Purpose: To bring together regional stakeholders working in climate, environment, and health to address key challenges related to research on zoonotic disease, climate-health, environmental degradation, and food security. The workshop will provide researchers with the necessary skills and best practices for developing competitive research proposals and creating trans-disciplinary trans-national teams, while raising awareness of upcoming research calls, collaborative opportunities and funding mechanisms.
Audience: Early-and mid-career researchers, students, and policymakers working to advance One Health (climate, environment, health, agriculture, animal health, etc.) who are seeking to engage in international research projects but have yet to fully realize their ambitions or are looking to expand their network.
August 14-15
Trademark Hotel
Time 9:00 am – 17:00
Doors open at 8:30
Lunch will be provided
Virtual option available for registered participants
Register Today
Participating Organizations
Speaker Biographies
VMD, MPVM, PhD
Director, EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics, University of California, Davis; EpiCenter for Emerging Infectious Disease Intelligence, NIAID CREID Network
Christine Kreuder Johnson is Professor of Epidemiology and Ecosystem Health and Director of the EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics. Her work is committed to transdisciplinary research to characterize impacts of environmental change on animal and human health, inform preparedness for emerging threats, and guide public policy at the intersection of emerging disease and environmental health. Professor Johnson’s research has pioneered new approaches to characterization of emerging threats and disease dynamics at the animal-human interface in rapidly changing landscapes that constitute “fault lines” for disease emergence, disease spillover and subsequent spread
Lead for Symbio Vector Project; International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology
Jeremy Herren holds a PHD in Molecular Biology, Microbiology and Genetics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). He leads the development of a novel mosquito symbiont-based transmission blocking strategy for the sustainable control of malaria (SymbioVector Project). His team has established a pipeline for symbiont discovery and characterization, involving wild-caught mosquitoes having their microbes profiled prior to being challenged with Plasmodium-infected blood from infective donors. Additionally, they discovered a novel, vertically transmitted symbiont (Microsporidia MB) in Anopheles gambiae with a strong malaria transmission blocking phenotype In 2021, Jeremy was a winner of the Falling Walls breakthrough of the year, Life Sciences category for the discovery of Plasmodium transmission blocking Microsporidia MB.
Team Lead, One Health Research, Education and Outreach Centre for Africa; International Livestock Research Institute
Bernard Bett, a veterinarian with a postgraduate training on epidemiology, co-leads research on emerging infectious diseases at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). His competencies include infectious disease modeling, participatory epidemiology, design and implementation of analytical studies and disease surveillance. His current research focusses on the impacts of climate, land use and biodiversity changes on the occurrence and transmission of infectious diseases, especially those that are transmissible between animals and people. He works with various actors in public and private sectors in the development of decision support tools for managing disease risks based on information generated from research.
Head of the Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) in Eastern and Southern Africa
Charles has worked with FAO since 2009 serving in several positions both at headquarters and in Africa. He was successively Response Veterinary Officer at the FAO’s Crisis Emergency Centre – Animal Health (2009 to 2011) to provide assistance to countries dealing with Animal Health emergencies. He further served as HQ-Africa project liaison Officer on laboratory strengthening programme. In 2012, he joined the FAO Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) as Regional Manager for West and Central Africa. He further served as One Health Coordinator for the FAO Regional Office for sub-Sahara from Brazzaville to enhance partnership with WHO and WOAH (founded as OIE) on One Health related issues between 2017 and 2018. Since November 2018, he is providing leadership for the planning, implementation, delivery, and reporting of FAO ECTAD programmme in Eastern and Southern Africa. Charles is veterinarian with postgraduate degrees on livestock development, tropical animal diseases, banking and finance.
Senior Lecturer, The Technical University of Nairobi
Lydia Olaka is a Senior lecturer at the Nairobi Technical University of Kenya, Department of Geosciences and the Environment since March 2022. She is an Environmental Geologist with expertise in climate change adaptation and mitigation, geochemistry, groundwater flow and dynamics. She teaches Undergraduate and graduate courses and also supervises Masters and PhD Students. She graduated from Potsdam University, Germany and is a Senior Postdoc Fellow in the Volkswagen Foundation, Africa Program.
Contact Us
Are you a funding partner interested in marking your mechanism? Are you interested in being a travel sponsor? Please contact Chloe Morton, mortoncm@state.gov for more details