching responsibilities, she is into rehabilitation research especially in Stroke and is presently also collaborating with World Health Organization in building capacity among stroke health providers in South East Asia.

Anuradha Chandramohan

Professor of Radiology at Christian Medical College, Vellore, India

Anuradha Chandramohan is a Professor of Radiology at Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. Her main subspeciality interest is in onco-imaging with keen research focus in rectal cancer, peritoneal malignancy, gyne-oncology and uro-oncology. She had received overseas training in this domain at apex cancer centres. She has also received level II certificate of excellence in Abdominal Imaging by European Society of Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Imaging and has published 70 peer reviewed articles and book chapters. She has given over 50 lectures at national and state level meetings. She regularly presents her research at National and International conferences and has won several prizes for the same. Best scientific oral presentation awards at European Congress of Radiology, Vienna, Austria in 2015, Annual Conference of International Cancer Imaging Society at Houston, Texas in 2018, Prof. Swaminathan Young Achiever award for exemplary Academic Radiology career by Indian Society of Radiology and Imaging in 2019 and IRIA-ICRI Onco-Imaging award for the year 2020 to name a few. She holds a strong vision of transforming Radiology education, research and clinical practice making it more value based, relevant and cost effective.

Sebin George Abraham

Doctor, Christian Fellowship hospital, Oddanchatram, Tamilnadu

Worked in multiple secondary hospitals across the country after completing undergraduate training at CMC, Vellore. Currently working at the Christian Fellowship hospital, Oddanchatram, Tamilnadu after completing residency in Paediatrics from CMC. Enjoys outdoor clinics and working with communities. Interests include universal health coverage, health equity, medical education and healthcare innovations in low resource settings, with special emphasis on Paediatrics. Skilled in managing preterm neonates and sick infants in resource limited settings, counselling adolescents and providing shared care by liaising with experts at tertiary care centres. Besides listening to babble of children in OPD, loves to listen to those who have worked in areas of need, read global health articles and occasionally blogs about bedside experiences.

Lenny Vasanthan T.

Lecturer in Physiotherapy, PMR Department at Christian Medical College, Vellore, India

Mr. Lenny Vasanthan T. currently works as a Lecturer in Physiotherapy, PMR Department at Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. He has completed his BPT from Christian Medical College Vellore and was awarded the “Gold medal for the Best outgoing student in Physiotherapy, class of 2001-2005”. He has completed his Master of Physiotherapy from Manipal University in 2010. He was awarded the “Wyss Scholarship for future leaders in Global health in 2017”, by Health Volunteer Overseas, USA. He is actively involved in treating patients, student teaching and research. His current research work include evidence synthesis and evidence generation in COVID 19, Critical care rehabilitation, Vestibular rehabilitation and Ergonomics.

Dr. Sureshkumar Kamalakannan

Associate professor, Public Health Foundation of India

I am an Associate professor for the Public Health Foundation of India with academic research expertise in the areas of Occupational therapy, Public Health disability, and Epidemiology. I am also a research fellow for the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Since 2011, I have been a Welcome Trust-(PHFI) and India Alliance research fellow in clinical and public health developing and evaluating the effectiveness of a Technology-enabled educational intervention for stroke survivors in India. I am an active contributor for the Cochrane Collaboration working with the Cochrane work group. I am an International practitioner member of the Faculty of Public Health UK. I provide technical support to the government disability department of Telangana State and I am the editorial board member for the Indian and British Journal of Occupational Therapy. I co-investigate stroke care interventions research for Universal Health Coverage in South Africa and Malaysia currently. I am passionate about mainstreaming disability within the agenda for health and development especially in LMICs.

Dr. Deepthi R.V.

Assistant Professor in Division of Pediatric Nephrology Department of Child Health (CH2 unit) Christian Medical College Vellore, Tamil Nadu

Pursued super specialty in Nephrology (DM Nephrology) from Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu in 2015 following MD and DCH in Pediatrics from Government Medical College Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala in 2006 and PG Diploma in Clinical Ethics from Yenapoya University Deralakatte, Mangalore in 2015.Pursued MBBS from Government Medical College Kozhikode, Kerala in 1998.
Worked as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics K S Hedge Medical Academy, Deralakatte, Mangalore Karnataka from 2010 to 2015 after being Assistant Surgeon, Community Health Centre, Mangalpady, Kasargod, Kerala from 2009 to 2010
Has special interest in Pediatric Nephrology, especially in areas of pediatric transplantation, and critical care nephrology. Also has keen interest in Social and preventive pediatrics.

