President-Elect
Linnie Golightly, MD
Weill Cornell Medicine, United States
I am an Associate Professor in Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion at Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM). Raised in the Midwest, I attended Wayne State University, receiving my MD degree from WCM in New York City. I trained in Internal Medicine at Harlem Hospital, serving as Chief Medical Resident, followed by a fellowship in the Harvard Combined Infectious Disease Training Program and post-doctoral research fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health. I have attended at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, the WCM Travel Clinic, and currently the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. My research focus is infectious diseases endemic to low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), with an emphasis on malaria, as well as factors effecting the retention of women and underrepresented minorities, and citizens of LMIC in academic careers. I am active in teaching and training having served as Infectious Disease Fellowship Program Director, Director of the infectious disease medical school module and the Ben Kean Course in Tropical Medicine at WCM, for which I received a teaching award. I have lectured and trained undergraduates, medical students, and fellows both from the U.S. and abroad, including those from Haiti, Ghana, Brazil, Israel, Qatar, and Europe. I am a member of the National Medical Association’s (NMA) Council on International Affairs and have served on several American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) committees including the Ben H. Kean Travel Fellowship, the Committee on Global Health, and the Nominating Committee. I served as Director of Minority Recruitment for the Harvard Combined infectious Disease Training Program and I am currently an Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion at WCM, where I direct programs to enhance community and career pathways and to foster a diverse environment. I serve as the WCM institutional representative to the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Diversity and Inclusion (GDI).
Board Members
John Amuasi, MBChB, MPH, MS, PhD, FWACP
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Public Health, Ghana
I graduated as a physician from the KNUST in Ghana and subsequently from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, USA, with post-graduate degrees (MPH and MS), terminating in a PhD in Health Research and Policy with a concentration in outcomes research. In Minnesota, as part of being a Fellow of the Interdisciplinary Centre for the study of Global Change (ICGC), I completed a minor in development studies and social change. I’m also a Fellow of the West African College of Physicians (Faculty of Community Health).
I set up and was the inaugural head of the Research and Development Unit at the 1,200-bed Komfo Anokye teaching Hospital in Kumasi till 2010. For over 20 years, I have engaged in tropical medicine and global health research in LMICs - including in malaria, NTDs, AMR and One Health. I have also consulted for several global health-focused organizations and supported civil society organizations with technical expertise on matters related to access to drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics, and well as strategic advice related to global health research priorities. I’m currently head of the Global Health Department of the School of Public Health at KNUST, and immediate past head of Community Medicine at the School of Medicine and Dentistry. I also lead the Global Health and Infectious Diseases Research Group at both the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) at KNUST and at the Bernhard Nocht Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany. KCCR also hosts the Secretariat of the African Research Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases (ARNTD) which I coordinate as Executive Director.
My current research involves field epidemiologic studies on malaria, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, AMR, snakebite and other neglected tropical diseases. I currently serve as an Executive Committee member of the EDCTP2-funded African Coalition for Epidemic Research, Response and Training (ALERRT), where I lead the operational readiness and resilience work package of the Network. Through ALERRT at KCCR, I am coordinating research on the clinical characterization of COVID-19 in Senegal, Guinea, Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC. I also serve as PI for a number of other studies on COVID-19 in Ghana, including some phase III clinical trials for drugs and vaccines involving both consortia and pharma. I further serve as an adjunct to a number of academic institutions, and technical advisor to a number of organizations, including the WHO, Africa CDC, IPBES and the World Bank on a wide range of global health concerns.
I’m an ardent advocate for using One Health approaches to address global health challenges, and I co-chair the Lancet One Health Commission. Over the years, I have remained consistently zealous about research that ultimately generates knowledge which would contribute to improving health systems, services, and outcomes globally. More importantly, I’m passionate about mentorship and building both clinical and non-clinical research capacities - training and infrastructure for sustainability.
Emily Gurley, PhD, MPH
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, United States
I am a Professor of the Practice in the Department of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. I earned an MPH in International Health from Emory University in 2002 and a PhD in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University in 2012. I spent 12-years with the ICDDR,B in Dhaka, Bangladesh (2003 – 2009, 2011 – 2017) where I lead the Surveillance and Outbreak Research Group, served as Director of the Emerging Infections Program, and was a member of the Government of Bangladesh’s National Rapid Response outbreak team. I’ve investigated >100 outbreaks and helped establish surveillance systems for respiratory disease, neurological disease, acute hepatitis, hospital acquired infections, and diarrheal disease, many of which are still functioning today. I have published more than 180 scientific manuscripts and book chapters.
In my 20-year research career I have focused on infectious disease transmission and prevention, including the development of novel methods for surveillance and outbreak investigation, and development of interventions to prevent emerging infections. My research draws from multiple disciplines – including epidemiology, virology, ecology, immunology, and anthropology – and uses a One Health approach, which takes into account the close relationships between human health and the health of other species and the environment. I am a global expert on henipaviruses and serve on the WHO Nipah Virus Research and Development Task Force and leads the Preventing Emerging Pathogenic Threats (PREEMPT) project in Bangladesh.
Currently, I am the Co-Director of the Child Mortality and Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) project in Bangladesh. In this seven-country study, investigators aim to identify the etiology of stillbirths and child deaths to improve programs and policies for prevention. This study brings together epidemiological, medical and social behavioral science teams with demographic and health surveillance sites, experts in pathology, and laboratorians, to identify deaths and explain their causes.
I have led many public health initiatives in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I was the co-lead for the Novel Coronavirus Research Compendium (NCRC, https://ncrc.jhsph.edu), a group of >60 faulty and trainees who reviewed a curated set of COVID-19 literature to inform public health and medical practice. I’ve led two free Coursera courses on contact tracing implementation and evaluation used across the US and worldwide, training millions of COVID-19 contact tracers. I was awarded the 2020 Shikani/El-Hibri Prize for Innovation and Discovery and the 2021 Excellence in the US COVID-19 Public Health Practice Award at the Johns Hopkins University for my contributions to pandemic response.
Board Member Representing Students, Trainees, Residents or Post-docs Candidates
Hannah Steinberg, PhD, MSPH
University of Illinois Chicago, United States
My long-term goal is to have a career in infectious disease diagnostic development, ideally for application in low resource settings. I love molecular biology – the elegance of every interaction and the chain of resulting events, the checks, and balances of these mechanisms and most of all the cunning circumventions contrived by pathogens to deregulate the system. Basic science research does a striking job of studying pathogen interactions, and from this we have many chemical solutions to pathogen attack; unfortunately, medication alone does not solve the socioeconomic and infrastructure problems that allow curable diseases to persist. Diagnostics will not either, but through the development of inexpensive diagnostic devices for resource-limited settings we can begin to bridge the gap.
The struggle to improve the quality of healthcare and the equity of healthcare access are so tightly intertwined with public policy, international relations, and medical research that to make progress in one field demands progress in them all. I seek a career that will empower me to move science out of the lab and into patient settings. I am an academic who sees all divides between technological, medical, and social justice advancement as artificial and surmountable; who believes the scientific progress is a tool for the betterment of humanity. I may have chosen to pursue a career in medical research for selfish reasons—for my love of science and medicine—but I have committed myself to a career in public service because I believe that health is a human right.
ASTMH is full of trainees and professionals such as myself who wish to leverage their skills and interests to work on critical problems in tropical medicine. As fields have become more siloed and more specialized, ASTMH continues to provide a critical venue for the exchange of ideas and interdisciplinary advancement.