Professor Julie Makani (MD, PhD, FRCP, FTAAS) is a physician scientist in Tanzania, Principal Investigator in the Sickle Cell Programme at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) www.muhas.ac.tz and Sickle Pan African Research Consortium (SPARCO) Clinical Coordinating Centre (CCC), SickleInAfrica http://www.sickleinafrica.org. She is Provost Visiting Professor at Imperial College London, UK https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.makani. She is Science advisor at the Tanzania High Commission in the UK.

She received the 2011 Royal Society Africa Award on genomic research for sickle cell disease http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd17odE1YLs. She is Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, UK, Tutu Leadership www.alinstitute.org, and the Tanzania Academy of Sciences https://www.taas-online.or.tz/

Abdisalan Noor is a global health leader, epidemiologist and researcher who specializes in the use of data and analytics for effective public health programmes. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Harvard University and Executive Director of AHADI (www.appliedhealthanalytics.org). Prior to joining Harvard, he was the Head of Strategic Information for Response at the WHO Global Malaria Programme where he led the development of global normative guidance, global efforts to strengthen use of subnational data and evidence for malaria priority setting and the publication of the world malaria report. He was previously Director of the Nairobi Programme of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme and Chair of the Board of the Kenya National Council for Population and Development, providing leadership during critical growth phases. Noor has been awarded the AU National Scientific Award in Life and Earth Sciences and the Chalmers Medal by the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Dr. Masabho Milali is a computational research scientist leveraging mathematics and data science to develop cost-effective healthcare strategies in resource-limited settings. At NYU Grossman School of Medicine, he collaborates with interdisciplinary teams applying machine learning, data mining, and AI to tackle infectious diseases (HIV, TB, malaria) and non-communicable diseases (hypertension, cardiovascular disease). He also serves as a senior research scientist at the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, where he applies quantitative methods to malaria research and mentors junior researchers in data science and modeling

Okungu is a Calestous Juma Fellow and a career Health Economist serving in various technical leadership roles to advise on and produce policy documentation and presentations on health sector financing, planning, and evaluation. His research interests are focused around sustainable health financing, healthcare equity and access, and value for money. As a researcher, some of his notable achievements include forecasting costs for national strategy deployment and financing for sustainable public health interventions in Rwanda; improving the potential of domestic mobilization of resources and planning health expenditure using the cost model and sustainability plan (Kenya & Rwanda); and co-authored and produced a comprehensive global report on care quality improvements, policy reviews and evaluations. He consults for African governments and international agencies on innovative financing and policy formulation.

Prashant Yadav is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is a globally recognized expert in healthcare delivery and has published extensively on health product manufacturing, procurement, and distribution. Yadav’s writing has appeared in major print media outlets, including the Financial Times, The Economist, Nature, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs. He has frequently appeared as a supply chain expert on NPR, BBC, CNN, CBS, and CNBC. His research has received best paper awards from prominent scientific bodies. Yadav has held faculty positions at INSEAD, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Zaragoza Logistics Program, the University of Michigan, and Harvard Medical School.