Barsha Gadapani Pathak

Research Scientist in Centre for Health Research and Development – Society for Applied Studies (CHRD-SAS), New Delhi

Acquired Doctor of Medicine from King Edward memorial and Seth GS Medical College, Mumbai. Working in domain of Mental Health and Cognitive Sciences and have keen interest in Implementation Research . Experienced in Systematic Review methodology and Meta analysis, qualitative research.

Dr. Ashwaghosha Parthasarathi

Research fellow, Allergy Asthma and Chest Center (AACC), Mysuru, Karnataka, India

Dr. Ashwaghosha Parthasarathi is a Doctor working as a Research fellow at Allergy Asthma and Chest Center (AACC), Mysuru, Karnataka, India. His primary role at AACC involves coordinating various research projects. His main research focus is on airway diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He has also worked on research projects, as a team member, covering public health issues such as COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and Nicotine addiction with the University of Birmingham, UK, and University of Arizona, USA. He has a keen interest in the methods of performing systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Dr. Sandeep Kadam

Consultant Neonatologist at KEM Hospital, Pune

Sandeep Kadam has been a Neonatologist at the King Edward Memorial Hospital, Pune since 2004. After completing the post graduation, he has done DM Neonatology from the LTM Medical College, Sion, Mumbai. Following DM course, he has done fellowship from Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia for two years. He has been a Teacher for DNB Neonatology which is a super-specialty training course run by the NBE. He is a National Trainer for the Neonatal Advanced life support course. His area of interest has been CPAP, Neonatal sepsis and neonatal nutrition. He has published over 30 articles in indexed journals and authored over 25 chapters in various books. He has also received a visiting fellowship from the Royal Australian College of Physicians in the year 2013.

Sujith J. Chandy

Professor at the Department. of Pharmacology & Clinical Pharmacology, Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, India

Dr. Sujith J Chandy is Professor at the Department. of Pharmacology & Clinical Pharmacology, Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, India. His academic credentials include MBBS and MD in Pharmacology from CMC, and PhD from the Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. Dr. Chandy has served various national and international roles in AMR, antibiotic stewardship, pharmacovigilance, bioethics, and medical education, and has a number of key publications in these themes. He is currently serving on the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group and SEARO Task Force on AMR. He also has a leadership role within ReAct, a global network dedicated towards improving antibiotic use. Dr. Chandy’s interests include clinical pharmacology, medicines management, medicine safety, and pharmaceutical ethics. His passion however continues to be improving medicine use through research, knowledge dissemination, training, public health advocacy, policy development and behaviour change for students, professionals and the wider community.

Beula Subashini

Associate Professor, Microbiologist, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India

Bill &Melinda Gates foundation award and travel grant for YOUNG INVESTIGATORS FROM INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA presented by International Society of infectious Diseases in the 17th International congress of Infectious Diseases in Hyderabad, India, from March 2 to 5, 2016. Awarded the 17th ICID Wellcome trust / DBT India Alliance Poster Award by the International Society for Infectious Diseases in the 17th International congress of Infectious Diseases in Hyderabad, India.

Ammar Jagirdar

Department of Clinical Microbiology Christian Medical College and Hospital Vellore

A dentist turned engineer, Ammar Jagirdar made the transition from clinical practice to technology development, driven by his goal to democratize healthcare through innovations in the medical device space. Ammar has been with qure.ai for over 3 years, leading the Design and Product teams and is also responsible for maintaining and adding capabilities in the portfolio. He is passionate about affordable and accessible healthcare and liaises with policy makers, AI experts, therapeutic area specialists and the academic community globally to steer the product portfolio roadmap. Ammar took his first steps in the industry with Biosense in R&D as a Senior Engineer, building products for Diabetes, Anaemia and Chronic Kidney disorders. Rising to the post of Chief Strategy Officer, he focused on both R&D and commercialization. Post his Biosense stint, with learnings from the hardware medical device space, Ammar was a management consultant with Xynteo. His work entailed assisting medical device start-ups of the Indian ecosystem in scaling and market access. Ammar returned to focus on Products at qure.ai, initially as Product Manager for the Chest X-ray solution and now managing the overall qure.ai Product portfolio.

