Dr. Juan Carlos Puyana

Dr. Puyana is a trauma/acute care surgeon;Director for Global Health-Surgery, University of Pittsburgh; a Global Health educator, specifically in the areas of trauma, injury, and emergency surgery; an international mentor; and a clinical investigator. He has worked in underserved emergency rooms and low resource public hospitals in numerous Latin American cities. Working through the Pan-American Trauma Society, he was instrumental in creating and sustaining fruitful academic exchanges among many countries in Latin America. He designed several trauma-training courses and developed a handbook and course on ultrasound applications for emergency care and trauma management, as well as a course on disaster response.

He has been the principal investigator (PI) of five Global Health research and training grant programs on capacity building, medical informatics, and eHealth. Dr. Puyana has mentored over 20 students from Latin America who have been engaged in a variety of training programs at the University of Pittsburgh, including short term research and trauma systems training, as well as Master’s and PhD degree programs in Public Health and Clinical Translational Sciences. Dr. Puyana is an expert in developing international capacity-building programs in the fields of trauma, acute care surgery, critical care medicine and global surgery. He has established fruitful and reciprocal mentoring collaborations in clinical areas and research educational endeavors with several universities and trauma centers from Latin America and more recently, Kenya.

In 2017, Dr. Puyana was appointed to the Global Health Committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and in such capacity, co-authored the publication “Global Health and the Future Role of the United States,” the most recent NAS report on Global Health. He is a member of the Definitive Surgical Trauma Care (DSTC™) teaching faculty in Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Singapore, and Greece.

Dr. Lubna Samad MD

Dr. Lubna Samad is based at the Indus Health Network (IHN) in Karachi, Pakistan. In addition to her work as a pediatric surgeon, she is committed to improving patient outcomes with a specific focus on LMICs. Her experience in public sector hospitals in Pakistan has informed her understanding of the individual, social and institutional barriers that result in poor access to, and provision of, quality surgical care.

As Director of the Center on Essential Surgical & Acute Care (CESAC) at IHN’s Global Health Directorate, she leads a team working to improve surgical care delivery platforms and patient outcomes. She has led the National Vision for Surgical Care in collaboration with Pakistan’s Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, aimed at incorporating surgical care delivery within the country’s health plan. As a member of the G4 Alliance and GICS, she has joined the global momentum to provide care to neglected surgical patients.

Dr Raymond R. Price, MD, FACS

Recognized as an international leader and pioneer in expanding the role of surgery in public health, Dr. Price’s work highlights the dramatic impact surgery can have on communities, economies and individuals. Dr. Price co-founded and serves as the director of the Center for Global Surgery at the University of Utah and directs the graduate surgical education at Intermountain Medical Center, Intermountain Healthcare. 

Dr. Price received his BS from the University of Utah, MD from Harvard Medical School, and completed his surgical residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Price is a Clinical Professor (Department of Surgery) at the University of Utah.  He has participated in or led medical and surgical expeditions to Asia, Latin America, and Africa.  He has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and books. He serves (or has served) in many leadership positions with the WHO Global Initiative for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care, the Society of American and Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES), the American College of Surgeons, and the International Surgical Society (ISS). 

Honors received include: Multiple Teaching Awards, Utah Medical Association 2017 Physician of the Year, Presidential Friendship Medal, Mongolia, American College of Surgeons-Pfizer International Volunteerism Award, a Medal of Honor from the Minister of Health of Mongolia, and University of Utah Distinguished Alumni Award 2019.

His greatest work, however, is with his wonderful wife Anne and their 7 daughters and one son who also volunteer internationally and at home.

Dr Mamta Swaroop MD, FACS FICS FAIM

Mamta Swaroop, MD, FACS FICS FAIM is an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Division of Trauma and Critical Care and the Director for the Center for Global Surgery. She serves as the Global Surgery Program Director in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Her lab, the Northwestern Trauma and Surgical Initiative (www.ntsi.global) aims to build sustainable access to surgical care through education and research in low resource settings, both locally and international settings.

