50 by 50: Halving Premature Deaths Globally by 2050

PATH

Neha Agarwal co-leads PATH’s Diagnostics program, which focuses on developing and advancing a portfolio of high-impact, affordable, and easy-to-use diagnostic tools and technologies suitable for adoption in low- and middle-income countries. Her work addresses access challenges in low- and middle-income countries and spans many health areas, including primary health, infectious diseases, and now COVID-19.

Ms. Agarwal has previously held positions at the Clinton Health Access Initiative and Applied Strategies, applying decision science to support portfolio management for several global health donors. Before her work in global health, Ms. Agarwal started her career in the medical technology industry, focusing on innovative product development at companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Verinata Health (now Illumina), earning her several patents for lab-on-chip and drug delivery technologies.

Ms. Agarwal received her Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University and her Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley. She also serves as vice chair of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance board.

Stanford University

Dr. Shuchi Anand, MD, MS, is the Director of the Center for Tubulointerstitial Kidney Disease at Stanford University (http://stan.md/tikidney). She received her Medical Degree from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She completed internal medicine training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Partners Healthcare, Harvard Medical School) in Boston. She completed her Masters in Clinical Epidemiology and nephrology fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Dr. Anand is engaged in clinical research to advance the care of patients with kidney disease living in low-resource settings using practical tools. She has active projects in collaboration with the University of Utah to promote exercise programming for underserved populations, with the Center for Chronic Disease Control in India to study risk factors for kidney disease in South Asians, and with Kandy Hospital Sri Lanka to investigate chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology affecting agricultural communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anand also participated in partnership to elucidate sero-epidemiology, vaccine acceptance and response to vaccination among patients on dialysis. She is part of two NIH consortia focused on improving the health of underserved populations.

California Department of Public Health

Dr. Tomás Aragón has served as the director of the California Department of Public Health and the State Public Health Officer since January 4, 2021. Before coming to CDPH, he was the health officer for the City and County of San Francisco and director of the public health division.

Dr. Aragón has served in public health leadership roles for more than 20 years (communicable disease controller, deputy health officer, health officer, community health and chronic disease epidemiologist), including directing a public health emergency preparedness and response research and training center at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.

As CDPH director, striving to embody and promote the universal values of dignity, equity, compassion and humility, he works through collaborative partnerships to mobilize communities and institutions to transform policies and systems towards a culture of equity, antiracism, healing and health for all people and our planet. As the State Public Health Officer, he exercises leadership and legal authority to protect health and prevent disease.

Dr. Aragón graduated from the University of California, Berkeley (BA, Molecular Biology; DrPH, Epidemiology), Harvard Medical School (MD), Harvard School of Public Health (MPH), and Stanford University (certification in Strategic Decision and Risk Management in Healthcare). He completed his clinical and research training at the University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco General Hospital Primary Care Internal Medicine; Clinical Infectious Diseases; and Traineeship in AIDS Prevention Studies).

Stanford University

Dr. Michele Barry, MD, FACP, is the Senior Associate Dean for Global Health and Director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health at the Stanford School of Medicine. As Director of the Yale/Stanford Johnson and Johnson Global Health Scholar Award program, she has sent over 1000 physicians overseas to underserved areas to help strengthen health infrastructure in low-resource settings. As a past President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, she led an educational initiative in tropical medicine and travelers’ health, culminating in diploma courses in tropical medicine both in the U.S. and overseas, as well as a U.S. certification exam. Dr. Barry is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and National Academy of Science and past chair of the Interest Group on Global Health, Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the IOM. She has been listed as one of the best doctors in America. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded Consortium of Universities Involved in Global Health (CUGH), the Foundation of the Advancement of International Education (FAIMER) and is a board member of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance.

UC Berkeley School of Public Health

Dr. Stefano M. Bertozzi is a former dean and professor of health policy and management at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Previously, he directed the HIV and tuberculosis programs at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Bertozzi worked at the Mexican National Institute of Public Health as its Center for Evaluation Research and Surveys director. He was the last director of the WHO Global Programme on AIDS and has also held positions with UNAIDS, the World Bank and the government of the DRC.

He is the founding editor-in-chief of Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases (RRID), an open-access, rapid-review overlay journal for the accelerated curation and peer review of infectious disease-related research. He serves or has served on governance and advisory boards for the Bay Area Global Health Alliance, the Tsinghua Vanke School of Public Health, the Global Virus Network, the East Bay Community Foundation, HopeLab, the Institute for Transformative Technologies, UNICEF, WHO, UNAIDS, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, PEPFAR, the NIH, Duke University, the University of Washington and the AMA. He has advised NGOs and ministries of health and social welfare in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and is a former board member of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a PhD in health policy and management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his medical degree at UC San Diego and trained in internal medicine at UC San Francisco.

