FP Global Health Forum 2023

Dr. Raj Panjabi is a global leader in public health, national security, pandemic and biodefense policy, entrepreneurship and philanthropy.   Dr. Panjabi serves as Special Assistant to President Biden and Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the White House National Security Council. He serves as the President’s top health security and biodefense advisor and works with the National Security Adviser to execute federal policy to prevent, prepare for, and respond to epidemics, pandemics and other biological threats.   Previously, Dr. Panjabi was appointed by President Biden at the U.S. Agency for International Development as the first U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator born in Africa and of Asian descent to lead the President's Malaria Initiative, which has invested billions of dollars to protect hundreds of millions of people at risk of malaria across 30 countries.   Prior to serving in the Biden-Harris Administration, Panjabi was an Advisor to former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in her role as co-chair with Former Prime Minister Helen Clark of the World Health Organization’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Between 2007-2021, Panjabi co-founded and served as CEO of Last Mile Health, an award-winning non-profit organization that works to save lives in the world's most remote communities. Part of the Harvard University community since 2008, Dr. Panjabi has served as Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Associate Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Global Health Equity. Between 2019-21, he served on the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Social Innovation and Change Initiative.   Panjabi was named by TIME as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2016 and one of the 50 Most Influential People in Healthcare in 2018. In 2015 and 2017, he was listed in the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune. He is a recipient of the 2017 TED Prize, the Clinton Global Citizen Award for leadership in response to the West Africa Ebola epidemic, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and was named a Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year at the World Economic Forum. In 2017, President Sirleaf and the Government of Liberia recognized Panjabi with Distinction of Knight Commander of the Most Venerable Order of the Pioneers, one of the country's highest civilian honors.   Panjabi has delivered hundreds of speeches, lectures and presentations and authored numerous publications in the scientific and popular press. Panjabi received an M.D. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, trained in internal medicine and as a clinical fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and received a Master of Public Health in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University as a Sommer Scholar.   Panjabi's parents migrated from India to Liberia, where Panjabi was born and raised. After civil war broke out in Liberia in 1989, Panjabi and his family became refugees in the United States of America. He now lives with his family in the Washington, D.C. area.

Thomas Cueni is Director General of IFPMA, the global association of pharmaceutical research companies, based in Geneva and is Secretary of the global Biopharmaceutical CEO Roundtable (BCR). In this capacity, Thomas Cueni was instrumental in creating the AMR Action Fund, a collective venture, launched in July 2020, to bridge the current gap in funding for the development of new antibiotics. Thomas Cueni represents the innovative biopharmaceutical industry on the ACT Accelerator, the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, a unique global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. Thomas Cueni is Chair of the Business at OECD Health Committee, and also serves as Industry Co-Chair of the APEC Biopharmaceutical WG on Ethics. Furthermore, he is Chair of the Board of the cross-sectoral AMR Industry Alliance, a group committed to tackling the threat of antimicrobial resistance, which includes more than 100 companies and associations representing Rx pharma, generics, biotech, and diagnostics. Prior to joining IFPMA he was Secretary General of Interpharma, the association of pharmaceutical research companies in Switzerland, and for many years was a member of the Board and Chair of a key committee of the EFPIA. Prior to his appointment with Interpharma, Thomas Cueni had a career as a journalist, inter alia as London correspondent for the “Basler Zeitung” and “Der Bund”, and he served as a Swiss career diplomat with postings in Paris (OECD) and Vienna (IAEA, UNIDO). He studied at the University of Basel, the London School of Economics, and the Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies, and has Master degrees in economics (University of Basel) and politics (London School of Economics).

Vivien G. Dugan, PhD, currently serves as the director of the Influenza Division in CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). As Director, Dr. Dugan provides programmatic leadership and overall scientific and administrative management of the Influenza Division’s activities and functions. She oversees the synchronization of epidemiologic and laboratory science with informatics and coordinates innovative intramural and extramural projects to advance the division’s mission. Previously, Dr. Dugan was appointed deputy director of the Influenza Division in 2020, and served as acting director of the Influenza Division for six months in 2020 and from June 2021–April 2023. Prior to being appointed deputy director in 2020, Dr. Dugan served as the deputy branch chief of the Virology, Surveillance and Diagnosis Branch (VSDB) in the Influenza Division beginning in 2016. Prior to joining CDC in 2016, Dr. Dugan was a program officer in the Office of Genomics and Advanced Technologies, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, NIAID, NIH. She provided leadership and scientific guidance for extramural research for controlling and preventing infectious diseases. This included functional genomics and systems biology approaches to study antimicrobial resistance, MERS and SARS coronaviruses, influenza viruses, and Ebola and Zika viruses. Dr. Dugan was an assistant professor of viral genomics at the J. Craig Venter Institute from 2010 to 2012, where she focused on influenza and vector-borne viral genomics, viral evolution and synthetic influenza vaccine development. Dr. Dugan earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Union College, a Master of Science in veterinary parasitology, and a Doctor of Philosophy in infectious diseases from the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, where she specialized in zoonotic, tick-borne pathogens. She studied avian influenza genomics as an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellow at The Institute for Genomic Research and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Dr. Dugan completed her training on influenza virology and the evolution of pandemic and avian influenza viruses, including the 1918 and 2009 H1N1 pandemic viruses, at the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH.  

