Dr. Bernice T. Dahn is the current Vice president, College of Health Sciences. She has over 20 years of experience as a public health physician, policy-maker, administrator, and educator. For the last two and half years. She has served as the Minister of Health for the Republic of Liberia. Prior to this post, for nine years. She has served as the national Chief Medical Officer for the Republic of Liberia since the end of Liberia’s second civil war. In these roles, She has led the re-establishment of the Ministry of Health and the rebuilding of Liberia’s post conflict and post-Ebola healthcare delivery system. Internationally, She is a Board Member of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and also serves on the Board of the World Bank’s Global Finance Facility. As part of rebuilding Liberia’s national health system. She has prioritized the development Liberia’s health professionals’ education system including, in 2013, spearheading the establishment of the postgraduate medical residency programs in general surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine, and obstetrics & gynecology. During the early stages Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in 2014-2015
Mosoka P. Fallah, PhD, MPH, MA is a public health consultant and was recently made a Visiting Scientist in the Department of global health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health. He has recently been appointed by the President of Liberia as Director General for National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL). Dr. Fallah provides training for surveillance, contact tracing, case management, and community mobilization. He was instrumental in developing the training of trainers workshops for health workers across the national response. He has experience in international development work including serving as a consultant on a USAID-funded project with Indiana University and the Liberia Ministry of Health develop a program for the training of mid-level public health staff. Many of the students from his program led major Ebola response efforts throughout Liberia in surveillance and contact tracing.
He was recently asked by the World Health organization to serve as a co-lead of the PPE end user Technical Working Group. He served as a member of the Harvard Global Health Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola, which includes Peter Piot, the co-Discoverer of Ebola, Chelsea Clinton and Julio Frenk, Dean of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Fallah received his Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine (2011); a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health (2012); a Master of Arts in Evaluation and Measurement from Kent State University (2006); and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry/Biology from the University of Liberia (2001). Dr. Fallah was a highlighted recipient of Time Magazine’s title of Person of the Year in 2014 as an Ebola Fighter.
Dr. Lekilay G. Tehmeh earned a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree in General Medicine from the University of Liberia and a Master of Applied Science (MAS) degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Patient Safety & Healthcare Quality. Dr. Tehmeh works as Clinical Coordinator for Patient Safety & Healthcare Quality at the Ministry of Health where he is involved with the design and rollout of key quality and safety initiatives geared towards the improvement of quality and safety in healthcare. He is an emerging patient safety & healthcare quality professional with immense experience in health systems improvement initiatives with enormous contributions to regional and global initiatives geared towards improving patient safety and healthcare quality. His research interests are focused on health systems strengthening, care outcomes and infectious disease epidemiology. He current serves as coPI for the Acute Febrile Illness (AFI) Surveillance study, a prospective study supported by the CDC to determine the fraction of AFI attributable to select etiologies among children and adolescents (2-17 years) and adults (18+ years) attending selected healthcare facilities in Liberia.
Dr. Tehmeh serves as part time lecturer of Health Policy & Management and public health epidemiology at the school of Public Health.
Dr. Laura Skrip is a quantitative epidemiologist with expertise in mathematical modeling and statistical analysis. She is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Institute for Disease Modeling within the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and in that role, she implements behavior-epidemiologic transmission models with a focus on emerging infectious diseases in humanitarian settings. It is her goal to collaboratively generate evidence that can guide public health decision-making in complex emergencies. Dr. Skrip is also an Instructor for the Statistical Analysis with R Programming Certificate Program at the University of Washington Continuum College. She is passionate about education and has a long history of teaching math, science, and prevention programming to students of all ages. Dr. Skrip completed her MPH in Biostatistics in 2013 and her PhD in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases in 2017 at Yale University. After completion of her PhD and prior to her current postdoctoral work, she served as a Technical Assistant in the Department of Technical Services at the National Public Health Institute of Liberia.
Dr. James W. Gbalah is a native Liberian. He hailed from the Northeastern part of Liberia. He received his primary and secondary education from Saint Mary’s and Central High Schools respectively in the 1970s. Right after High School in 1976, Dr. Gbalah enrolled at the Kakata Teacher Training Institute in 1977, where he received a “B” certificate (AA) in 1978. Dr. Gbalah taught for over 5 years at the middle school level prior to immigrating to the United States for further studies.
