Agatha Kafuko’s research seeks to identify and examine the nature and prevalence of mental health problems among older children and adolescents in post conflict and resource constrained communities, with perinatal HIV exposure, including those who are HIV-infected and those who were perinatally exposed to HIV but remain uninfected. Using mixed methods, the study seeks to compare the impact of HIV infection on the two categories of HIV affected children and adolescents and to delineate social and environmental risk factors associated with mental health functioning among these children. The research is intended to generate evidence that can contribute to informing the development of appropriate intervention strategies for improving mental health functioning among the HIV affected children in low resource and post conflict settings of Uganda.

Anne Ruhweza Katahoire PhD, is a social and medical anthropologist with over 20 years of experience researching children and adolescent health. She has served as a consultant for local and international organizations including: AfriChild, Children AIDS Fund, Child Fund International, Plan International, WHO, UNICEF, PATH and Population Council. She has been a member of the College of Curators of Every Woman Every Child Innovation Marketplace and currently chairs the East African Children’s Rights and Violence Prevention Fund. She has a special interest in school and community-based interventions that address children’s health and development needs in their broadest sense including physical, emotional and social well being as well as those that promote healthy sexual and reproductive development of adolescents. She specializes in qualitative child-focused research methodologies. She is a faculty on the Joint Advanced Seminars run by the Consortium for Advanced Research training in Africa involving eight African universities and is engaged in the teaching and supervision of masters and PhD students.

Bernadette J. Madrid, MD is the Director of the Child Protection Unit (CPU) of the University of the Philippines Manila – Philippine General Hospital where she is concurrently Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics. She is the Executive Director of the Child Protection Network Foundation, Inc., an NGO that supports the training of Child Protection Professionals and the development of Women and Child Protection Units in the Philippines. She is a member of several government committees on health, social welfare, law enforcement and the judiciary & is consistently invited to be a resource person for congressional & senate hearings on laws affecting women and children. Dr. Madrid has published several papers on child abuse & neglect which have led to changes in policy and practice in the Philippines. She has been a consultant and trainer for different international agencies such as UNICEF, WHO, UNESCAP & UNFPA. She is a reviewer for Child Abuse & Neglect, the International Journal, Journal of Interpersonal Violence and Trauma, Violence and Abuse. She has engineered changes in the medical, legal and social welfare paradigm on women and child protection in the Philippines that has led to her being the recipient of several national awards.

M. Claire Greene, PhD MPH, is an epidemiologist and implementation scientist interested in identifying opportunities to improve population mental health through community- and systems-level interventions. Specifically, her research examines models of integrating mental health and psychosocial support across sectors to enhance the accessibility, relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability of these programs for displaced populations in humanitarian contexts. In her work she consults and collaborates with governments, non-governmental organizations, UN agencies, and academic institutions. At Mailman, Dr. Greene teaches Investigative Methods in Complex Emergencies, a course focused on how to collect and effectively use data to inform programming and policy in humanitarian emergencies. She is faculty within the Program on Forced Migration and Health, a member of the Columbia University Global Mental Health Programs steering committee, and a faculty affiliate of the Columbia Population Research Center.

Dicky Pelupessy, PhD, is a lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia with areas of specialisation: social psychology, community psychology, and peace psychology. He received his PhD degree in Community Psychology from Victoria University, Melbourne (Australia). Currently, he is the director of Crisis Center at the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia. Once, he worked closely with Center for Child Protection and Wellbeing (or PUSKAPA) at Universitas Indonesia as Technical Lead for Child Protection in Emergencies. He was one of writers who developed UNICEF-supported Child Protection in Emergencies (CPiE) Toolkit in Indonesia. He has extensive and hands-on experience in emergencies in Indonesia and has been one of key resource persons in mental health and psychosocial support in emergencies in Indonesia. He has been appointed as national co-coordinator of psychosocial support sub-cluster. In addition, Dr. Pelupessy is the coordinator of Master of Applied Psychology program with concentration in Social Intervention at the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia. He continuously aspires to be a reflective practitioner. He has a great passion as a social interventionist/action researcher working within an ecological framework.