In 2018, she was honored as one of Oprah’s Health Heroes, received the 39^th annual Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and presented the keynote address at the Royal College of Surgeons Global Frontiers Conference in London, on the Bolivian Trauma Initiative and held the first international TRUE (Trauma Responders Unify to Empower) Communities Course.

The NTSI conducts community directed research and programmatic development in Southeast Asia, South America and Chicago. Her work on helmet usage in female pillions on motorized two-wheeler added to work leading to legislative change in the governance of women needing to wear helmets in New Delhi. In Bolivia, her team writes and participates in legislation and the implementation of a prehospital system. In Chicago, the TRUE Communities Course aims to empower communities to take action by making bystanders into immediate responders. With over 1500 taught in Chicago, the course has spread to Mississippi and in Bolivia, with revisions for London and Lagos.

She has been an invited national and international visiting professor and keynote speaker, presenting on Trauma and Global Surgery topics and has authored numerous peer reviewed research articles. She is the co-Editor of the book, Success in Academic Surgery: Academic Global Surgery.

Dr. Andrés Mariano Rubiano Escobar

Dr Kathleen Casey MD

is a surgeon who is passionate about global health and addressing disparities in surgical care.  In 2004 she founded the Operation Giving Back program at the American College of Surgeons, which supports the global surgical humanitarian ecosystem and fosters collaboration and innovation for the underserved; she served as its Director for 9 years.  She is a founder and one of the architects of the G4 Alliance- an initiative advocating for the neglected surgical patient – where she has served as an inaugural officer and board member.

Dr. Casey currently serves as Chief Medical Officer for the non-profit Physicians for Peace, and is a past President of the Alliance for Surgery and Anesthesia Presence (ASAP) and the US Chapter of the International Society of Surgery. She also serves on the board of InterSurgeon. She has been recognized with Humanitarian Awards from the American Medical Association and the International College of Surgeons and has published widely on global surgery.

Dr Dan Poenaru MD, PhD, FRCSC, FACS, FAAP, Pediatric Surgeon

Dr. Dan Poenaru is a professor of pediatric surgery and researcher at the Montréal Children’s Hospital and McGil University in Montreal, Canada.

Following medical school studies in Toronto, Canada, he trained in general surgery at McGill University, then in pediatric surgery at the Université de Montreal. He has earned Masters degrees in Health Professions Education (University of Illinois in Chicago, IL) and International Development (William Carey International University, Pasadena, CA), and a doctorate in Health Strategy & Management (Erasmus University, Rotterdam). He has practiced academic surgery for 10 years in Kingston, Canada, 12 years in East Africa, and since 2015 in Montreal, Canada. He is also dean of Université Shalom Bunia Faculté de Medicine in DRC, and clinical and education consultant for BethanyKids, a faith-based organization training and supporting African pediatric surgeons in Africa.

Dr. Poenaru is a FRQS- and CIHR-funded investigator in global pediatric surgery and patient-centred surgical care. He is the director of the Jean-Martin Laberge Fellowship in Global Pediatric Surgery, Research Committee chair for the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS), and director-at-large and Research Committee co-chair of the Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery (GICS). He has published over 130 scientific papers and several book chapters, and supervises multiple Masters’ and PhD students from Canada, UK, Brazil, DRC, Uganda, and Nigeria.

Dr. Poenaru’s current areas of academic interest are developing global surgical research capacity, equity in surgical care provision for children in low-resource settings, patient-centered surgical care, technology-assisted risk communication, faith issues in clinical practice, and global medical education.

Dan is married to Dita who is a nursing clinician and educator, and the Poenarus have two adult sons.