Gilead Sciences

Ms. Thu Do is a Medical Director with Gilead Patient Solutions, a team dedicated to providing access to medicines in low and lower-middle-income countries. Her 10 years in global health have focused on the intersection of how the private and public sectors can increase access to innovations in health care services and commodities. Previously, she was Director of Global Policy and Advocacy at Malaria No More, where she led efforts with the U.S. government, international donors and endemic country governments to prioritize and mobilize resources for malaria elimination. Previously, she led the Programs, Policy & Evaluation team for Novartis Social Business, a unit dedicated to increasing the affordability and availability of essential noncommunicable diseases and malaria medicines for low-income patients. She has also worked in the public sector at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office on Family Planning and Reproductive Health and at Results for Development in Washington D.C. on a portfolio to scale Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) programs across east Africa and India.

Ms. Thu holds an MPH in Health Policy and a BA in Ethics, Politics & Economics from Yale University. She has published on women-centric perspectives for creating health-functional markets to address the unmet global need for contraception and has led impact evaluations of access-to-medicine initiatives.

UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences

Ms. Sekhri Feachem has over 30 years of experience in health policy, financing, and management of health care systems. She served as health financing and policy advisor at the World Health Organization from 2003 to 2007, where she provided technical and policy guidance to a wide range of countries on health financing, focusing on private and public insurance and methods to complement public financing with private funding instruments. Most recently, Ms. Feachem served as Senior Vice President for Global Access and Alliances at Napo Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical firm.

As founder of The Healthcare Redesign Group Inc. since 1994, Ms. Feachem heads a consultancy firm recognized by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the San Francisco area. She advises governments and international organizations on health reform, financing, and policy.

Before founding The Healthcare Redesign Group, Ms. Feachem spent 14 years with Kaiser Permanente, holding executive positions in hospital and medical group management, organizational development, and finance.

Ms. Feachem has served on various Boards, including the Commercial Advisory Board of the British National Health Service, the Working Group on Private Insurance for the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), INMED Partnerships for Children, and the Board of Directors of the Alameda County Medical Center.

UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences

Mr. Dean T. Jamison is an emeritus professor in the Institute for Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. In addition to UCSF, Mr. Jamison has been with UCLA and the University of Washington and served as the T. & G. Angelopoulos Visiting Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (2006-2008). Mr. Jamison previously worked at the World Bank as a research economist and manager of the Bank’s Education Policy Division and its Health, Nutrition and Population Division. Mr. Jamison was lead author for the Bank’s 1993 World Development Report, Investing in Health.

Mr. Jamison studied at Stanford (MS, Engineering Science) and Harvard (PhD, Economics, under K.J. Arrow). In 1994, he was elected to membership in the Academy of Medicine of the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. Mr. Jamison was co-chair with Lawrence H. Summers of The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (The Lancet, December 2013). Most recently, he led work on the nine-volume Disease Control Priorities series from the World Bank and was the lead author of its synthesizing publication.

Malawi University of Science and Technology

Professor Address Mauakowa Malata holds the position of Vice-Chancellor at the Malawi University of Science and Technology, the first woman to hold the position of Vice Chancellor of a public university in Malawi; NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing Courtesy Appointment, October 2023; former Vice President of the International Confederation of Midwives; former President of the Africa Honor Society of Nursing of Sigma Theta Tau International; former Principal of Kamuzu College of Nursing and spearheaded it to become a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Inter-Professional Education and Leadership in 2016.   

She has spearheaded the development and implementation of various undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in nursing, midwifery, health, science, innovation, and technology, and she has facilitated capacity building for faculty and other staff in various fields. A renowned international speaker, author and editor of multiple journals in health, nursing, midwifery, and health workforce. She serves on various international, regional and national boards. She is an advocate for girls’ and women’s empowerment through education. Her research focuses on maternal and newborn health, quality of care, health workforce, innovation and technology.

She is a Virginia Henderson Fellow of Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), an Adjunct Professor at Michigan State University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), a Global Health Fellow at the University of California San Francisco University, an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Baylor College of Medicine. She was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Oslo in Norway, 2018 ECU Distinguished Alumni and ECU Honorary Award of Doctor of Nursing Honoris Causa, 2019 in Australia. In 2022, she was nominated as one of the Champions for Malawi Vision 2063 under Enabler, Human Capital Development. In 2023, she received the National Outstanding Award (Educational Achievements, Women Change Makers Science and Research) under Pan African Learning and Global Network and Plan Malawi International.