Post Secondary Education: Dr. Gbalah immigrated to the United States on a student Visa in 1984, where he earned all of his post secondary education. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Healthcare Management from Kennesaw State University, Georgia, in 1991. Dr. Gbalah also received the Master of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Counseling Psychology with the focus on mental Health services in 1996. After working for several years in community health services in the state of Minnesota, Dr. Gbalah enrolled at the Walden University in Minnesota, where he earned a combined MPH and a PhD in public health. Dr. Gbalah’s specialty areas in public health are community health and epidemiology. Dr. Gbalah’s research interest in public health focuses on the examination of health disparities, including populations’ health, the environment, global and international health. Specific areas of interest are social and chronic disease epidemiology. Dr. Gbalah is a strong advocate for the prevention and treatment of mental health in Liberia. Dr. Gbalah is an avid researcher and his Master’s Thesis from the University of Wisconsin-Stout was written on the mental health of Liberians in the Diasporas. Additionally, Dr. Gbalah has written several articles on issues such as health disparities, human hygiene and chronic disease in the United State. Please feel free to call Dr. Gbalah @ (770) 771-9357 or Jmsgbala@gmail.com if you have any questions.
.jpg)
Dr. Michael Odo is a passionate Public Health Specialist with MB; BCH and MSc degrees from Nigeria and an MPH from the University of Liverpool, UK. Formerly a Technical Advisor with the University of Washington (I-TECH) and currently FHI360`s Senior Technical Advisor to the NACP, Liberia. Michael has 16+ years of working experience leading in project designing, planning, budgeting, implementation, management, supervision and monitoring and evaluation in multiple sub-Saharan African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, South Africa, Eswatini), with hands-on quality improvement experience in treatment and prevention of HIV and TB, including treatment sequencing for drug resistant strains. Michael has been a Project management team lead for the development and implementation of strategies, operational plan and budgets to high professional standard to fulfil donor and organizational requirements, including the CDC Human Resource for Health award in the Republic of Malawi, the $450 million PEPFAR country-wide GHAIN project and the $350 million follow-on SIDHAS project in Nigeria implemented by FHI360. He is an active member of WHO Technical Working Groups, international learning networks, including the BMGF-supported and ICAP-implemented Coverage, Quality and Impact Network (CQUIN) for 14 African Countries, International Union Against TB and Lung Disease and the International AIDS Society, and a Co-investigator of several ongoing implementation sciences. Michael is also formerly a lecturer at the College of Medical Sciences of the University of Calabar and MPH Dissertation supervisor for Texila American University.
Dr. Adams K. Lincoln, MD, MPH, FLCP is a dynamic and accomplished Senior Public Health Professional with more than 15 years of experience in establishing, planning, managing, monitoring and delivering critical health services to vulnerable populations in unstable and extremely challenging post-conflict environments. He has served in senior management positions in both the public and private health sectors. Dr. Lincoln was one of the doctors who remained in Monrovia during the Liberian civil crisis and established the Liberian Health Committee (LHC) which later became the Medical Emergency and Relief Cooperative International (MERCI) that was very instrumental in mobilizing the available health workers in Monrovia to support the provision of critical health services to the war-affected population. Additionally, Dr. Lincoln served as the Health Program Coordinator and was the only Public Health Specialist stationed in USAID/Liberia commanding responsibility over the Mission’s multi-million-dollar public health interventions with distant support from AID/Washington during the Liberian civil crisis. During the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in Liberia, Dr. Lincoln served as the Coordinator for the Case Management Pillar of the Montserrado County Incident Management System. Montserado County has the highest population density and was worst affected county during the EVD outbreak. Following the outbreak, he provided free technical support for the revision of the Community Health Services Policy and Strategy in 2015, in response to the request from the Director of the Community Health Services Division of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Liberia. The Revised Community Health Policy and Strategy set the basis for the launching of the National Community Health Assistants Program in Liberia. In addition to his national public health experience, Dr. Lincoln has held several international assignments with the World Health Organization. He has worked in Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Tanzania.