Professor Abebe Bekele, MD, FCS, FACS

is Deputy Vice Chancellor of Academic and Research Affairs and Dean at University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda. He is Professor of Surgery (General and Thoracic surgeon) and has served as CEO of the Black Lion teaching Hospital and Dean of the School of Medicine of Addis Ababa University. He has a fellowship in Medical Educationist from FAIMER and has vast experience in trainee assessment, program design and evaluation. He has also served as a guest lecturer, speaker and external examiner in undergraduate and surgery education in Ethiopia, Africa, Europe and North America.

Professor Abebe is a member of the Governing Council and Chairman of the Examinations and Credentials Committee at the college of surgeons of East Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) and Editor-in Chief of the East and Central Africa Journal of Surgery. He has published more than 85 articles and book chapters and is a recipient of many regional and international awards and recognitions.

Professor Sudha Jayaraman, MD, MSc, FACS

is a Professor of Surgery in the Division of General Surgery, Director of the Center for Global Surgery and Director of Research at the Center for Medical Innovation at the University of Utah. She completed her General Surgery residency at UCSF, Masters Degree in Public Health in Developing Countries at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Trauma, Critical Care and Acute Care Surgery fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Jayaraman has authored nearly 100 publications and has been funded by the NIH, Rotary Foundation and DOD for domestic and global trauma research and capacity building.

Dr. Sanjay Krishnaswami

Dr. Rachel Davis

Professor Emmanuel Makasa

is Counsellor-Health, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Zambia to the UN and is the immediate past technical coordinator of the African group of health attaches. Prior to that he worked in a multitude of capacities, ranging from Deputy Director for Emergency Health Services in the Zambian Ministry of Health, to Board Member of Doctors Outreach Care International, Secretary General at the Zambia Medical Association and the Surgical Society of Zambia, to an applied research intern at NASA.

Dr. Makasa has a keen interest in global health diplomacy, entrepreneurship, politics and governance and the arts. He received his MBChB from the University of Zambia, his MMed in orthopedics and trauma surgery from the University of Zambia, School of Medicine. He received his MPH-Global Health Epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar. (Zambia/ Switzerland).

Dr Isobel Marks MA MBBS

completed her foundation training in North West London and is currently working in Major Trauma at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. Whilst training at Barts & the London Medical School, she worked as a paediatric surgical outcomes fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a research associate with the Program for Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard Medical School.

Dr Marks coordinated the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations Global Surgery Working Group for two years, and was a founding member and chair of InciSioN, the International Student Surgical Network, afterwards chairing the InciSioN Board of Trustees. Dr Marks worked as a WHO policy officer for the UK Department of Health and delivered advocacy training for the G4 Alliance at the 2016 World Health Assembly. Dr Marks has led a number of international projects, including the 2017 surgical indicator collection for the World Bank’s World Development Indicators and baseline assessments of surgical capacity in Nicaragua and Kenya. 

Dr Adil Haider MD, MPH, FACS

Dr Adil H. Haider is the Dean of Aga Khan University Medical College and Professor of Surgery and Community Health Sciences – the first alumnus of AKU’s MBBS programme to have this honour. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he trained as a Trauma Surgeon and served as faculty for several years.       

Previously, Dr. Haider was the Kessler Director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health-a joint initiative of Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He has mentored over 150 research trainees, published over 350 peer-reviewed papers and served as Principal Investigator (PI) on extramural grants worth more than twenty million dollars. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (2017), one of the most prestigious honours for civilians in the United States for his contributions towards mitigating race and socioeconomic disparities in healthcare.    

Dr Haider has been one of the national leaders responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with co-leading the Academic Medical Centre, he has worked towards forming public-private partnerships with the Government of Pakistan to ensure quality care through various modalities such as telemedicine and online educational offerings for building capacity and safety protocols for healthcare workers. 

Dr Tamara Worlton

Dr Tamara Worlton graduated from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) in 2003 and her General Surgery residency at National Naval Medical Center in 2008. She went on to complete a fellowship in Bariatric Surgery at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio 2010. She is currently the Director of the Division of Global Surgery at USU. Dr Worlton served as ship’s surgeon on an aircraft carrier, deployed to Afghanistan, Djibouti and served on both US Navy hospital ships. She has also served as faculty for the Indian-US Emergency Medicine Summit.