Since his training and interest in health education, Diego Ivan Lucumí has worked on public health interventions for more than 15 years, including policies, plans, programs, and projects at the national, territorial, and community levels.  Health behaviors and health education are his area of ​​performance and contribution to public health. His work is focused on the understanding and intervention of social and behavioral factors that influence the health of individuals, groups, communities and society. In particular, his research is oriented towards the design, implementation and evaluation of public health interventions, as well as the analysis of health inequities. His main field of research is related to cardiovascular health and disease, this includes the study and intervention of risk and protective factors, living conditions and structural factors, including public policies.  Another of his areas of interest has to do with the study of the challenges that urbanization and urban contexts have for health and quality of life, especially in intermediate cities, and the development of initiatives to face these challenges. His work is mainly based on the use of mixed and participatory research approaches.

Dr. Mariam is the executive director of BRAC Institute of Educational Development (IED), BRAC University, in Bangladesh. Dr Mariam completed her PhD in Education from the University of Cambridge in 2008.

She has extensive experience of scaling up education interventions both nationally and globally, and was involved in the expansion of the unique BRAC run Non-Formal Primary (NFP) Schools in the 1990s.

Since 2008, Dr Mariam has promoted BRAC IED’s vision of contributing to the improvement of quality, equity, and efficiency in the education system in partnership with the public sector.

The globally recognized Play Labs and Humanitarian Play Labs have been developed under her leadership, focusing on early stimulation and children’s wellbeing in diverse settings.

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Marion M. Mugisha holds a PhD in Sociology from South Dakota State University, USA. He specialized in Social Organization and Deviance. His PhD was in Urban Sociology (and Social entrepreneurship) focusing on Informal Transport. His dissertation is entitled "Commercial Motorcycle (Boda Boda) Riders and The Production Of Space in Kampala City, Uganda."  Mugisha currently works as a lecturer in the department of Sociology and Social Administration, Kyambogo University, Uganda. He chaired the department for three years. Currently he serves as the Chair of the Academic Staff Association of Kyambogo University. He teaches courses in Sociological Theory, Criminology and Deviance, Urban Sociology and Scholarship in Sociology. He is active in academic and applied research in Urban Sociology (Informal Transport), community development, social entrepreneurship, health policy, and deviance. His teaching involves design and delivery of the above courses. Mugisha has also developed several undergraduate and graduate programs in department, and supervised several undergraduate and graduate students. His applied research projects focus on livelihoods and practices of Motorcycle Taxi Drivers, and best practices in this sector. He is also working on an engaged scholarship project with Murora Community in Kisoro District, Western Uganda, which aims at understanding the success of neighborhood associations in this community and exploring possibilities and opportunities of learning and transferring this knowledge to other communities. The project aims to train at least 20 MA and 10 PhD students. Mugisha has published in peer reviewed journals and with reputable book publishers.  He has also provided consultancy services to several international and local firms and NGOs.

Kenneth holds a PhD and MSC in Marketing from Gulu University. His research interests are in business management, marketing, procurement and statistics. Dr. Olido started his career with Gulu University in 2002 as a Teaching Assistant. Currently he is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Procurement Management at the same university.

Dr. Olido has collaborated with AfriChild Centre as a Trainer in quantitative data analysis in a program for training inter-university senior researchers from 7 universities in Uganda.

Work with VACS data
Dr. Olido's research project focuses on assessing the association between adverse childhood experience and risks of HIV infection among adolescents aged 13 to 24.

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Ejuu Godfrey is an Education Psychologist with specialized training in Early Childhood Education (ECE). He is a professor at Kyambogo University specializing in Early Childhood Education and research in cultural indigenous knowledge for development. He has participated in ECE policies and ECE community mobilization and advocacy. He does consultancy work for different agencies that work with and for children.

Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Ph.D. is a Professor, Department of Mental Health, and Director, Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH). She has focused her career on developing and evaluating child sexual abuse prevention policy and practice. As inaugural director of the Moore Center, Dr. Letourneau’s efforts include developing and evaluating child sexual abuse prevention interventions that target adolescents, parents, and youth serving organizations. She is also leading an evaluation of federal policy impacts on violence prevention, and a large-scale project to develop more effective methods for communicating about child sexual abuse as a preventable public health problem. Her work has been widely reported in high impact media, including This American Life, TEDMED, PBS News Hour, NPR’s On Point, Psychology Today, and The New Yorker.  Dr. Letourneau’s research findings establishing the inefficacy and harmfulness of juvenile sex offense registration policies was influential in three U.S. state supreme court cases and cited by several state legislatures in support of revising these policies. This policy work was recognized by JHSPH, which awarded Dr. Letourneau its inaugural Faculty Practice Award in 2017. Dr. Letourneau is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Forum on Global Violence Prevention, the National Coalition to Prevention Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, the ITU UNESCO Broadband Commission Working Group on Child Safety Online. She previously served on the World Health Organization Guidelines Develop Group to Establish Clinical Guidelines for Responding to Sexual Abuse or Sexual Assault of Children and Adolescents.

Dr. Firiminus Mugwanya is a Professional Social Worker with a strong teaching and Research focus in Social Development, community development, social change with an Engaged scholarship approach. He holds a PhD with a specialty in Community Development Systems Governance from The School of Law and Government – Dublin City University, Ireland, a Master of Arts Degree in Development Studies with a speciality in Local and Regional Development from The Erasmus International Institute of Social Studies – The Netherlands, and a Bachelors’ degree in Social Work and Social Administration from Makerere University Kampala, Uganda. Currently, he teaches at the Department of Social Work and Social Administration (SWSA), School of Social Sciences, Makerere University Kampala.

Previously he has served as a Graduate Programmes Coordinator (2013-2017), and an undergraduate Programmes Coordinator (2004-2009) at the Department of SWSA. He has undertaken a number of research projects, some of which have been funded through competitive academic research grants resulting into publications in journals and books. He has also provided research and consultancy services to local and international service agencies and a number of Government of Uganda Ministries and Departments

Dr. Fred Wabwire-Mangen was trained in Medicine at Makerere University, in Tropical Medicine at Liverpool University and in Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University where he obtained his PhD. Dr. Wabwire-Mangen has over 30 years of conducting research on endemic, emerging and reemerging diseases of public health importance in Uganda including malaria, STIs, HIV/AIDS, influenza and other emerging viral infections. He also has demonstrated experience as a senior research scientist in leading and managing multi-disciplinary research teams .He is currently the Executive Director, Regional Centre for Quality Assurance .  Prof.Mangen also trains African professionals to design and manage programs that treat people with HIV or AIDS as well as education programs to prevent infection. He has initiated public health collaboratives among such institutions as Makerere University, Tulane University, and the Rockefeller Foundation .Besides, Prof. Mangen was a key figure in implementing public health without borders education strategy in Africa.

Hanna-Tina Fischer holds a Doctorate in Public Health, DrPH in Leadership in Global Health and Humanitarian Systems, from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Her doctoral work focused on social determinants of health, investigating the impact of adversity on children’s well-being and analyzing risk as a function of family level system adaptation to crises. Dr. Fischer has over 15 years' experience working on issues of child welfare and violence prevention in low- and lower-middle income countries. She has led post-disaster needs assessments in Thailand and Bangladesh, implemented psychosocial support programs in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and family tracing and reunification programs for children affected by natural disasters in the Philippines. In Africa, Dr. Fischer has worked on programs to support children associated with armed forces in South Sudan, refugee children in Dadaab, Kenya, and unaccompanied minors in South Africa and Zimbabwe. She also has experience of working with refugee populations in Germany and earthquake affected populations in L’Aquila, Italy.

