Breaking Barriers for Gender and Health Equity Through Research

Primarily a pre-clinical medical and pharmacy educationist and researcher. Prof Uma has been involved in health promotion research and education with marginalised populations for over 10 years.  She strongly advocates that community engagement practices in undergraduate teaching prepares global citizens and provides real-world learning experiences. She has designed, spearheaded, and led three such programs; Community Based Practice at School of Medicine, Community Engagement Elective at School of Pharmacy and recently the Campus Community Program. Throughout this program she ahs introduced several innovative practices: themed symposium; skills workshop with sessions on EI, working with disability, mental health first aid and a privilege walk activity; reflective writing in experiential learning.

An accomplishment she had made while leading this program was securing several external community grants to help fund the workshops and research into this area. Her recent research interest is in the healthcare access of the Deaf where I co-founded the HEARD (HEAlth needs of the Deaf) program at Monash. Here she worked with the Deaf community and industry in a collaborative research to develop the DITE app(Deaf in Touch everywhere) which connects the Deaf to medical practitioners through secure  video-based interpreters. She is a 2023 Nature award recipient for the Inclusive Health Research.  

Dr. Unaka is the Chief Equity Officer at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at the University of Stanford. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon in 2003 and graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 2007. She completed pediatric residency and chief residency at CCHMC.

In addition to her clinical role as a pediatric hospitalist, Dr. Unaka served as the Associate Program Director (APD) of the Pediatric Residency Program from 2011 – January 2022.

Dr. Unaka spends time working on institution-level community health initiatives which reflects her passion for diversity, inclusion, and health equity. She co-leads Cincinnati Children’s Health Equity Network’s (HEN) which support the equity-oriented improvement work of clinical teams across the institution. Dr. Unaka is also the medical director of quality improvement for the Office of Population Health, which includes the institution’s accountable care organization,  HealthVine HealthVine assumes accountability for the delivery of care management and utilization management functions for approximately 100,000 Medicaid-covered youth who reside in eight counties of Southwest Ohio.

Professor Hannah Kuper is the co-director of the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and co-founder of the Missing Billion Initiative. She is an epidemiologist by training, and her main focus is on health and healthcare access of people with disabilities in low and middle-income countries. She is an NIHR Global Research Professor.

Davide Cirillo is the head of the Machine Learning for Biomedical Research Unit at the Life Sciences Department of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). He received the MSc degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology from University of Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Italy, and the PhD degree in Biomedicine from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) of Barcelona, Spain. His research focuses on computational methods for precision medicine with a special emphasis on machine learning, network science, and ethics of artificial intelligence. He is a member of the ELIXIR Machine Learning Focus Group, co-leads the research subgroup of BSC Bioinfo4Women initiative, and is a scientific advisor to the Swiss non-profit Women's Brain Project. He is co-editor of the book “Sex and Gender Bias in Technology and Artificial Intelligence: Biomedicine and Healthcare Applications” (Elsevier Academic Press, 2022).

Londa Schiebinger is the John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science at Stanford University, and Founding Director of Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment. Schiebinger is a leading international expert on gender in science and technology and has addressed the United Nations, the European Parliament, the Korean National Assembly, and numerous funding agencies on that topic. Schiebinger received her Ph.D. from Harvard University and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

She is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize and Guggenheim Fellowship. She holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universitat de València, Spain, 2018; Lunds Universitet, Sweden, 2017; and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, 2013. Among her publications, see AI can be Sexist and Racist—It’s Time to Make it Fair Nature (2018); Sex and Gender Analysis Improves Science and Engineering Nature (2019); Ensuring that Biomedical AI Benefits Diverse Populations EBioMedicine (2021); Gender-Related Variables for Health Research Biology of Sex (2021); Gendered Innovations 2: How Inclusive Analysis Contributes to Research and Innovation European Commission (2020); A Framework for Sex, Gender, and Diversity Analysis in Research: Funding Agencies Have Ample Room to Improve Their Policies Science (2022).

Sabine Oertelt-Prigione MD, PhD, MScPH is a physician, researcher and organizational consultant. She is the Chair of gender in primary and transmural care at Radboud University in the Netherlands and Professor of sex- and gender-sensitive medicine at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. Her main research focus is the implementation of sex- and gender-sensitive research and practice in biomedicine.

Dr. Mayer is a physician who trained in the Harvard programs in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital and in Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. As the founding Medical Research Director of Fenway Health, he created a community health research program that has developed an international reputation for its capability to conduct community-based research, focusing on sexual and gender minority health and biobehavioral approaches to HIV and STI prevention. He is currently a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a Professor in Global Health and Population at the Harvard TC Chan School of Public Health, and is an Attending Physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Starting in 1994, he has been a site Principal Investigator of NIH-funded clinical trials units, focusing on bio-behavioral HIV prevention research (HIVNET, HVTN, MTN, ATN), and is a member of the scientific leadership of HPTN. He has co-authored more than 1000 peer-reviewed publications, co-authored the first text on AIDS for the general public and has co-edited 5 academic texts. He has served on the governing boards of amfAR, HIVMA and IAS, is an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the International AIDS Society, and is a member of the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board.