Dr Worlton co-chaired the American College of Surgeons Humanitarian Skills course and the Global Health Competencies Course. She is recognized as a Navy expert in surgical Global Health Engagement (GHE) and earned the additional military qualification in GHE as well as a Graduate Certificate in Global Health and Global Health Engagement from USU.

Dr Benedict C. Nwomeh, MD, MPH

Dr. Nwomeh is a professor of surgery and the vice-chair of global surgery in the department of surgery at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. He is also program director for the pediatric surgery fellowship at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, OH. His research focus is on understanding surgical capacity and burden of surgical diseases in low and middle-income countries.

Dr. Nwomeh has helped promote global surgery as an academic surgical field, and was the founding chair, Global Affairs Committee of the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) and former chair, Committee for Global Academic Surgery of the Society of University Surgeons (SUS). Dr. Nwomeh is currently president of the Association of Pediatric Surgery Training Program Directors (APSTPD), Associate Editor for Global Surgery for the Journal of Surgical Research, anda member of the Board of Governors for the American College of Surgeons.

Dr Zineb Bentounsi MD MSc

graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from the Faculté de médecine et de pharmacie de Casablanca, Morocco in 2018 and then completed a Masters in International Health and Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford. When she was a medical student she co-founded and chaired for two years, the International Student Surgical Network – InciSioN. She also co-founded and chaired the local chapter of the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) in Casablanca.

Dr Bentounsi is currently working as a research assistant for the SURG-Africa project at the University of Oxford. She is passionate about health advocacy, gender equity and equal access to opportunities. 

Dr Luis Felipe Cabrera, MD

Associate Researcher of Colciencias. Institutional Surgeon Los Cobos Medical Center. General surgeon at the Santa Fe Foundation in Bogota. Medical Director at Inbes Pharma. Co-Leader of the Research Group in General Surgery and Subspecialties of the Universidad el Bosque before Colciencias. Scientific consultant Spanish surgery magazine. Scientific consultant Medical magazine UIS. Surgical medical researcher at Universidad El Bosque. Professor of medicine, general surgery and Presidency course at Universidad El Bosque. General surgeon at the Shaio Clinic. General surgeon at the El Bosque Clinic. Emergency surgeon at the Santa Clara Hospital. Outpatient surgeon in Compensar EPS. General surgeon at the Children’s Cardiovascular Hospital of Cundinamarca

Katayoun Madani, MS, MD

Katayoun is a Global Surgery Research Fellow at the Northwestern Trauma and Surgical Initiative, in the Division of Trauma and Critical Care at Northwestern University and is concurrently completing her Master’s in Public Health at St. George’s University. She was born and raised in Iran, and moved to the United States where she completed her undergraduate and Master’s of Science in tissue engineering at Arizona State University.

Katayoun attended medical school at St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada West Indies, where she co-founded and became the first Chair of InciSioN Grenada. She co-led a large-scale advocacy effort with the Ministry of Health Grenada and Grenada General Hospital to deliver medical devices and supplies to furnish an operating room and intensive care unit. She led InciSioN’s Research Team from 2017 to 2020 and created InciSioN’s research infrastructure, re-established the online Twitter-based Global Surgery Journal Club, and planned the first-ever student and trainee led Global Surgery Session at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in 2019 held in San Francisco, California.

Dr. Gregory L. Peck

Associate professor of Surgery and associate director of the Acute Care Surgery scholarship at Rutgers-RWJMS. He was awarded with the first scholarship from the Panamerican Trauma Society. This launched his career as academic global surgeon and his work on surgical system science. He was associate director of the program for trauma care improvement at the RWJUH, from 2014 to 2016. During this time, he and his team reduced overall truama mortality at their local hospital; specially, regarding traumatic brain injury patients. It was achieved through implementing clinical guidelines and the Resource Activation Protocol for Trauma. In 2016, he worked with the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST), and other collaborators in Latin America, on developing the first emergency and essential global surgery elective course inteded for acute care surgery trainees. This represented a fundamental international mentorship yielding collaborations between clinic and basic research based on ongoing systems.