Freda Koomson is a Senior Health Management Associate for Yale University working in Monrovia, Liberia. Her work centers around management of quality improvement projects and providing technical capacity support and mentoring to hospital managers and supervisors at Redemption Hospital. She has approximately 7 years of hospital and healthcare management work experience combined having worked as an EMT 1st Responder on an ambulance, work experience as a community health advocate & liaison, administrative resident, and an administrative manager for various hospital departments. Freda is a graduate of the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Public Health’s Health Policy & Management Department earning a Master’s Degree in Healthcare Administration. Since relocating to Liberia, she has worked in community health outreach, grants writing management, and advocacy in the southeast, specifically, Rivercess County. She has also consulted on a mid-term evaluation of the community health program as implemented in USAID supported counties including Nimba, Lofa, & Bong. While gaining exposure to various aspects of healthcare through academic and professional pursuits, her ultimate goal has always been to one day make an impact on healthcare systems strengthening in her maternal homeland of Liberia.
Dr. Harmon-Gray holds a doctorate in general medicine from the University of Liberia and a Master of Science degree in International Health and Tropical Medicine from the University of Oxford. She also has a certificate in public management from the University of Minnesota. She is an ExxonMobil scholar and a Mandela Washington Fellow. She has over five years’ experience working as a medical doctor and a researcher with the Ministry of Health in Liberia and other organizations in and out of Liberia. Over the years she has garnered experience from organizations including Aspen Medical Liberia, Maternity Care Coalition Philadelphia, KEMRI Wellcome Trust, Kenya.
Dr. Odell Kumeh earned a Master of Medical Science (MMSc) in Global Health Delivery from the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, on May 22, 2018: her thesis title Literacy is Power: Structural Drivers of Child Malnutrition in Rural Liberia is pending publication, once accepted in a peer review journal.
As a way of paying it forward, upon her return from her master’s program, she matriculated to the College of Health Sciences, University of Liberia where she serves as Coordinator of Teaching and Learning for the College of Health Sciences. She is a part time faculty of the College of Medicine where she teaches Year V Primary Health Care, a public health course. At the School of Public Health of the University of Liberia, she is Director of Public Health Seminar (PHLT 511) and is also an instructor.
Dr. Joseph Sieka is a medical doctor and a public health practitioner. Early on in his career he served various medical officer positions in the private and public sectors. In each of these positions, his primary duty as a clinician involved treating one patient at a time. However, Dr. Sieka became involved with interventions that target the entire population when he first became County Health Officer of River Gee in 2009. His experiences with the 2014-2016 Ebola Virus Disease outbreak was the ultimate spark that pivoted his focus on combining Public health and clinical medicine. Dr. Sieka’s research interest, therefore, is at the intersection of public health and clinical medicine, specifically infectious diseases. Dr. Sieka is currently the acting Director of Human Health Research at the University of Liberia College of Health Sciences. He obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Liberia and a Master of Medical Sciences in Global Health Delivery from the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sieka currently lectures at the MPH program of the UL College of Health Sciences.
Dr. Elsie Karmbor-Ballah is a high-achieving Medical Doctor and a Public Health Clinician with expertise in Global Health Delivery. Her work is focused on maternal and child health research and service delivery. She currently serves as Lead for the Maternal and Child Health Research Team at the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) and an instructor at the College of Health Sciences, both the Masters of Public Health (MPH) and the Bachelor of Public Health (BSPH) Programs. Dr. Karmbor-Ballah is a 2009 graduate of the A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine of the University of Liberia. After one and half year of internship and intensive training in Obstetrics Emergency Care, Dr. Karmbor-Ballah was employed by the Ministry of Health in August 2011. She has over five years of rural clinical experience with a love and compassion for maternal health care, first at the C. B. Dunbar Maternal Hospital, Bong County and later as the County Health Officer of the Grand Gedeh County Health Team. Dr. Karmbor-Ballah enrolled at the Harvard Medical School, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine (HMS-GHSM) where she earned the degree of Masters of Medical Science in Global Health Delivery in May 2018. Her Master’s thesis focused on the exploration of opportunities and barriers to reduce maternal mortality in Liberia. Findings from the thesis research are published in the peer review journal, Scientific African in titled “Maternal Mortality and the Metempsychosis of User Fees in Liberia: A Mixed-Methods Analysis” with the link https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sciaf.2019.e00050.