Professor Malata was named a recipient of the 2024-2025 UC San Francisco Presidential Chair Award and is a distinguished visiting professor in the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences

Dr. Payam Nahid, the Haile T. Debas Distinguished Professor of Global Health, serves as the Executive Director of the UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences (IGHS).

Dr. Nahid has over two decades of experience in global health research, specializing in clinical trials and translational research focused on TB and HIV/TB co-infection. He has spearheaded international programs funded by the NIH, CDC, USAID, and BMGF, developing new TB diagnostics and therapeutics.

In 2009, he co-founded the Vietnam National TB Programme-UCSF Research Collaboration Unit to promote equitable international research activities. As the Senior Research Advisor for the USAID-funded Supporting, Mobilizing and Accelerating Research for Tuberculosis Elimination (SMART4TB), Dr. Nahid directs the consortium’s research strategies.

Dr. Nahid also directs the UCSF Center for Tuberculosis and oversees the Tuberculosis Research Advancement Center at UCSF and UC Berkeley, which supports TB investigators on both campuses.

Dr. Nahid has led WHO Task Forces and international practice guidelines. He is an appointed member of the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on TB (STAG TB) and is a board member of the Bay Area Global Health Alliance.

U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

Dr. Mike Reid is the Chief Science Officer in the US Department of State’s Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy (GHSD) – PEPFAR.  Dr. Reid is a practicing Infectious Disease physician with 15 years of experience in academic global health. He has published over 100 publications, mostly related to HIV, TB and COVID-19 implementation science research in diverse settings in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Lagos University Teaching Hospital

Ms. Justina Seyi-Olajide is a pediatric surgeon and PhD researcher focused on improving access to safe, high-quality surgical care in low-resource settings. She is the recipient of the 2013 West African College of Surgeons Alinta Nwako Prize for the best graduating trainee in pediatric surgery. She is passionate about global surgery, neonatal surgery, pediatric urology, surgical education and research.

Ms. Seyi-Olajide advocates for global surgery, and her work emphasizes strengthening health systems, improving pediatric surgical outcomes, and promoting equity in health care access. She serves as a board member of the Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery, a commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health, a project team member for the Pan-African Pediatric Surgery E-learning Programme, and treasurer and technical team member of the Pan-African Surgical Healthcare Forum. She also chairs Nigeria’s National Surgical, Obstetric, Anesthesia, and Nursing Plan Revision Committee and Technical Sub-committee, as well as the DEI Committee of the Association for Academic Global Surgery.

Additionally, Ms. Seyi-Olajide is a passionate mentor for medical students, trainees and future surgeons, particularly women in medicine. Through roles in national surgical planning and global collaborations, she works to create sustainable, locally driven solutions to improve surgical outcomes worldwide.

Duke Global Health Institute

Dr. Gavin Yamey, MD, MPH, MA, is the Director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health based at Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI). The Center is an innovative policy lab that addresses critical challenges in financing and delivering global health. He is the Hymowitz Professor of the Practice of Global Health at DGHI and a Professor of the Practice of Public Policy at the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy.

Dr. Yamey is the Associate Director for Policy at DGHI. He is on the core faculty of the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy and affiliate faculty of Duke Science and Society. He leads the global health track in the Duke Global Policy (DGP) Program in Geneva. He is on the advisory board of the World Food Policy Center at Duke.

He trained in clinical medicine at Oxford University and University College London, medical journalism and editing at the BMJ and public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was Deputy Editor of the Western Journal of Medicine, Assistant Editor at the BMJ, a founding Senior Editor of PLOS Medicine, and the Principal Investigator on a $1.1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the launch of PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. In 2009, he was awarded a Kaiser Family Mini-Media Fellowship in Global Health Reporting to examine the barriers to scaling up low-cost, low-tech health tools in Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.

Dr. Yamey has served as a commissioner on four previous Lancet commissions: the Lancet Commission on Tuberculosis, the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery, and the Lancet-SIGHT Commission on Peaceful Societies Through Health and Gender Equality. He chairs the international advisory committee to the Lancet Commission on Global Hearing Loss. He co-chairs the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health’s Finance and Economics Working Group.

He has been an External Advisor to the WHO, TDR, and the Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. Dr. Yamey has published extensively on global health, neglected diseases, health policy, and health disparities. He is a frequent commentator on National Public Radio and is a columnist for TIME magazine. He has written widely for popular media, including the Washington Post and USA Today. He has published over 250 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Before joining Duke, Dr. Yamey led the Evidence-to-Policy Initiative in the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and was an Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the UCSF School of Medicine.