Xiya Ma, MD, MSc

Xiya is a recently graduated physician from the MD-MSc program from Université de Montréal in Montreal, Canada. Her involvement with InciSioN dates back to 2017, where she served as Vice-President for Internal Affairs for two years, and supervised the development of its national chapters and built the internal structure during InciSioN’s early years.

Since 2019, she is co-chair of InciSioN and had the pleasure of growing with fellow colleagues on the executive board in expanding InciSioN’s activities, from supporting the subteams to the InciSioN Global Surgery Symposiums (IGSS). She was a co-founder of the Canadian chapter of InciSioN the Canadian Global Surgery Trainee Alliance (CGSTA).

Noel Aruparayil M.D, MRCSEd, PGCert in Health Research

Noel is a Surgical Resident, Clinical Research Fellow and a PhD student with the NIHR Global Health Research Group – Surgical Technologies, University of Leeds.

He is part of an interdisciplinary research group involved in training, evaluation and implementation of laparoscopic surgery in low-resource settings. 

He is the current President of GASOC – a multi-speciality global surgery advocacy trainee’s organisation in the UK and Ireland. Noel was also elected as the RCSEd trainee representative to focus on the global surgery work of the college and encourage trainee involvement in global surgery. He also sits on the permanent council of the G4 Alliance who are building political priority for global surgical care. 

Heaven Yeshaneh Tatere MD

is a General Medical Practitioner who graduated from Addis Ababa University, College of Health Sciences. She is passionate about gender equality, global health and and wants to contribute her share in the field of health equity and universal health coverage. She has been volunteering and coordinating programs related to adolescents and women like SHEBA (Sexual Health education for better awareness) and SHE Matters and has held various positions in IFMSA-Ethiopian Medical Students Association, InciSion Global: Educations Team and currently, she is also working as a Co-Chair in Gender equity in Global Surgery initiative. It is her life goal and mission to see gender equality and quality health care delivery systems in Africa. 

In addition, Heaven loves to travel and learn about different multicultural contexts, read novels, cook and hang out with friends.

Dr Dominique Vervoort MD

is an aspiring pediatric cardiac surgeon from Belgium with a passion for international capacity-building in low- and middle-income countries. Dominique co-founded and, for three years, chaired InciSioN (International Student Surgical Network). Dr Vervoort is currently pursuing a dual Master in Public Health and Master in Business Administration at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He previously completed the Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, working on National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anesthesia Planning in Pakistan and West Africa.

Dr Vervoort introduced the concept of global cardiac surgery to academic literature, and works on addressing the gaps in access to cardiac surgical care in low- and middle-income countries through academic efforts and health policy. He further serves as a Board Member for the Global Alliance for Rheumatic and Congenital Hearts, and co-founded the Gender Equity Initiative in Global Surgery. 

Emily Mills MBBS

is a current academic foundation trainee in Cambridge with research interests in Surgical Oncology (one year post-medical school.) She became interested in surgical research originally through her intercalated BSc and collaborative groups. Dr. Mills is currently on the steering or operations committee for STARSurg, EuroSurg and CovidSurg. She aims to strengthen her research profile in her foundation years and pursue a joint clinical/academic pathway.

Joffre Guzmàn-Laguna

Laura Lucia Fernandez

Priyansh Shah

Priyansh is an aspiring Global Cardiothoracic Surgeon. He is a final year medical student at Baroda Medical College, India. His work in Global Health began in 2018 when he was elected as the National Officer for Public Health at the Medical Students’ Association of India. Their team conducted over 10 National Public Health Campaigns and reached out to over 23,000 people. His journey with Global Surgery and Incision started in 2019 when he became a part of the international fundraising team.

