Kidist Bartolomeos - Unit Head, Product Design and Impact Unit WHO
With a BA in Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota and an MPH from Emory University, she received an international fellowship from the CDC foundation in 2000. Joining WHO as an Injury Surveillance Fellow, she previously served as a fellow at CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Later, as a Research Director at Emory Center for Injury Control, she managed a Firearm Injury Surveillance Project. For 15 years at WHO, she led global injury data/surveillance and managed the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Road Safety Program for Kenya and Egypt. She co-edited the World Report on Child Injury Prevention and contributed as a statistician to the first WHO Global Status Report on Road Safety.
Dr. Respicious Boniface
Chief Executive Director, Muhimbili Orthopedic Institute (MOI) -Tanzania
Dr. Boniface is a Consultant Anesthesiologist and Epidemiologist with a strong interest in and commitment to conducting clinical research. He has over ten years of administrative experience as head of the Anesthesia department, and experience as Director of Operating block at Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute (MOI), and is currently the Executive Director. He is also the Director of the Injury Control Center in Uganda.
Dr. Catherine Mohr
Dr. Catherine Mohr, B.S., M.S. (Mech Eng), MD
Title- Building a community of practice around surgical education
Dr. Catherine Mohr is President of the Intuitive Foundation and previously the Vice President of Strategy for Intuitive Surgical where she held both research and strategy roles since 2006. Prior to joining Intuitive Surgical, Dr. Mohr served in engineering project manager and new business development roles at AeroVironment. Holding a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an M.D. from Stanford University, Dr. Mohr has a diverse background that covers surgery, medical technology, engineering, product design, healthcare, alternative energy, automotive, aerospace, global entrepreneurship, intellectual property litigation, U.S. Food and Drug Administration compliance, education, and product development.
Dr. Olive C. Kobusingye
Accident and Emergency Surgeon and Injury Epidemiologist.
Title- The changing role of surgeons in healthcare.
Dr. Olive C. Kobusingye is a Ugandan consultant trauma surgeon, emergency surgeon, accident injury epidemiologist and academic, who serves as a Senior Research Fellow at both Makerere University School of Public Health and the Institute for Social and Health Sciences of the University of South Africa. Her most recent role was as the Director of the Trauma, Injuries and Disability (TRIAD) programme at the Makerere University School of Public Health in Kampala. She is also a Distinguished Fellow of The George Institute for Global Health, Board Chair of the Road Traffic Injuries Research Network (RTIRN), and co-founder of The Great Outdoors, Uganda.
She is passionate about addressing road crash injury through capacity building and ensuring robust injury research translates into training programs and preventive measures.
Dr. Ronald Lett
CEO & Director of Curriculum Development
Founder of the Canadian Network for International Surgery (CNIS), Dr. Ronald Lett, completed undergraduate medical training and post-graduate surgical training at the University of Alberta and completed his Masters in Injury Epidemiology at McGill University. He was awarded the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Humanitarian of the Year in 2018. Since 1995, he has completed 16 Canadian government-funded projects in Africa focused on surgical and obstetrical skills training as well as injury prevention. Currently, he is the CNIS lead on the 9-county TTT Project in Kenya. In Vancouver, he is spearheading the digitization of the 12 CNIS Structured Clinical Programs by an expanded CNIS development team. Three programs (FIRST for Midwives, FIRST for Clinical Officers and Trauma Team Training) have been digitized and implemented in Guyana, Nigeria and Tanzania. A fourth program - Traumatic Brain and Spine Injury, will soon be digitized and launched in Tanzania and Ethiopia. Dr. Lett has also digitized three WHO Injury Surveillance Guidelines and developed a Digital Referral Guideline for WHO Tanzania. He looks forward to the BRT 2024 in Addis Ababa, where he lived for seven years.
Dr. Tsegazeab Laeke, MD, FCS(ECSA)
A Neurosurgeon by profession and Fellow of College of Surgeons of Eastern, Central and South Africa. He is working at Addis Ababa University as an Associate professor of neurosurgery at the College of Health Sciences, Division of Neurosurgery. He recently finished his PhD from the University of Bergen, his project mainly focusing on Neurotrauma Care in Ethiopia.
He is the current Secretary of the Society of Ethiopian Neurological Surgery Professionals. He is involved in clinical research with his main interest being trauma related research. He has been a PI of a multidisciplinary thematic research focusing on Traumatic Brain Injury: Its Epidemiology, Diagnosis and Treatment in Black Lion Hospital and major regional hospitals. He is a Co-PI of the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Acquired Brain and Spine Injury.
Dr Kjell Magne Kiplesund Trauma Surgeon,CEO Nordic Medical Center
Trauma Surgeon, CEO, Nordic Medical Center
He has been working several years in Ethiopia both in the rural areas as well as in Addis Ababa.
During his practice as a surgeon, traumatology has been an important field to work in both with patients as well as running trainings and courses.
Dr. Stephen Mutiso
Dr. Stephen Mutiso
Division of Non-communicable Diseases, Ministry of Health, Kenya
Dr. Rick Gardner
Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Rick undertook medical training in the UK and combined this with periods of time working overseas (Malawi, South Africa, Afghanistan). In 2012 he spent his fellowship year at SickKids Hospital, Toronto and moved to Ethiopia in 2013 to join the team at at CURE Ethiopia Children’s Hospital, a tertiary referral children’s orthopaedic surgical hospital in Addis Ababa. Over the following 7 years Rick worked with his colleagues to develop surgical care, a residency program with AAU, St. Paul’s and Bahir Dar and started the first paediatric orthopaedic fellowship program. In 2020, he became the Chief Medical Officer for CURE International Children’s Hospitals, a network of 8 hospitals in Africa and Philippines. He and his family moved to Zimbabwe in 2020 to open the first paediatric orthopaedic hospital in the country. They returned to Toronto in August 2023.
Clinical area: hip and neuromuscular surgery. Academic area: Global health, with a current focus on hip dysplasia, surgical outcome measurement and capacity building through training.
Dr. (Prof.) Miliard Derbew Beyene, FRCS, FACS, FCS ECSA,
Professor of Pediatric Surgery, Addis Ababa University, College of Health Sciences
Prof. Dr. Bekir Yavuz Ucar
Professor, MediPol Hospital, Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology
Dr Godfrey Sama Philipo, M.D., MPH, MGSC
Dr. Godfrey Sama Philipo is a Research and Patients Outcomes Coordinator at the College of Surgeons of East Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA), under the ECSA Health Community (ECSA-HC). He completed medical school at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Tanzania, a Master of Public Health (MPH) from the Southern Medical University (SMU) in China, a Master of Global Surgical Care (MGSC) from the University of British Columbia (UBC), and a Global Surgery Fellowship from the Center for Health Equity in Surgery and Anesthesia (CHESA) at UCSF. He is an Adjunct Lecture at the Branch for Global Surgical Care (BGSC), UBC. He is a co-founder of the InciSioN—International Students Surgical Network, a network of medical students and junior doctors interested in addressing the global burden of surgical diseases. He has done research in Children Surgery, Cancer and Surgical Oncology in collaboration with various local and international institutions. He is interested in global surgery research, training and education. He is part of the team working to develop strategies to prevent injuries among children, incorporating Implementation Science in Tanzania.
