Staff Bios: A-L

Kathy Alison is a senior consultant with over 25 years of professional experience as a trainer, facilitator, and designer of participatory stakeholder involvement processes in health and health policy, knowledge management, water resources management, agriculture, local government, and the environment. She specializes in designing collaborative programs and activities with host-country governments, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, and host-country public, private, university, and NGO sector representatives. She has worked extensively in South Asia, Eastern and Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and North Africa on institutional capacity building, strategic planning, policy formulation, workplan development, collaborative problem solving, consensus building, and public participation processes. She designed and facilitated the strategic planning workshop for the new Jordan Health Systems Strengthening project funded by USAID/Jordan and implemented by Abt Associates, an Experts Meeting on National Costing of ARV Treatment, and a global consultation on USAID’s infectious disease strategy. Kathy Alison has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural communications and a master’s degree in education from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
kalison@trg-inc.com

Dr. Ugochukwu Amanyeiwe has over 10 years experience in the design, implementation, and delivery of HIV/AIDS programs. In Nigeria, as the senior palliative care and community home-based care advisor on the PEPFAR-funded GHAIN project, she worked with the ministry of health and the National Action Committee on AIDS to develop national palliative care/community home-based care guidelines, curricula, and monitoring and evaluation tools. Ugo provided technical support as the “Thematic Facilitator” for care, treatment, and support in the development of the UNDP-funded National Strategic Framework. As a volunteer she helped establish the Family Resource Center Kaduna (a community-based psychosocial support center) by initiating and supervising the collaboration of local organizations with volunteer health workers to provide free VCT, PMTCT, OVC, ART and home-based care services for over 3,500 people living with HIV/AIDS. She also provided technical support for the integration of youth friendly RH services into existing HIV services. She has experience in designing, developing, and implementing capacity building programs and volunteered as a master trainer of trainers for UNICEF on the youth Peer Educator Trainers project. A clinician with 15 years experience, she is a maxillofacial surgeon, and a fellow of the West African College of Surgeons. She holds a master’s degree in international health policy and management from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University; a Bachelor of Dental Surgery from the University of Benin, Edo state, Nigeria; and a certificate in HIV/AIDS prevention programs management from the University of Exeter, UK.
ugo amanyeiwe@abtassoc.com

Dr. Aneesa Arur is a health systems specialist with 5 years of experience conducting and managing research activities. Dr. Arur’s area of expertise includes monitoring and evaluation, public-private partnerships, pay-for-performance, and contracting. She joined Health Systems 20/20 from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she researched the relative effectiveness of different approaches to contracting for health services in Afghanistan for her PhD thesis. Dr. Arur currently provides monitoring and evaluation and other technical support to the project. As a monitoring and evaluation specialist at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Arur provided third-party evaluation and capacity-building support to the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan. She has previously been a consultant to the World Bank and the World Health Organization on strategies to improve health service delivery in developing countries. Dr. Arur has also set up and managed intervention-research in early childhood health with the ICICI Bank in India.
aneesa_arur@abtassoc.com

Dr. Kathryn Banke has 9 years of epidemiology experience, with strong interests in field epidemiology, infectious disease surveillance, training, and research. Recent assignments include leading USAID-funded projects related to developing and strengthening avian influenza and other infectious disease surveillance and response systems in Tanzania and Azerbaijan, and immunization management information system strengthening in Yemen. She also supports monitoring and evaluation and research activities for the USAID-funded Private Sector Partnerships (PSP-One) project. Previously, she conducted and managed several research activities for the Global Immunization Division at the Centers for Disease Control, leading to first authorship of nine publications in peer-reviewed journals. In addition to extensive work experience in infectious disease epidemiology, she has also worked in the epidemiology of diabetes and renal disease. Dr. Banke has worked in numerous countries including Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Yemen, India, Afghanistan, Zambia, DR Congo, and the Latin America and Caribbean region. Dr. Banke has a PhD in epidemiology from Emory University and a BA in human biology from Stanford University. She is conversant in French and Spanish.
bankek@abtassoc.com

Nicole Barcikowski serves as director of country programs for Health Systems 20/20 overseeing all activities in the field and ensuring responsiveness to USAID mission and bureau clients. She has over 13 years experience in domestic and international health care. Her international experience includes design, implementation, and delivery of HIV/AIDS and child survival programs. Ms. Barcikowski has lived in both Kenya and Zimbabwe managing health programs for NGOs and has extensive experience throughout Africa, designing and managing Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) programs in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Ethiopia. She serves as a co-chair for the OVC Task Force and the Operation Smile Child Life Council. Ms. Barcikowski has a master’s degree in international development and health from Ohio University and with a background in psychology, psychosocial support, and counseling is a certified Child Life Specialist.
nicole_barcikowski@abtassoc.com

Elaine M. Baruwa has over 7 years experience designing and conducting economic evaluations in international health. Dr. Baruwa has evaluated projects in the health systems of the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and Nigeria. Previously, she has worked for GAVI’s PneumoADIP, based in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where she was the health economist working on vaccine demand forecasting, the sources and costs of vaccine wastage, and the long-term impact of vaccination on education and productivity. With Helen Keller International Dr. Baruwa worked on ensuring the financial sustainability of cataract programs in the Guangdong Province, China and her research helped to broaden the understanding and application of contingent valuation techniques in resource poor environments both in the academic literature and in health policy practice. Dr. Baruwa received her BSc in financial economics from Birkbeck College, University of London, an MSc in international health management from Imperial College University and a PhD in international health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she subsequently held a faculty position.
elaine_baruwa@abtassoc.com