For more than 40 years, Senator Markey has served the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a Congressman and U.S. Senator. He has been a national leader and author of some of the most important laws in the areas of energy, the environment, and telecommunications policy. On a bipartisan basis, he has passed more than 500 pieces of legislation into law. He has been a powerful and effective voice for enhancing energy efficiency, transitioning our economy to clean and sustainable energy resources and mitigating the consequences of climate change; bolstering U.S. and global security by staunching nuclear proliferation and promoting arms control; defending human rights; enacting financial reforms to protect consumers and investors against the types of abuses that directly triggered the global recession; ensuring the continued openness of the internet; and advancing the interests of consumers by injecting competitiveness into electric, telecommunications and telephone markets, and protecting the privacy of personal information.    Senator Markey currently serves as Chair of the Clean Air, Climate and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, as well as the Chair of the Primary Health and Retirement Security Subcommittee on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He is also a member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and the Small Business Committee.   Senator Markey received his B.A. from Boston College and his J.D. from Boston College Law School. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve and two terms in the Massachusetts State House before being elected to Congress.

Lady Roslyn Morauta has a long association with the Global Fund having served as alternate Board Member for the Western Pacific Region constituency and as Chair of the Papua New Guinea Country Coordinating Mechanism. From her time also as first lady of Papua New Guinea, she has steadily championed health, HIV programs and gender issues

Andrew Pekosz received his BS in Biochemistry from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pekosz is a Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and his laboratory studies the basic biology of influenza, coronaviruses and other emerging and zoonotic virus infections. Dr. Pekosz is the co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Excellence in Influenza Research and Response (JH-CEIRR) and Director of the Center for Emerging Viral Infectious Diseases (CEVID). JH-CEIRR pivoted to COVID-19 research, and his lab was integral in measuring live virus in clinical samples, correlating virus test results with infectious virus, performing live virus serum neutralization assays and for providing isolates of SARS-CoV-2 variants to a number of different research laboratories. He was also part of the NIH SARS-CoV-2 Assessment of Viral Evolution (SAVE) group, the Specialized Centers of Research Excellence in Sex Differences in Influenza Immunity (SCORE-SADII) and the Johns Hopkins Excellence in Pathogenesis and Immunity Center for SARS-CoV-2 (JH-EPICS). He has authored more than 200 scientific papers, is on the editorial board for several scientific journals and has served on several National Institute of Health scientific and policy review boards focused on biosafety and biocontainment. He has been interviewed on the topics of COVID-19, influenza, vaccines, biosafety, emerging infectious diseases and pandemic preparedness by a number of news agencies including National Public Radio, the Associated Press (AP), the Baltimore Sun, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Cable News Network (CNN), CSPAN, British Broadcasting Company (BBC), Bloomberg Television, Al Jazeera, France24, Voice of America, the Discovery Channel and numerous local radio and television stations.

Dave joined CSL Seqirus in October 2017 as Vice President of Commercial Operations – North America.  Prior to this, Dave held several senior roles at Sanofi Pasteur, including Head of Marketing and Sales for VaxServe, a subsidiary of Sanofi Pasteur, Head of Strategic Programs for the Global Influenza Franchise, and Head of US Marketing for the Influenza Franchise.  He joined Sanofi Pasteur in 2004 from BASF Corporation, where he also held a number of leadership roles in Sales, Marketing, and Finance during his 16-year tenure. Dave has a BS in Finance from Seton Hall University and an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Gayle E. Smith is CEO of the ONE Campaign. She has served as a top advisor on international issues for three American presidents and is one of the world’s leading experts on global development and global health security. She brings an unparalleled expertise and an extraordinary network of relationships across the African continent and around the world. In 2021, Smith took on a temporary role at the request of the Secretary of State and served as US State Department’s Coordinator for Global COVID Response & Health Security, where she played a leading role in the US effort to end the global pandemic. Prior to joining the ONE Campaign, Smith served as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, where she led a staff of more than 10,000 people working to end extreme poverty, foster sustained and inclusive economic growth, and promote resilient, democratic societies all over the world. Smith had previously served as Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director for Development and Democracy at the National Security Council, where she played a lead role in the response to the Ebola epidemic and presidential development initiatives including Power Africa and Feed the Future. Before her work at the NSC during the Obama Administration, Smith founded the Sustainable Security Program at the Center for American Progress and co-founded the ENOUGH project and the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network. She served as Special Assistant to President Clinton and Senior Director for African Affairs at the NSC in the late 1990s, and prior to that lived and worked in Africa for 20 years, working as a journalist and with NGOs. Smith is originally from Bexley, Ohio and earned a B.A. from the University of Colorado. Smith also won first place in the standing long jump in elementary school.