Dr. Fischer is currently a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Charité Center for Global Health, Charité Universitätsmediz in Berlin, Germany, where she is conducting a health policy analysis of the adoption and implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions in Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Prior to the Charité, she worked at the Center for International Health Protection, Robert Koch-Institute (RKI), leading a study that assessed the resilience of health systems in Guinea and Sierra Leone during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Fischer has also worked with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and was an Associate of the Department for Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University. Born in Botswana and raised in India and Pakistan, she has a BA in Anthropology and Communication Studies from Goldsmiths’, University of London and an MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

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Since 2000, Hannah Thompson has worked on child protection; sexual and gender-based violence; and safeguarding. She has provided support to programmes in fragile states, and lower-income, disaster-affected, and refugee-receiving countries. Her key skills include:

(i) Facilitating the development of standards and policies;

(ii) Writing best practice guides and tools;

(iii) Participatory research with children, communities and other stakeholders - including on highly sensitive issues; and

(iv) Staff and partner learning and development.

Recent examples of Hannah’s work on safeguarding include:

i) Developing and piloting a safe culture assessment tool for Plan International.

ii) Writing the FCDO/BOND Safeguarding Report Handling Toolkit.

iii) Supporting the community and staff level research for the Independent Commission on Sexual Misconduct, Accountability and Culture report for a more accountable Oxfam.

She works according to the principles of collaboration, participation, equity, and respect for diversity. Hannah has a Masters in Anthropology and Development from the London School of Economics. She is British and French. She is currently based in Maputo, Mozambique.

Harold Villalba is a specialist in Knowledge Management and Learning at the Inter-American Development specializes in Knowledge Management and Learning at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). He works on measuring the effectiveness of the knowledge generated by the IDB and curating sectoral knowledge to enhance the bank's operational impact. Additionally, Harold is involved in developing knowledge management tools that leverage artificial intelligence.

Before joining the USAID-funded MEASURE Evaluation project and subsequently the D4I project, the Ismael Ddumba Nyanzi worked in collaboration with the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, dedicating efforts to research and evaluation within the realm of child care and protection. Direct engagement with stakeholders at both national and district levels aimed to enhance routine data collection and utilization. Through this experience, the realization dawned that building or enhancing capacity for data collection and usage is a nuanced process, necessitating a thorough understanding of diverse stakeholder perspectives.

The approach involved delving into the reasons behind the lack of data collection and utilization, subsequently collaborating with providers and decision-makers to address the underlying issues. Solutions ranged from behavioral and organizational aspects to technical considerations, requiring a comprehensive examination of various factors. The objective was to navigate through a web of challenges and barriers, facilitating a collective path forward. Ensuring access to essential tools and institutional support emerged as crucial components in the ability to produce and utilize data effectively.

Nyanzi's involvement extended to the introduction of participatory data reviews, a practice widely adopted in the health sector for monitoring HIV care and treatment progress. This approach, relatively new in the field of child care system reform, revealed a scarcity of routine data collection and review practices for children in alternative care across many countries.

In Uganda, inadequate capacity existed at both district and national levels for aggregating, analyzing, visualizing, and facilitating the review and interpretation of data. Despite this, the recognition of data's value in decisions related to care system reform was growing. The commitment persisted in supporting the Ugandan Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development (MGLSD) to enhance administrative data collection, reporting, and usage. This encompassed integrating routine alternative care data into the annual budgeting and planning processes. The foundation laid by D4I aimed to foster increased data use, contributing to improved processes, information systems, and staff and resource coordination for monitoring the country's child care system reform.

Contributing to the transformation of care for children stood out as one of Nyanzi's most significant life privileges. The experience underscored the importance of patience, innovative thinking, and flexibility. Respect for the MGLSD and other collaborators, coupled with appreciation for their insights into needs, effective efforts, and essential steps for progress, defined the approach to this vital endeavor.

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Jason Hart is a social anthropologist by training (BA, MA, Ph.D University of London). He joined the University of Bath in September 2009 after seven years as a researcher and lecturer at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. He is also Visiting Lecturer at the Centre for Children’s Rights Studies, University of Geneva

Much of Jason’s work has explored the experience of and institutional response to young people on the margins of society and the global economy. Themes such as protection, child rights, peacebuilding, home, militarisation and asylum have been central to this research. Much of his research has been undertaken in situations of political violence and displacement. Jason has worked in South Asia (Sri Lanka, Nepal, India and Bhutan) and, increasingly, in the UK. However, his principal area of interest is the Middle East, particularly Israel / occupied Palestinian territories and Jordan.