Alex Keuroghlian, MD, MPH (any pronouns) is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School (HMS); Director, Division of Education and Training at The Fenway Institute; and Director and Michele and Howard J Kessler Chair, Division of Public and Community Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). They are principal investigator of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center at The Fenway Institute, a HRSA BPHC-funded cooperative agreement to improve care for LGBTQIA+ people across the U.S., as well as the HRSA HAB-funded 2iS Coordinating Center for Technical Assistance, which implements interventions nationally for people with HIV. Dr. Keuroghlian established the MGH Psychiatry Gender Identity Program and is clerkship director for two senior electives in sexual and gender minority health at HMS. He also co-directs the HMS Sexual and Gender Minority Health Equity Initiative, which leads longitudinal medical curriculum and faculty development in LGBTQIA+ health.  

Dr. Carl Streed, Jr. is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Section of General Internal Medicine at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine and the Research Lead for the GenderCare Center at Boston Medical Center. As the Research Lead for the GenderCare Center at Boston Medical Center he collaborates with researchers, clinicians, and communities to assess and address the health and well-being of transgender and gender diverse individuals. To achieve equity in healthcare access, health, and community well-being, Dr. Streed actively incorporates the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility into his work as a clinician-investigator. As such, his personal and professional pursuit for a more equitable and inclusive society is focused on elevating voices often ignored and redistributing power. His clinical, training, advocacy, and research initiatives regarding the health and well-being of marginalized persons, particularly sexual and gender minority populations (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer [LGBTQ] persons), have been used to influence and inform institutional, state, and federal policy as well as clinical care, academic research, and scholarship.

Nationally, Dr. Streed has chaired the American Medical Association Advisory Committee on LGBTQ Issues, served on the board of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, is on the Faculty Advisory Board of the Medical Student Pride Alliance, and currently serves as the President of the US Professional Association for Transgender Health. Dr. Streed’s efforts to improve the health and well-being of sexual and gender minority persons and communities have earned him several awards, notably from the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University Alumni Associations, the American Medical Association Foundation (twice), the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, as well as recognition from the Obama White House.

Gustave BAMBARA, is an economist planner, specialist in population and development, health option, cumulative expert in demographic dividend and manager of development projects and programs. Over the past ten years, he has held strategic positions within the Burkinabe public administration, particularly in the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
With theoretical and practical experience in development planning and health financing, he has contributed to developing several development policies and strategies in Burkina Faso and conducting studies in various fields. He actively participated in the Forum Génération Equality (FGE) initiative and is currently a member of the FGE Burkina Faso team.

Akin Jimoh is a leader in promoting science and public health journalism in his native Nigeria and across the African continent. He was the first news editor for the World Federation of Science Journalists’ website and played key roles as a mentor and anglophone coordinator (2009 - 2013) in the Science Journalism Cooperation (SjCOOP) Project.  

A medical physiologist and health promotion/education specialist by training, Jimoh started his journalism career in 1990. He became a health reporter with Nigeria’s leading publication, The Guardian, where he expanded the health section to also cover areas in science and public health.  He was also involved in the conceptualization of the ‘revenue spinning’ CompuLife section at the Guardian, focusing on emerging markets in technology in Nigeria in the 1990’s.  

He has been a consulting editor at Africa Science Technology and Innovation (AfricaSTI) News, an online science publication. Jimoh regularly volunteers for the Nigeria Academy of Science in the area of science communication.

Francine Ntoumi, Ph.D., FRCP serves as the President and co-founder of the Congolese Foundation for Medical Research and leads its Research Center for infectious diseases  in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. She is Professor of molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases at the Institute of Tropical medicine, University of Tübingen. She has a long-standing record of research investigations on malaria in Senegal, Cameroon, Gabon and rep of Congo.

Since 2009, Ntoumi has been highly involved in developing health research capacities in Central Africa through the coordination of the Central Africa clinical research network (CANTAM) and since 2018 leading the Pan-African Network for Rapid Research, Response, Relief and Preparedness for Infectious Diseases Epidemics consortium (PANDORA-Id-Net). She is also highly engaged in promoting gender balance in science in the African region through an important program, “To make Science, a female ambition.”

Ntoumi is member of several scientific and advisory committees and is involved in many international scientific networks in Africa, Europe, and the United States. She is a fellow of the African Academy of Science.