Juan Pablo Uribe, MD, is the Global Director for Health Nutrition and Population at the World Bank and Director of the Global Financing Facility for Women Children and Adolescents (GFF). Previously, Mr. Uribe was the CEO of Healthcare Providers for United Healthcare/Banmédica for Chile and Peru and served from 2018 to 2019 as Minister of Health and Social Protection of Colombia. Prior to that, he was the Director General of the Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá, a leading organization in Colombia working in health care, health education and public health.  Between 2009 and 2011, he was the World Bank´s Health Sector Manager for East Asia and the Pacific. In his career, first as a medical doctor specializing in public health and public administration, and later in both public and private sector organizations, Mr. Uribe has contributed significantly to the development of public health, health systems and public policies. 

Sarah is the Senior Vice President, Healthy Communities at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). She joined EDF in 2012 and leads a team of scientists, attorneys and policy experts to protect health by reducing exposure to toxic chemicals and air pollution. Recent achievements of the program include: bipartisan passage of major reforms to the nation’s chemical safety law in 2016; and leadership commitments by Walmart to reduce its chemical footprint in 2013 and 2017. The current portfolio of work that Sarah oversees includes: defending strong implementation of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act; working with leading companies to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals along the supply chain; reducing lead exposures from drinking water and food; and catalyzing the use of hyperlocal air pollution information to drive innovative policy solutions for clean air. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University’s Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health and Medicine at the Mailman School of Public Health. She also holds a Master of Public Health and Master of Environmental Management from Yale University.

Jennifer Pope provides technical assistance to country programs providing life-saving products, clinical services and behavior change communications that encourage the world’s most vulnerable populations to lead healthier lives. Prior to her current role, Jen served as PSI’s Country Representative in Côte d’Ivoire where she increased the health impact by over 1,000% and funding by 50% in one year. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as Deputy Country Representative and family planning technical advisor, she managed 100 staff across 10 provinces and oversaw a social franchise network of over 450 private sector healthcare providers. Jen has over 15 years of experience working with non-profits, corporations and government agencies on family planning, HIV and AIDS, malaria, child survival, institutional strengthening, staff capacity building, social marketing and franchising. Before joining PSI, Jen worked for a variety of organizations including the Peace Corps as a health volunteer in Mali. Jen earned her Master in International Economics and Development from Johns Hopkins University and a Master in Business Administration from University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business. She speaks English, French, Bambara, Spanish and Lingala.

Byron leads corporate responsibility and environmental, social and governance (ESG) management at Organon, a new pharma company focused on the health of women. He is responsible for supporting the development and implementation of the company’s ESG strategy while also overseeing global philanthropy. Prior to Organon, Byron led ESG communications at Teva Pharmaceuticals, where he also had responsibility for the company's corporate social responsibility efforts in the United States and Canada while supporting the company's global health and access strategy around the world. Before joining Teva, Byron led the healthcare practice at Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a global business network and consultancy focused on building the capacity of large companies to become more sustainable and socially responsible. At BSR, he advised over 25 companies in the biopharmaceutical and medical device industry on their ESG and sustainability strategies. Prior to BSR, Byron managed and developed global health partnerships at Johnson & Johnson, where he engaged a variety of stakeholders in the fields of NCDs, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, and digital health. Byron began his career in global health at an HIV/AIDS NGO based in South Africa called mothers2mothers International and later served as a management consultant at Rabin Martin in New York City. Byron earned his MBA from Columbia Business School and his BA from Princeton University.