Jason has been employed as a consultant author, researcher, evaluator and trainer by various UN, governmental and non-governmental organisations. These include UNICEF, Save the Children, PLAN, Care International, and the Canadian International Development Agency. He has also served as an advisor to the UN in the formulation of studies, guidelines and policies.

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jessica Taft is Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz and the Faculty Director of the Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas. Rooted in critical interdisciplinary approaches to child and youth studies, Dr. Taft’s research focuses on young people’s contributions to social change through activism and social
movements in North and South America. Building on nearly twenty years of research with young activists, she is increasingly focused on these young people’s encounters with adult-run political institutions and the various programs that seek to include them in policy-making. In this vein, she is currently working on a book project that looks at the history of how children’s
political participation has been imagined, produced, and institutionalized within the child rights sphere.

She is the author of Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas (NYU Press, 2011), The Kids Are in Charge: Activism and Power in Peru’s Movement of Working Children (NYU Press, 2019), and numerous journal articles on children’s participation, youth politics, and critical civic engagement. Dr. Taft is part of a variety of local, national, and
international collaborative projects focused on child and youth participation and has worked with funders and non governmental organizations to deepen their analysis of the challenges and possibilities of meaningful engagement with young people.

González holds a PhD in art, design and media from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, with a thesis in data visualization. He holds a master's degree in Animation and Digital Arts from the University of Southern California and a visual artist from the Javeriana University. He has dedicated himself to the creation of animated films, interactive pieces for the Internet and physical computing. He is co-founder of the curatorship and visibility group for Latin American animation Moebius Animación (http://moebiusanimacion.com/). His creations have been exhibited in Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Poland, the United States and China. He currently directs the EnFlujo Laboratory of Digital Narratives https://enflujo.com

His work is located at points of convergence: traditional animation and data, cinema and creative programming, physical computing and drawing, the archive and current events, curatorship and critical writing. He is an assistant professor at Ceper and currently directs the EnFlujo Digital Narratives laboratory.

Juliana is relatively new to the CPC Learning Network. As an associate professor at the Mailman School of Public Health, she currently teaches Public Health and Humanitarian Action (PHHA), which delves into a ‘contested humanitarianism.’ Juliana is keen to examine the critical questions, and assumptions underpinning humanitarian response in the short term, and development… in the long run. This is with a view to progressively improve the approaches, programs, and policies we use to effectively reduce inequities. Juliana’s prior work experience was in maternal and child health; she spent 5 years working in health systems strengthening programs in South Sudan, aimed at reducing maternal and child morbidity and mortality. Her primary focus has been on identifying methods to evaluate large scale programs, using routine or observational data. Understanding that children’s health and wellbeing does not accrue merely due to the absence of disease or infirmity, she is keen to apply these approaches within the CPC. Juliana speaks English and Kiswahili and is still trying to figure out the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.

Katungi Juma is an Educationist with specialized training in Art Education and Early Childhood Education. His research and career focus are currently on creativity in the field of Early Childhood Care and Education where he is pursuing a Doctoral study. He gained experience working with children for five years in SOS Children’s Village/Hermann Gmeiner Schools and in the last eight years, he has been lecturing in both the Department of Early Childhood Education and The Department of Art and Design at Kyambogo University. He also has International experience lecturing in the Department of Early Childhood (BLU) at Oslo Metropolitan University. His Teaching disciplines are in Creative Arts, Graphics/Media Design, and Research Methods.  He has been involved in research in the areas of Teacher Education, Early Childhood Care and Education, and eco/Community design projects. He has experience in Early Childhood curriculum designing, Designing Instructional materials/activities for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCD), Monitoring and Evaluation of ECD programmes, ECD community mobilization, Developing of Assessment and Research tools. He does Career/Behavioral guidance and counseling for youth. He has also participated in consultancy work for the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC), LABE – Uganda, Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) and Kyambogo University in matters relating to Teacher Education and Early Childhood Education and Care.

