Annual Global Health Equity Symposium

Dr. Robert Rosenheck, MD

Robert Rosenheck is an award-winning and world-renowned global health researcher and Professor of Psychiatry, Public Health and at the Child Study Center at Yale Medical School, as well as Director of the Division of Mental Health Services and Outcomes Research in the Yale Department of Psychiatry. His research focuses on cost-effectiveness within interventions related to behavioral health and in improving the quality of care of large health systems. He was founding Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs Northeast Program Evaluation Center, where he worked for 22 years to implement mental health programming spanning treatment for homeless veterans to specialized programs for veterans with PTSD. He has also led program evaluations for the ACCESS program for homeless mentally ill Americans, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services and the joint HUD-HHS-VA Collaborative Initiative on Chronic Homelessness. His research, including over 900 publications, spans the globe, with projects based in China, Brazil, Nigeria, Ghana, and the US.

Dr. Moses Okumu, PhD

Originally from Uganda, Moses Okumu earned his PhD at the Factor-Inwentash School of Social Work at the University of Toronto, and is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the development, implementation, and rigorous evaluation of interventions that advance the sexual and mental health of youth facing multiple forms of adversity, including poverty, forced displacement, and HIV, especially in his home country of Uganda. He investigates digital and technology-based interventions for improving the social determinants of health outcomes among vulnerable Black youth, with an emphasis on community-based strategies and strengthening existing local support systems. He is experienced in collaborative, community-based participatory methods, and is interested in gender-transformative and strength-based approaches to men's sexual and mental health. His research aims to translate findings into evidence-based programs, interventions, and policies at the local, national, and global levels.

Dr. Peter Waiswa, MBChB, MPH, PhD

Peter Waiswa is a Professor of Health Policy and Systems at Makerere University School of Public Health in Kampala, Uganda, and a globally recognized physician and public health leader. Initially trained in medicine, he holds a joint PhD from Makerere University and the Karolinska Institutet. His research integrates implementation science, policy engagement, and quality improvement to advance maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health, digital health, and artificial intelligence in health across sub-Saharan Africa and other low- and middle-income countries. He is Lead Principal Investigator of the DHPI-R Project, which has advanced research on digital payments for frontline health workers across 28 African countries and now informs global policy discussions with WHO, UNICEF, and the Gates Foundation. He also leads the Uganda Newborn Programme, which has strengthened newborn care across 20 high-burden districts and helped more than 120,000 small and sick newborns and their mothers access better care, and has directed major initiatives including the Preterm Birth Initiative (PTBi-Uganda) and the Implementation of the Global Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (CODES). He serves on the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group of Experts (STAGE), is a Lancet Commissioner on Evidence-Based Implementation, and is founder and chair of the Busoga Health Forum and the Makerere Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Centre of Excellence. His work has earned him Uganda's Presidential National Independence Heroes Medal, and his more than 200 peer-reviewed publications have accumulated over 16,600 citations.

Dr. Katherine Anne Comtois, PhD, MPH

Katherine Anne (Kate) Comtois is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and Director of both the Center for Suicide Prevention and Recovery (CSPAR) and the UW Suicide Care Research Center. For more than 30 years, her research has spanned health services, treatment development, clinical trials, and implementation science aimed at preventing suicide. As director of CSPAR since its founding in 2019, she works to move care beyond assessing and managing suicidal ideation toward ensuring patients recover and re-engage with life. She also directs the Suicide Care Research Center, an NIMH P50-funded center using Human Centered Design and MOST optimization methodology to improve suicide care for adolescents and young adults. Her research reflects a long-standing commitment to collaboration with diverse and underrepresented communities, including active duty military, American Indian and Alaska Native communities, and community mental health and substance abuse treatment settings. She founded the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) and directed the Harborview Dialectical Behavior Therapy program from 1996 to 2019. Her work has been funded by NIMH, NIDA, the Department of Defense, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the State of Washington.