Currently he is working as the Vice President for Finances at InciSioN. He believes that Health Financing is not only a major building block of UHC but an indispensable aspect of Global Surgery. He is also the Founder and President of the World Youth Heart Federation.

Angelica Clavijo

Soham Bandyopadhyay BA BM BCh

is an academic doctor at Oxford University Clinical Academic Graduate School and Milton Keynes University Hospital. As part of his academic responsibilities, he is a lecturer in medicine for Oxford University, a neuroanatomy demonstrator for Oxford Medical School, and a Teaching Associate for the Oxford University Global Surgery Group. His primary academic interest is research, particularly in global health and neurosurgery. He is passionate about bringing the voices of patients and the general public to the table when discussing research or advocacy efforts.

Lorraine Arabang Sebopelo

is a third-year medical student at the University of Botswana and currently a member of the Communications and Operations team for the Association of Future African Neurosurgeons (AFAN) as well as a Research Fellow of the same organization. She is also an Ambassador for the International Journal of Medical Students (IJMS) and a member of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS) Global Neurosurgery Junior Committee.

Her interests include neurosurgery, global surgery, global neurosurgery, infectious diseases, and clinical research. She aims to increase access to surgical care through context-appropriate solutions and the understanding of patients and diseases.

Ulrick Sidney, MD

Ulrick Sidney is InciSioN’s research team lead and he serves on the Secretariat team of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies’ Global Neurosurgery Committee. He is the President of the Association of Future African Neurosurgeons and ’19-’20 Global Neurosurgery researcher associate at Harvard Medical School. His interests include neurosurgery and medical education.

Dr Mortimer Arreaza Graterol MD, MPH

Medical surgeon Universidad de los Andes. Merida-Venezuela. Specialist in Gynecology and Obstetrics Universidad El Bosque. Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist. University Foundation of Health Sciences. Master in Public Health. El Bosque University. Pre and postgraduate teacher Gynecology and obstetrics Universidad El Bosque. Postgraduate Professor Gynecology and Obstetrics
University of La Sabana. Author and co-author of multiple national and international publications. Extensive experience in handling high risk pregnancies.

Dr Mauricio Vasco Ramirez

Anesthesia and intensive care medicine. Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana de Medellin. Obstetric anesthesia training at the Hospital CLINIC, Universidad de Barcelona, España. Medical simulation, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard University. Member of the International Society of Obstetric Medicine (ISOM) and the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy (ISSHP). President of the Anesthesia Committee at the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists and the
Confederation of Latin American Societies of Anaesthesiology (CLASA). Director of the obstetric scholarship for Latin America. President of the Colombian Society of Anesthesia (SCARE) 2018-2020.

Dr Norberto Navarrete Aldana

Associated with critical care, emergency, epidemiology and public health at Hospital Simon Bolivar, teacher at Colegio Mayor Nuestra Señora del Rosario, won first place in the research papers contest in the 3rd International Emergency Congress ACEM-ALACED, won first place in the American ollege of Surgeons Resident Trauma Papers Competition.

Ardi Mendoza

 is an aspiring emergency medicine physician and current fourth year medical student at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, NJ, USA. His passion for global health and health equity was established well before medical school and includes a year living in Lima, Peru validating a novel point-of-care autism screening tool with Peruvian researchers at La Universidad Cayetano Heredia.

In medical school, he has delved deeper into the field of health equity through opportunities with Rutgers Global Surgery and the Latin American Indicator Research Collaboratory. In partnership with Colombian and Rutgers surgeons, faculty, health economists, and medical students, Ardi and colleagues published a situational analysis of the Colombian SAO system preparedness, service delivery, and financial risk protection in The Lancet Global Health. His research interests include health disparities, urban and global health, and health systems strengthening, specifically Surgical, Trauma, and Emergency Care Systems.