Lindsay Stark is a social epidemiologist and internationally recognized expert on the protection and well-being of women and children in situations of extreme adversity, with more than two decades of experience leading applied research with operational agencies such as UNICEF, UNHCR, International Rescue Committee and the Women’s Refugee Commission. Stark measures sensitive social phenomena and evaluates related interventions to reduce violence, abuse and exploitation of women and children.

Stark co-directs the Center on Violence and Injury Prevention; holds affiliate appointments with the Institute for Public Health; serves on the editorial boards of PLOS One, BMC Public Health, and Conflict and Health; and has published more than 100 chapters and peer-review articles. Before joining the Brown School, Stark was an associate professor at Columbia University, where she served as director of research for the Program on Forced Migration and Health and director of the CPC Learning Network.

Lucie Cluver is a Professor at Oxford University and at the University of Cape Town. She works closely with a superb team of partners and students. Together, they collaborate with the South African government, UNICEF, World Food Programme, UNAIDS, USAID-PEPFAR and CDC, UNDP, IAS, the World Health Organisation and Global Fund, with End Violence and other international NGOs, to provide evidence that can improve the lives of children and adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa. Professor Cluver co-leads the COVID-19 emergency child abuse prevention response, which has reached over 210 million people in 198 countries with parenting support during the pandemic www.covid19parenting.com.

Madeleine Wayack Pambè is a Demographer and a Senior Lecturer at University Joseph KI-ZERBO in Ouagadougou where she has been a faculty member since 2003. She completed a Research Master and a Doctoral thesis at Université Paris-Nanterre (France) and a Master of Science (MSc) in demography at Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (France). She also holds a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Gender from the Graduate Institute of Geneva. The cross-cutting question of her research interest is how both Gender and Education frame the significant changes that are currently taking place in African societies. She has specific expertise on issues related to women empowerment and child protection and wellbeing. She worked as a researcher on the project “ National study on violence against the children in Burkina Faso” commissioned by UNICEF in 2018. She currently coordinates a project carries out in 3 countries on “The gendered socialization of very young adolescents in schools and sexual and reproductive health” funded by the IDRC and another project funded by the European Union on “ Gender-based violence and women’s socioeconomic empowerment in Ouagadougou”. She also co-coordinates a project funded by IDRC which deals with Responses to sexual violence against adolescents in Burkina Faso and respect for their sexual and reproductive rights.

Crépin Marius Mouguia is a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and a lecturer-researcher (temporary) in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Bangui (Central African Republic).He is currently conducting research on childhood and youth during long-term conflict in the Central African Republic from a historical as well as an anthropological perspective. His fields of research are, among others, the environment and sustainable development, themes on which he carried out his Master's research.Recently junior researcher for Unicef ​​in a research project consisting of taking a retrospective look at the reintegration programs for children associated with armed forces and groups in the Central African Republic, he is currently continuing his field research in the north-west, in the center, in the center- east and in the capital Bangui. He has since made a career in various research projects, but also in international humanitarian NGOs in various emergency, early recovery and development projects.

Marni Sommer, DrPH, MSN, RN, has worked in global health and development on issues ranging from improving access to essential medicines to humanitarian relief in conflict settings. Dr. Sommer's particular areas of expertise include conducting participatory research with adolescents, understanding and promoting healthy transitions to adulthood, the intersection of public health and education, gender and sexual health, and the implementation and evaluation of adolescent-focused interventions. Her doctoral research explored girls' experiences of menstruation, puberty and schooling in Tanzania, and the ways in which the onset of puberty might be disrupting girls' academic performance and healthy transition to adulthood. Dr. Sommer presently leads the Gender, Adolescent Transitions and Environment (GATE) Program, based in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences. GATE explores the intersections of gender, health, education and the environment for girls and boys transitioning into adulthood in low-income countries and in the United States. GATE also generates research and practical resources focused on improving the integration of menstrual hygiene management and gender-supportive sanitation solutions into global humanitarian response.