Dr. Keith L. Gray is a specialist in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Public Health. He is an early career researcher with interest in infectious diseases and translating evidence into policy. He has clinical and non-clinical experience serving in different capacities with the Ministry of Health. He is currently the Infectious Disease Lead at the National AIDS/STI Control Program and the Principal Investigator for an antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence and loss-to-follow-up study of people living with HIV, being conducted under the auspices of The Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria.
Thelma V. Nelson, MD, MPH is a Liberian medical practitioner and public health specialist. She currently works as the Director of Global Health and Partnerships at the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL). Dr. Nelson has always been passionate about contributing to the improvement of health care in Liberia, and as such sought a career in medicine. Dr. Nelson developed an interest in Public Health after she supported the Ebola Incident Management System, as the Coordinator of Community Care Centers and Rapid Response Team focal person. Dr. Nelson facilitated trainings in Case Management, Infection prevention and control, Surveillance, Contact tracing, Community engagement and Rapid Response. She later joined the Department of Public Health Emergencies, Ministry of Health (which transitioned into the NPHIL in 2017) as the coordinator of Epidemic Preparedness and Response. Recognizing the human resource gaps within the Public Health sector, she became interested in public health capacity building and therefore joined the technical working group to support the establishment of a Public Health program at the University of Liberia. She also supports the MPH program as a part-time lecturer in Public Health Policy and Management.
Her educational background includes a Master of Public Health degree (MPH) with emphasis in International Health and Infectious Disease Control from the University College Dublin, National University of Ireland, Republic of Ireland. She holds a Doctor of Medicine Degree (MD) from the A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine, University of Liberia and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from The Cuttington University in Bong county, Liberia.
J. Soka Moses, MSc., MD, LLB, BSc has a background in medicine, control of infectious diseases and law. He qualified from the University of Liberia and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2011 and 2016 respectively. He is an early career researcher with particular interest in infectious disease epidemiology. Currently, he works at the Partnership for Research on Vaccines and Infectious Diseases in Liberia (PREVAIL) where his research focus is on emerging infectious diseases including the viral haemorrhagic fevers, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and the 2019 novel coronavirus disease and has published in major peer-reviewed international journals. He is a member of the clinical team at the ELWA Hospital and a visiting lecturer of public health epidemiology and public health law at the University of Liberia College of Health Sciences, School of Public Health and A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine.
Mr. Forkpah Pewee is a Certified Health Promotion and Education Specialist by profession. He is a Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant in the Public Health Policy and Management Track at the Master of Public Health Program of the University of Liberia. He currently serves as Chairman of the Bachelor of Public Health Department at the University of Liberia. He worked as Full-Time Lecturer at Cuttington University and Harbel College respectively before moving to the University of Liberia. He earned his Master of Public Health in Health Promotion and Education from the Adventist University of the Philippines in May 2017. Mr. Pewee has authored his first book with title Health Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables in Liberian Cuisine, which was published in the ScienceDomain International Journal/ Book Publisher International on October 2, 2019. He is currently on his second book project which is set to be published and launched between September and November, 2020. Furthermore, he serves as one of the Volunteer Principal Investigators on the Research Team at the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL). He is a volunteer radio presenter of the COVID-19 Diet Series for healthy eating on Eat Wise Network which is presented via Stone FM 105.3 MHz every Saturday from 3:00 PM – 3:45 PM to educate Liberians about the type and daily recommended allowance of food items to consume during this period and beyond. He served as a volunteer editor on the Concept Note and Grant Writing team of the Incident Management System against COVID-19 in Liberia
Dr. Emmanuel Olatunji obtained his PhD in Environmental Science, from the School of Environmental Science and Management, University of the Philippines Los Banos. During his studies he was engaged in research projects ranging from Water Quality Assessment, Climate Vulnerability and Risk Assessment, and Geospatial-information planning. Previously, he worked as an Environmental Evaluator/Biologist with Earth Environmental Consultancy, Inc. for three years. During this period, he conducted water and air quality analysis covering numerous parameters. His current interest is to work in higher education to utilize his educational knowledge and work experience to train emerging professionals in the field of Environmental Health. His approach to teaching and learning is to integrate concepts and theories in environmental health to create the link between the natural environment and human health to solve contemporary environmental health problems in Liberia. This will allow the students to have a firsthand experience in the field as well as create a pathway to solutions to public health challenges. His research interest is in climate change impact on public health, particularly on vector-borne disease distribution, health effects of land use and urbanization impact on public health. In his research work he seeks to use GIS and Remote Sensing in the Public Health Sector to apply modeling, generate historical data and make predictions to prepare mitigation measures and guide policymakers.