Thambu David Sudarsanam

Professor and Head, Dept. of Medicine, Christian Medical College; Also head of Clinical Epidemiology Unit and Cochrane CMC Vellore Affiliate

Prasanna Samuel

Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the department of Biostatistics & G.I Sciences; Resource faculty for the Clinical Epidemiology Unit and Cochrane affiliate India, Christian Medical College, Vellore

Prasanna Samuel is a Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the department of Biostatistics & G.I Sciences, and resource faculty for the Clinical Epidemiology Unit and Cochrane affiliate India, Christian Medical College, Vellore. He works on applications of range of statistical approaches to address clinical and public health research questions. His research interest areas are focused on approaches to conduct healthcare expenditures and utilization studies, panel data analysis and modeling. His current research examines use of mobile-based diaries for collection of household survey data.

Aditi Apte

MBBS, MD (Pharmacology) PhD Scholar, Nanomedicine Lab, Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai

Aditi has been working in academics as well as pharmaceutical industry in Pune since 2008. She has been working in the area of maternal child health and public health research with KEM Hospital Research Centre, Pune since 2015 and has contributed to several community and hospital-based research proposals and regulatory clinical trials. Her PhD work involves transdermal delivery of micronutrients using nanotechnology. Her research interests include nutrition, vaccines, bioethics and biostatistics.
She has a few national and international publications and is a peer reviewer for a few indexed journals

Marilyn Ninan

Associate Professor position at the Department of Clinical Microbiology, CMC Vellore

Dr Marilyn Ninan (M.B.B.S., D.C.P., M.D.) is a clinical microbiologist trained at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. She holds an Associate Professor position at the Department of Clinical Microbiology, CMC Vellore and is currently training as a research fellow at the Peter Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne. She has expertise in the implementation of diagnostics for infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis, in resource limited settings and is also a trained auditor for laboratories. Her research interests are mycobacterial diseases and mycology, with a special focus on drug resistant tuberculosis. She is passionate about universal access to health and leveraging existing systems to provide comprehensive healthcare across all settings.

Sindhu Kulandaipalayam Natarajan

Associate Professor at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory, Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences, CMC, Vellore

I am a Community Physician by training from the Christian Medical College, Vellore, India and currently an Associate Professor at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory, Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences, CMC, Vellore. My work is primarily based on Rotavirus vaccines, with the epidemiology of Enteric fever and Dengue being my other preliminary areas of work. My academic qualifications include MBBS and an MD in Community Health. My interest in humanitarian medicine led me to the completion of Médecins Sans Frontières Course in Global Health and Humanitarian Medicine (GHHM), and I hold a DTM&H degree from RCP, UK. I recently submitted my PhD titled “Impact of maternal antibodies and infant gut microbiota on the immunogenicity of Rotavirus vaccines in Indian infants”, under the guidance of Prof. Gagandeep Kang. I also teach on undergraduate medical and other public health courses.

Dr. Mahesh P. A.

Professor and former Head of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at JSS Medical College, JSSAHER

Mahesh Padukudru Anand, is a Professor and former Head of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at JSS Medical College, JSSAHER and has been actively involved in research in airway diseases such as COPD and asthma for the last two decades, with 180 publications, an h index of 54 and i10 index of 105 and total citations of 47,692 (Google scholar). As PI, Co-Investigator or Mentor on several Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), European Union (FP6) and GHES (NIH, USA), GID (NIH, USA), MRC (UK), Swedish Heart Lung Foundation grants, he has coordinated large-scale epidemiological studies involving house-to-house surveys and schools of more than 1,00,000 subjects.He has been a part of large international and national consortiums such as Global burden of Disease (GBD), Europrevall, BOLD I & II, GLIMP, Global Asthma Network (GAN), Embarc, APRISE and INSEARCH. He has established 3 cohorts in urban and rural Mysore.

Santhosh Nagasubramanian

Associate Professor in the Department of Urology, Christian Medical College, Vellore

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Urology, Christian Medical College, Vellore. I did my undergraduate training from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, and post-graduation from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. My primary area of interests are Urooncology and lower urinary tract symptoms. My experience with systematic reviews is limited, and I hope to learn and contribute as a Lancet Commission Fellow

Eliza Dutta

Trained in epidemiology, based on North East India. My research interest includes cancer, women’s health beyond reproductive health needs and evidence based policy.