Martha Bragin, PhD, LCSW, is a Chairperson of Global Social Work and Practice with Immigrants and Refugees. She is a member of the IASC Reference Group (UN-NGO) on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings, which developed the first international consensus guidelines for the field of mental health and psychosocial support in humanitarian crises, as well as technical advisor to the International Network for Education in Emergencies. Dr. Bragin has helped foster sustainable change to countries in crisis by supporting governments to develop locality based social work standards and create culturally relevant social work curricula. Recent projects have included Vietnam and Afghanistan. Dr. Bragin’s work on social work program development engages local partners to support women, children, and young people affected by violence and disaster to participate in the transformation of the communities in which they live. To insure the effectiveness of these programs she has and developed and published culturally sensitive ways to measure their effectiveness, including the Community Participatory Evaluation Tool (CPET) for use to determine baseline indicators of children’s well-being and development in cultural context. Current research includes a participatory study defining and operationalizing the concept “psychosocial wellbeing” among war affected women in Nepal Burundi and Uganda, and another on classroom based interventions to improve educational outcomes for adolescents affected by war and community violence.

Mohamadou Sall, PhD was born in 1963 in Richard Toll, Northern Senegal. His credentials include a BSc in Geography (UCAD, Senegal), a MSc in Demography (IFORD, Cameroon), a postgraduate diploma, and a PhD in Population-Development-Environment Interactions (UCL, Belgium). He is a Professor of Population Studies at the Institute for Training and Research in Population, Development and Health Reproduction (IPDSR) of the Cheikh Diop University in Dakar, Senegal and since May 2017, the Director of this Institute. He oversees the following courses: Introduction to Population Studies (An Interdisciplinary Perspective), Demographic analysis with a focus on Mortality Analysis, Population Doctrines, Methodology of Research, Population and Development, Population Policies and Programs, SPSS Software. He has been involved in many studies related to maternal and child health, community health, child protection, international migration, fertility transition, HIV/AIDS, poverty, and education as P.I. or Co-P.I. In the field of children in adversity, Professor Sall has participated with ENTSS, the Senegalese National School of Social Work and UNICEF of the studies on Child Protection in 4 regions of Senegal (Kolda, Dakar, Sedhiou and Matam). He also did a relevant research on girls’ marginality and care in Senegal with a special focus on social, demographic and economic factors that lead to marginality. Professor Sall has also been involved in research related to problems facing young refugees in the African urban context, comparing their situation in Abidjan and Dakar to their situation in Geneva, Switzerland. He has also been interested in the representations of the young Senegalese people on western countries that explain their migrations choices including their illegal and risky crossings through Atlantic and Mediterranean seas.

Monette Zard is an expert on forced migration and human rights, and her career has spanned the fields of policy, advocacy and philanthropy. She has served as the Global Human Rights Program Officer at the Ford Foundation in New York and as Research Director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy in Geneva, Switzerland, a think tank focused on applied human rights research. Her work there explored issues of political violence and the human rights obligations of armed groups, economic and social rights and human smuggling. From 2000-2003, she was a Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington D.C. and held a visiting research fellowship in law at the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University. Prior to that, she directed the international refugee work of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, during which time her work focused on the use of legal strategies to strengthen refugee protection in Africa as well as the particular issue of how international law should deal with refugees and asylum-seekers accused of committing serious international crimes. She has consulted on international human rights and forced migration issues for a number of organizations including Amnesty International, the Brookings Institute, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

A demographer by training, he works as Associate Population Affairs Officer with the UNECE Population Unit in Geneva, Switzerland. He has conducted research on the relationship between social policies and health (inequalities) and long-term care.

