Dr. Linda Mobula is a Senior Health Specialist with the World Bank, and is the Team leader for the World Bank Regional Disease Surveillance Systems Enhancement Program in DRC and co-lead for the World Bank COVID-19 emergency response Program. She is on faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
She served as the technical lead for the 10th outbreak Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the World Bank. She worked on the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak (Guinea and Liberia).
She formally served as a Public Health and Infectious Disease advisor with the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
She has worked in many humanitarian settings, including in the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, 2016 European Refugee Response in Greece, post-earthquake Haiti providing primary health care services and as part of the cholera response.
She previously worked in the Office of HIV/AIDS at USAID where she provided technical assistance to South Sudan, DRC, Mozambique, and Burundi.
She was the co-Principal Investigator for the Gates-funded Ghana Access and Affordability Program which aimed to improve access to treatment for Non-Communicable Diseases.
She obtained a Bachelor of Science with Honors from the University of AZ in 2004 and attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. She obtained a Masters in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a concentration in Health in Crisis and Humanitarian assistance. She completed residency in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. She completed a Post-Doctoral fellowship in the Division of General Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Dr. Ambrose Otau Talisuna is a medical doctor, epidemiologist and public health expert in international health. He has worked in diverse health arenas, including emergency preparedness and response, international health regulations, integrated disease surveillance and response, communicable disease prevention and control, malaria prevention and control, health information systems, health systems, health services management, monitoring and evaluation for over 25 years at national and international level.
Ambrose has a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery (MBchB) from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, a master’s degree (MSc) in epidemiology from the University of London-London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a PhD, in medical sciences from the University of Antwerp and Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium. He was awarded a post-graduate diploma of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (DLSHTM) in epidemiology. He is presently pursuing a master’s degree in business administration-leadership and sustainability (MBALS) at the Robert Kennedy College and University of Cumbria. He has post-graduate training in public sector leadership and management, advanced monitoring and evaluation of health systems from the International Law Institute, Washington, DC, USA, medical informatics, advanced epidemiology and biostatistics and HIV/AIDs from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA, clinical trials management from Vienna.
For most of his career he has held senior level positions at the Ministry of Health in Uganda, the institute of Tropical medicine in Antwerp, Belgium and at international organizations such as the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN), the University of Oxford and the World Health Organisation(WHO). Over the years, Ambrose has acquired deep and broad management and leadership competencies at national and international level. He has accumulated diverse technical expertise in communicable disease control, epidemiology, surveillance, outbreak investigation and response, incident management, technical appraisal, monitoring and evaluation, international health regulations, health systems strengthening and performance assessment, health services management, health management information systems, malaria prevention and control, antimalarial drug resistance, antimicrobial resistance, pharmacovigilance and adverse reactions monitoring, strategy and policy development, and financial management and accountability.
Ambrose has led and supervised diverse multi-cultural teams at national and international level and established several linkages with stakeholders in the south (south to south) and in the north (South to North) networks. Ambrose has made numerous keynote addresses and speeches at national and international conferences. He has published over 100 papers in peer reviewed journals.
Dr. Esther Tan serves as Senior Medical Officer and Head of the Public Health Section of the United Nation’s Division of Healthcare Management and Occupational Safety and Health. Her responsibilities include advising the United Nations on outbreak response and leading and management of all public health issues for the UN staff workforce and peacekeepers globally. Since joining the UN in 2006, she has held various positions, including in the Office of the Medical Director and in Office of the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Ebola. Prior to the UN, she served as Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the US’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Assistant Director in the Ministry of Health of Singapore. She graduated from University College, London with an MD, qualified as a physician in 1998 and received an MPH in 2003 from Harvard School of Public Health.