In recognition of her efforts in developing research capacities in Africa, Prof. NTOUMI  received many awards including the prestigious African Union Kwame Nkrumah Regional Scientific Award for women (2012), The Georg Forster Prize (Germany, 2015), the Christophe Merieux Prize (France), the Congolese Gold Medal in Science (2016) and the German federal Cross of Merit  (2022).she has been acknowledged as Officer of Congolese Merit (2022) and in August 2023, she has been recognized as the Public health Champion by the World Health Organization. Currently, she is the National Ambassador for UNICEF in Rep of Congo.

Joanna Semlyen is Professor of Psychology and Equality at Norwich Medical School and Associate Dean for Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of East Anglia. She is Academic Lead for the Wellcome Trust funded study: Increasing Diversity and Access to inclusion (IDEA) and is Principal Investigator for the MRC IAA funded study developing guidelines for EDI and  research (EDIT).  She is a HCPC Registered Health Psychologist and a British Psychological Society Chartered Psychologist.

Her research focus is on the health and healthcare experiences of minoritized populations and publishes widely in the area of health inequalities in gender and sexual minorities and she is the co-author of a recently published Palgrave MacMillan book Sexual minorities and mental health: Current perspectives and new directions.

Her current research also focuses on EDI considerations in research and education, improving research culture and levels of cultural competency within medical and psychology training and is developing interventions to improve skills, knowledge and awareness of diversity issues in medics, psychologists and other HCPs. She continues to research sexual minority health.

Dr. Shulz graduated in Medical Sciences and Neurobiology at the Hadassah School of Medicine (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel), and received his Ph.D. in Neurosciences from the Paris University. Since 2002, Dr. Shulz has served as Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).  He is principal investigator of the Sensorimotor integration and plasticity laboratory and head of the Department of Integrative and Computational Neuroscience at the Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience in Saclay, France. Dr. Shulz’s research interest includes the study of sensory processing and plasticity and the neural basis of tactile perception and sensorimotor learning with a particular emphasis on developing brain machine interfaces for the control of neuroprosthesis. Dr. Shulz teaches Sensory physiology and Neuroscience at several French universities.  He is an Honorary member of the Argentinian Society for Neuroscience and in charge of the office for international relationship with Latin America for the French Neuroscience Society. In 2023, Dan Shulz was the recipient of the Nature lifetime achievement award on Mentoring in Science. For the last thirty years and in parallel to his research, he has put much effort in scientific mentoring of students and young fellows by encouraging independent thinking and international collaborations, and by a non-discriminative approach to diversity.

Carla Rodriguez-Watson, PhD, MPH is the Director of Research for the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA. An epidemiologist by training, she brings her extensive experience in real-world data for public health surveillance and health outcomes research to develop initiatives focused on improving and leveraging real-world data, methods, settings, to advance the safety and effectiveness of medical products, particularly for populations with high unmet need. This work takes many forms: multi-stakeholder convenings, regulatory science, education programs to develop the next generation of scientists, and ultimately research and analysis with the Innovation in Medical Evidence and Surveillance (IMEDS) Network – a distributed network of 9 health systems (125 M covered lives) leveraging the FDA Sentinel initiative tools and framework - where regulatory science tools and learnings can be implemented.

Carla earned her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Washington School of Public Health, her MPH from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and her BA from Rutgers University.

Svitlana (Sveta) Moroz is a woman living with HIV and women’s rights defender from Ukraine. Svitlana is a lead author of community-led research exploring gender inequality, sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender-based violence, human rights, mental health, HIV criminalisation. Svitlana mobilized resources, built women’s capacities, and co-authored various shadow reports on the situation of women who use drugs, women living with HIV, sex workers, and LBT women submitted to the UN Committee CEDAW. Together with her community colleagues from Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS (EWNA) she advocates for adequate gender equality standards and commitments in HIV response in the EECA region. Under Svitlana’s leadership, in 2022-2023, EWNA carried out Women-led Gender Assessment: How countries address barriers to HIV services for women living with HIV, sex workers and women who use drugs, focusing on 15 countries of the SEECA countries.

Professor Lynn Hendricks is a lecturer at the Division of Health Systems and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Stellenbosch University (SU) and holds a joint PhD in Social Science and Public Health. She has expertise in methods innovation, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge translation, and leads the Social and Environmental Determinants of Health transdisciplinary interest group at SU. She is the founding director of the research consultancy Research Ambition and founding co-director of the NPO Hearts in Action.

She is a fellow of Gilead Public Health as well as a fellow of Microsoft Society & AI. She is a board member of the Centre for HIV/AIDS Management at SU. A long-standing previous executive member of the Psychological Society of South Africa, she now serves as a divisional executive for the Division of Climate and Environmental Psychology.

She has a keen interest in creative and co-productive research in communities and works with digital mediums as well as primary arts-based methods. Her work includes co-producing a local and international public art exhibition with the Iziko South African Museum and a community-led documentary about young Cape Flats-based women who contracted HIV perinatally. She has received the Springer Nature Inclusive Health Research Award and the Cochrane Thomas C Chalmers Award in recognition of her work.