Sabrina is an Assistant Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Affiliated Faculty with the CPC Learning Network (’07 CPC Learning Network practica placement alumna). In addition to her position at Columbia, she serves on the Board of Directors for Roots of Health and facilitates the Research and Evaluation Thematic Group for the Olympic Refuge Foundation Think Tank. Sabrina’s work seeks to improve the health of populations affected by conflict and displacement through rigorous scholarship, innovative and applied pedagogy, and effective mentorship and service. She is dedicated to engaging in projects and initiatives that center children’s voices and agency, seek to address both proximal and distal/structural sources of violence and harm, with a focus on active prevention and destruction of harmful structures and purposeful co-creation of spaces that support healthy development, psychosocial wellbeing, and eventually happy, thriving, just societies.   Sabrina is a dedicated educator, researcher, and collaborator born in Poughkeepsie, NY and raised across New York, West Germany, and Chile. Sabrina has a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from Colgate University, holds an MIA and MPH from Columbia University, an MS from The City College of New York, and completed her PhD in epidemiology from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. She speaks English and Spanish fluently and has previously worked in French, Mandarin, Nepali, and Russian. She has nearly two decades of experience designing and implementing studies in humanitarian contexts. In her free time Sabrina is a dedicated parent (fur and human), runner, soccer enthusiast, election poll worker, and environmentalist, who centers the environmental and social justice impact of her daily activities to create a more just and harmonious living environment for all.

Martinez has a Doctorate in Demography at Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Magister in Demography, and an especialization in general demography. Coordination projects experience of public health, epidemiology, and demography investigation. Ethical performance, conciliatory, liable, High sense of belonging and leadership. Capacity to participate in interdisciplinary work teams and cross-sectional.

Sara Casey focuses on using sound data collection and analysis to improve the availability and quality of sexual and reproductive health services in countries whose health systems have been weakened by war or natural disaster. Dr. Casey is Director of the Reproductive Health Access, Information and Services in Emergencies (RAISE) Initiative, a global program collaborating with program partners to identify and respond to challenges to improve contraceptive and abortion-related services in humanitarian settings in Africa and Asia. She provides technical guidance to partners to establish program monitoring and evaluation systems and conduct health facility assessments, population-based surveys and other implementation research.

Sarah Meyer, PhD, MPhil, is an assistant professor in clinical population and family health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. She has extensive experience managing and leading research projects focused on migration, child protection and mental health in humanitarian and low-income settings. Her PhD research focused on migration and mental health on the Thailand-Burma border, and she has led qualitative and quantitative training and data collection in Cambodia, Rwanda, Uganda and Thailand. She is currently the co-investigator on a joint study between the CPC Learning Network and UNHCR, on measuring child protection in refugee settings. She has led evaluations of mental health and psychosocial support for UNHCR and the Interagency Standing Committee Reference Group on mental health and psychosocial support. She has presented her research in academic and policy settings in Geneva, Kolkata, Lisbon, Salzburg, Oxford and Melbourne. Sarah received a PhD in International Health from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, a certificate in Applied Mental Health Research from Johns Hopkins, an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA from Monash University.

A passionate, well skilled, and motivated Sociologist/Behavioral, mental Health Specialist & Social Worker, with over 25 years of clinical experience in mental and behavioral health. With a track record of safe protecting and promoting the welfare of children, adolescents and vulnerable adults. Knowledgeable in providing individual, groups, communities and family counseling. Provide psychosocial assessments to referred clients.

Multi tasked and able to manage a patient’s mental health issues based upon an appropriate assessment and identified signs and symptoms associated with mental, behavioral, or physical health to include substance abuse; and provide or make the appropriate treatment or referral. Supervised multidisciplinary teams combined with nurses, social workers, psychologists, education professionals, other professional clinicians, social & juvenile justice advocates to include psychiatrists

Susan Walker, PhD is Professor of Nutrition and Director of the Caribbean Institute for Health Research at The University of the West Indies, Jamaica. She heads the Child Development Research Group whose work on low cost approaches to promote children’s cognitive and social-emotional development has been critical in driving global attention to the importance of responsive interactions and early learning opportunities for children under 3 years. Recent work includes evaluation of parenting programs feasible at scale in three Caribbean countries; development and evaluation of a training package “Reach Up: An Early Childhood Parenting Programme” based on the Jamaica home visit program, and the 30 year follow-up of the Jamaica supplementation and stimulation trial. She was lead author in papers in the highly influential Lancet series on child development (2007, 2011), author in the 2016 series, and a coordinator of the 2013 series on Maternal and Child Nutrition. She was a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally, and is a founding member of the Global Child Development Group (GCDG) which promotes research on child development and translation of research to policy.