Dr. Dube has more than 20 years experience in health care and included several senior roles in the delivery and financing of health care. She comes from Afrocentric Health where she worked as a General Manager, leading Health Policy and Medical Advisory, worked at Royal Philips  as Medical Counsel for Africa and Business Development Manager for Southern Africa. Her experience in global health includes her role at  ArK as Head of Healthcare Investments prior to which she was Africa Program Director at PATH, leading the Global Campaign for Microbicides. This experience spans across geographies, most of which has been spent delivering various models of health care in Africa. Dr. Dube has a Degree in Medicine and Surgery (MD) from the University of Zimbabwe, a Master’s in Public Health (MPH), a Diploma Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases (DTMH) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) and a Masters in Finance and Investments.

Dr. David Walton brings over 20 years of experience working in global health to his role as U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator. His experience includes working as a physician on the ground in Haiti to fight cholera and on the front lines of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. David joins USAID after serving as the Senior Director of Global Health at the Butterfly Network, Inc., co-founding Build Health International, and working 15 years with Partners In Health. He was also previously an Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He holds an MD from Harvard Medical School, a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as the first Doris and Howard Hiatt Global Health Equity resident.

Amelia Lester is the executive editor at Foreign Policy. She has worked as a journalist on three continents, most recently reporting in Japan for publications including the Economist, the New York Times, and the New York Review of Books. Previously, she was the editor in chief of the weekend magazine of the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age newspapers and, before that, managing editor and an executive editor at the New Yorker. Lester lives in Washington, D.C., and is a graduate of Harvard University.

Maggie Lake is a veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering business, technology, politics, and international affairs. She started her career at Reuters, where she worked in both the New York and London bureaus covering economics and global finance. In 2001, she joined CNN International, where she served as a correspondent and anchor for the network’s flagship business shows. Over the course of her career, she has interviewed the world’s top CEOs, celebrities, and politicians and has been a consistent champion of economic inclusion and sustainable development. She has served as a weekly contributor for NPR and moderated events for the United Nations, World Bank, Council on Foreign Relations, and Global Citizen. She now runs the communications consultancy Maggie Lake Media and is a founding board member of the newly created Rutgers University Center for Women in Business.

Allison Carlson is the Executive Vice President of FP Analytics & Events at Foreign Policy. She oversees FPA’s cross-cutting research at the intersection of policy, technology, and global markets as well as Foreign Policy’s global dialogues and convenings. Prior to these roles, Carlson led FP Analytics’ energy and technology team for more than a decade, evaluating evolving climate and emissions policies and identifying opportunities for advanced technology deployment internationally. Before joining FP, she led the Latin America program for a boutique consulting firm assisting European companies on investing in emerging markets’ energy and financial sectors. Carlson has presented her work at a variety of international conferences and before the U.S. Senate. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where she received a master’s degree in international relations and international economics.

Jack Detsch is Foreign Policy’s Pentagon and national security reporter. He was previously a staff writer for Al-Monitor covering intelligence and defense.

Dr. Mayesha Alam is vice president of research at FP Analytics where she oversees the research team and leads research development for clients and partners. She previously helped establish and served as deputy director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and has also worked with the United Nations, World Bank, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and various nongovernmental organizations. Dr. Alam is the author of two books, Women and Transitional Justice and, with Robert Egnell, Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military, as well as reports on conflict, climate change, health, and gender. Her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, Newsweek, and elsewhere. A nonresident senior fellow of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Dr. Alam is a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Maggie Fox is an award-winning journalist with more than 40 years experience reporting from around the world. She’s worked for Reuters, CNN, NBC, ABC, National Journal and various newspapers, reporting from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and, for the past 25 years, on medicine, science, and global health from Washington, DC. Maggie hosts the One World, One Health podcast for the One Health Trust. Maggie started her career in radio while studying at the University of South Carolina, covering the most local of news before joining ABC radio in New York. She moved to Beirut, Lebanon in the 1980s to work as a freelance radio and newspaper reporter, specializing in covering conflicts and political developments in the region. From her next base in Hong Kong, she covered political changes in the Philippines, South Korea and events in China, including the Tiananmen Square demonstrations. She joined Reuters in London, covering the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, political change in Northern Ireland, as well as financial regulation and the British royal family before establishing a beat specializing in health and science news. After moving to Washington, Maggie hired and led a team of global reporters covering health and science for the news agency. She’s written about AIDS, bird flu, stem cell science, the sequencing of the human genome, cancer and heart disease as well as space discoveries. At National Journal, Maggie set up and led teams covering technology and health care, before moving to NBC News to write about health. Most recently, she joined CNN’s health team to cover the COVID pandemic and help WebMD and Medscape set up coverage dedicated to long COVID.