Dr. James McClain is the dean of science college at the University of Liberia. He coordinates the undergraduate degree program in Public Health. He obtained his B.Sc. Chemistry from the University of Liberia in 2001 and his M.Sc. Physical Chemistry (First Class) from Ravenshaw University Cuttack from Odisha, India. He was a Visiting Scholar at University of Michigan Ann Arbor, USA. He obtained his Ph.D from the Indiana University in USA.
Dr. Khalipha Bility is a Public Health Professional with over 30 years of experience in teaching and research, program development, service and international career public servant. His academic and professional training span several universities. His was Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Yale University School of Medicine. He completed graduate studies in International and Development Education and Public Health University at the University of Pittsburgh earning a Ph.D in 1988. Undergraduate degree in Science Education at Cuttington University in Liberia. He was a faculty member at Jackson State University, Penn State University and University of Western Cape in South Africa He is presently employed by Leidos/The Mitchele Group as a Medical Scientist assigned NPHIL. He previously serve Deputy Minister of Education and National Program Director of HIV/AIDS and STDs and Chair of the National AIDS Commission in Liberia and the Ministry of Health under United Nations Development Programme, in Botswana. Dr. Bility is the recipient/principal investigator of numerous grants British Council ranging from Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria; American Council on Higher Education; British Council; United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF); South African Medical Research Council, Jacobs Foundation, Zurich Switzerland among others. Department of Health Policy & Management, School of Health Sciences and Ministry of Health & Social Welfare, Republic of Liberia, His work is published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, South African Medical Research Council, AIDS, School Development Program Research Monograph, and Routledge Press. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Distinguished Student Award, University of Pittsburgh National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei Tiawan, Visiting Fellow, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He served on various University Committees and supervised numerous graduate student thesis
Mrs. Neima Candy is the assigned TA for Epidemiology & Public Health Seminar . She is a Public Health Nurse who acquired her nursing education (RN) from the Tubman National Institute of Medical Arts (TNIMA) in 2006 as the valedictorian. Her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) was obtained from the Mother Patern College of Health Sciences (MPCHS) in 2010. She worked at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in 2007 at the emergency department as a graduate nurse and was promoted to the position of charge nurse and later transferred to TNIMA as an instructor. After completing her Master in Public Health from the University of Newcastle in Australia in 2013, she returned home and worked as a Technical Assistant at the MOH and then moved to the Liberian Red Cross to head the Ebola response as the National Ebola Coordinator/Health Coordinator and the Health Care in Danger Focal Person. She is presently a Technical Assistant for Programs at the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHIL) in the department of Technical Services and a part-time instructor at the University of Liberia’s Bachelor of Science in Public Health Program and the certificate in Health Systems Leadership and Management program.
Dr. Shruti Malik is a Medical doctor with specialty training in Clinical Microbiology and Infectious diseases and Master’s in Public Health. She is a Diplomate of the American board of Medical Microbiology and certified in Infection Prevention and control by the Certification Board of Infection Control & Epidemiology, USA. She holds quality experience of almost 10 years in Clinical Microbiology, Infectious diseases, Public health and academic research practiced in a variety of settings including India, Middle East, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Liberia.
Currently, she is working as a technical advisor for the implementation of Global Laboratory Leadership Program (GLLP) in Liberia launched by US CDC aiming at laboratory strengthening and capacity building in the country. Prior to this, she has worked as a public health specialist for the World Health Organisation and Public Health England. Her research interests primarily focus on Infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, Infection prevention and control and has authored publications in several peer reviewed journals.