Apoorva Guttikonda

Research Assistant in Paediatric Neurology at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

I completed my medical degree and worked as a junior doctor in Christian Medical College, Vellore. I am currently a research assistant in paediatric neurology at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. I am planning to pursue further training in paediatrics. My project with the Lancet Commission involves healthcare technology and economic analyses.

Tila Khan

MVSc, PhD, DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Early Career Fellow, School of Medical Science & Technology, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

Tila comes from a Veterinary background with PhD in virology and vaccine development from Virginia Tech, USA. During her post-doctoral research at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, she was awarded an international research grant entitled “Robert Austrian Research Grant” funded by the 10th International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Disease Board-2016, to pursue research in pneumococcal vaccinology and associations between respiratory viruses and bacteria in HIV-affected families. In 2020, she was awarded the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance Early Career Award in Clinical and Public Health. In this project, she is working on building the evidence base for maternal immunization to protect infants from lower respiratory tract infections. This would include setting up surveillance systems for respiratory pathogens such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 in different health centers of a rural district of West Bengal for estimating the impact and burden of disease in pregnant women and infants and build awareness about maternal immunization.

Arjun Kalyanpur

Founder and Chief Radiologist, Teleradiology Solutions

Dr. Arjun Kalyanpur is Founder and Chief Radiologist of Teleradiology Solutions, a global healthcare Company headquartered in Bangalore, that reports radiology scans for Hospitals in India, the US, Singapore, Europe and Africa. The organization also has a software entity, TeleradTech, a not-for-profit division, The Telerad Foundation, a teaching portal Radguru, and a clinical research group, Image Core Lab. Dr Kalyanpur was trained at AIIMS, New Delhi, Cornell University Medical Center and Yale University in the US. He is an active contributor to the scientific literature, has edited a radiology textbook, serves as a reviewer for several radiology journals and is on the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Radiology and Imaging. He was awarded Modern Medicare’s Entrepreneur of the year award in 2007, was named one of the 50 pathfinders in Healthcare in India in 2009 by Express Healthcare magazine and one of 25 healthcare influencers by Healthcare Executive in 2015. Frost & Sullivan honored him with their Healthcare Entrepreneur of the Year Award during their 7th Annual India Healthcare Excellence Awards 2015.

Manikandan S.

Scientist in ICMR Bioethics Unit, NCDIR Bangalore

I am a Medical doctor by profession and was trained in Community Medicine in JIPMER, Puducherry. Following this, I worked as a Senior Research Officer in the National Surveillance System for Enteric Fever in India project for three years. Interested in pursuing community-based research to address reduction in burden of infectious diseases and antibiotic overuse in the community. Currently working as a Scientist in ICMR Bioethics Unit, NCDIR Bangalore.

Varsha Chaudhary

Research Fellow at Christian Medical College Vellore, India

I am a Pediatrician by education and have practised Pediatrics for 19 years and then have diversified to the field of research since last two and a half years. I am still dabbling but enjoying the observational studies in which I play a part of the project coordinator and Co-Investigator.

Namrata Mathew

I completed my undergraduate medical degree from Christian Medical College, Vellore and worked in the Departments of Medical Oncology and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology in the same institute for two years. Currently, I am applying for post graduation in Internal Medicine. I am passionate about medical research and learning about the same, and the Lancet Citizens’ Commission has given me a splendid opportunity to collaborate with researchers from various parts of India to answer fundamental questions regarding health care in India.

Dilesh Kumar

I am from Christian Medical college Vellore, working as part of the surveillance for enteric fever india consortium estimating typhoid burden in India. Areas of work include epidemiology of enteric fever and tuberculosis; Disease costing enteric fever and economic modelling of vaccines.

Dr Deepak Thomas Varughese

MBBS, MD Community Medicine (CMC Vellore) Assistant Professor Department of Community Medicine Believers Church Medical College

Deepak is a Community Health Physician with experience in Palliative Medicine and Rehabilitation. He also has a special interest in Health Informatics and Data Science in Healthcare.

Christie Leya Prasad

BDS, MPH (TISS Mumbai), Department of Community Health Christian Hospital, Bissamcuttack,Odisha.