Upcoming Panel Discussion on Supporting Infectious Disease Modeling in Low- and Middle-Income Countries at MIDAS 2023

Invitation to “Supporting infectious disease modeling in low- and middle-income countries”: a panel discussion at the 2023 MIDAS network annual meeting

Brief:
Join us for a panel discussion which will convene relevant stakeholders to:

1. exchange ideas on equitable approaches to supporting modeling in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through training, and
2. share knowledge on approaches to maintain sustainability of relevant training projects/courses in these contexts.

 Audience will also have the opportunity to contribute comments and insights.

Date and time:
Sunday October 29^th, 2023, 1pm EDT

Venue:
Courtland Grand Hotel, Trademark Collection by Wyndham

Who can attend?
All attendees at the 2023 MIDAS network annual meeting. Attendees with experience working in an LMIC or with partners in LMICs are particularly encouraged to attend.

Questions?
Please contact Emmanuelle Dankwa at edankwa@hsph.harvard.edu.

Speaker bios

Panel on “Supporting modeling capacity in low- and middle-income countries”

 

Rebecca Borchering 

Mathematical Statistician

US Centers for Disease Control

National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases 

Dr. Rebecca Borchering is a mathematical statistician working for the US CDC, in the Influenza Division of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. She coordinates modeling efforts and forecasting collaborations, such as FluSight forecasting. She also has interests in using multiple model projections to inform intervention and mitigation strategies. Since 2015, Rebecca has served as a Workshop Faculty member for the International Clinics on Infectious Disease Dynamics and Data (ICI3D) Program. ICI3D promotes application of modeling skills to inform decision-making for public health planning and policy, primarily in Africa, by supporting training, career development, and networking activities that unite people across disciplinary and institutional boundaries.  

 

Sylvia Ofori 

Postdoctoral Curriculum and Research Fellow

Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Sylvia Ofori is a postdoctoral curriculum and research fellow in the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics (CCDD) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, under the mentorship of Dr. Caroline Buckee and Dr. Bethany Hedt-Gauthier. Her research interest is in the use of mathematical models to understand transmission dynamics and the role of interventions in controlling infectious diseases in vulnerable populations. At the CCDD, she will support the development and implementation of a Rwanda-based modeling training course for public health professionals. She received her Master of Public Health degree at the Ensign Global College in Ghana and her DrPH from Georgia Southern University. 

 

Amy Winter 

Assistant Professor

College of Public Health

University of Georgia

Amy is a quantitative demographer with broad interests in human health and infectious disease epidemiology. Amy’s research takes inter-disciplinary approach to address policy-relevant questions on the transmission and control of vaccine preventable diseases in India, Zambia, Madagascar and at the global scale. Amy has conducted modeling workshops for larger groups in India and Zambia as well as trained and mentored individual students from LMICs.

 

Abel Wilson Walekhwa

 PhD Candidate

University of Cambridge

Abel is a PhD Candidate at University of Cambridge, UK. He is working on Mathematical modeling for Rift Valley fever (RVF) disease transmission in Uganda with Dr Andrew Conlan. He is passionate about modeling capacity development on African Continent. He has set up an Infectious diseases Epidemiology and modeling Unit (IDEMU) at Makerere University School of Public Health. Recently he was awarded $3,000 by Applied Malaria Modeling Network (AMMnet) under the regional events arrangement for capacity building of the fellows at Makerere University. He is currently a Co-Investigator on African Modeling and Analytics Academy for Women (AMAX) project, USD 500,000 (2023-2026), and Strengthening modelling and data analytics in Uganda project, USD 499.872.6 (2023-2026). He inspired the formation and functionalization of Malawi Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (MACEMA).

 

Emmanuelle Dankwa

(Moderator) 

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health 

Emmanuelle is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. Her research is in multi-drug resistant tuberculosis dynamics and conducting proper inference with epidemic models. Emmanuelle received her DPhil in Statistics at the University of Oxford. At Harvard, she contributed to the design and teaching of the University of Global Health Equity/Harvard Mathematical Modeling for Infectious Disease Planning Course, aimed at supporting capacity in infectious disease modeling among public health practitioners in Africa. The course has trained 10 East African public health practitioners to use modeling to answer questions on COVID-19, Ebola, tuberculosis, and Hepatitis C in their local contexts.