Alix Beith has over 12 years of experience in international public health in a number of technical, program management, and geographical areas. For Health Systems 20/20, her technical foci include pharmaceutical management, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and health policy and financing. As an independent international public health consultant contracted through Broad Branch Associates, she is currently leading development of a paper on risk and causal factors of drug resistance for the Center for Global Development. Other recent undertakings include acting as a coordinator for the Health Systems Action Network (HSAN), developing fact sheets on selected innovative financing mechanisms for health, developing a report on contraceptive security in the context of decentralization and integration in Latin America and the Caribbean, and surveying and development of status reports for OGAC targeted evaluation studies. Previously, Alix worked for Management Sciences for Health, where her main focus was desktop research, survey/policy analysis, and development of policy recommendations regarding interventions to improve case detection and adherence to TB and HIV medicines. Alix has a bachelor's degree in biology and French from Tufts University and a M.Sc. in health policy, planning, and financing from the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is fluent in Spanish and French.
alixbeith@yahoo.com

Dr. Ricardo Bitrán is a senior health economist with 25 years of experience in Chile, the US, and over 40 developing countries. He is a professor of public health at the University of Chile’s School of Public Health and a professor of health economics at the school’s Master in Public Policy Program. Dr. Bitrán is also adjunct assistant professor at Boston’s University School of Public Health. His expertise includes the economic evaluation of health investment and reform projects, the study of health care markets, the analysis of equity, efficiency, and financial sustainability, and the delivery and financing of primary health care services. Dr. Bitrán served as the research director for the USAID-funded Health Financing and Sustainability project. Since 1994 he has been Bitrán y Asociados’ president and senior partner. He has twenty years of academic experience, with teaching posts or assignments in Chile, the US, France, Lebanon, China, Zaire, Thailand, and many other countries. He has served as senior advisor to the GAVI Alliance and World Bank on health immunizations issues and academic director of the World Bank Institute’s Flagship Program in Health Sector Reform and Sustainable Financing in Latin American and the Caribbean Region. Dr. Bitrán is author of numerous academic articles, books, and scientific papers.
ricardo.bitran@bitran.cl

Mr. Cahill’s experience includes 14 years of international consulting with BearingPoint and 15 years as a manager and policy analyst with the U.S. Congressional Research Service. His technical work has focused on health care financing and delivery, health operations and organizational development, public and private pension policy and reform, social protection, and most recently the regulation of non-bank financial institutions. Mr. Cahill has developed business and executed projects for major international bi-lateral and multi-lateral donor agencies (USAID, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Asian Development Bank). He has consulted for key counterparts in parliaments, ministries of health, social security/protection, and with financial sector regulators. Mr. Cahill has worked on and managed projects in a number of transition and emerging market countries including Egypt, Bulgaria, Kosovo, India, China, Iraq, Montenegro, Indonesia, Ukraine, Malawi, Jamaica, Bosnia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Macedonia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. Mr. Cahill has a master’s in political science from the University of North Carolina.
kenneth.cahill@bearingpoint.com

Slavea Chankova is a senior analyst with experience in Eastern Europe and South Asia. Her experience includes evaluating the effects of mutual health organizations on the demand for priority health services, particularly maternal health services, in Ghana and Mali; quantifying the human resource needs for reaching PEPFAR and MDG-related targets in Kenya and Nigeria using health facility survey data; reviewing the human resources situation in the Zambian health sector; and co-authoring a chapter on health financing in a health systems assessment tool. She has completed a survey of the evidence on financial barriers to the utilization of maternal health care. Prior work assignments include data analysis and program evaluation of the Integrated Child Development Program in India, HIV/AIDS prevention, gender mainstreaming, and microfinance projects with UNICEF-India, the UN Capital Development Fund, and the Microfinance Information Exchange. She holds a master’s degree in public affairs and a certificate in health and health policy from Princeton University, and a BA in economics from Bates College. Ms. Chankova speaks fluent English, Bulgarian, and Russian.
slavea_chankova@abtassoc.com

Susna De, MSc, MPH, has led a variety of National Health Accounts initiatives for the past 7 years, including directly assisting the governments of Kenya ('02,'06 estimations), Rwanda ('00,'02,'03,'06 estimations), and Vietnam ('04 estimation) with tracking and using health expenditure data. Susna has also contributed general technical guidance for other country NHA activities, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. She is a main contributor to the development and country application of new methodologies for monitoring the resource flows for HIV/AIDS (Vietnam, Kenya, Rwanda), reproductive health (in Rwanda), and for malaria (Rwanda). She has developed and delivered training courses on NHA, coordinated regional policymaker workshops and international conferences, and managed NHA activities under the former USAID/PHRplus project. Susna serves as the regional coordinator for East and Southern Africa under the USAID/HS 20/20 project.
susna_de@abtassoc.com

Yann Derriennic is a health systems and financing specialist with more than 25 years of field experience, mostly in Africa. His areas of expertise include health management, finance, strategic planning, organizational development, SWAps, program and project implementation, and evaluations. Mr. Derriennic has in-depth knowledge of African health system functioning and reforms, and has worked on and in SWAps and sector-wide approaches. Mr. Derriennic is currently assisting the Malian government in the analysis of health expenditure data from the latest DHS. Also in Mali, he is leading reflection on the impact of free malaria services and drugs on health system sustainability. Mr. Derriennic also works in Benin, where he provides institutional strengthening support to the National HIV/AIDS commission and is leading a study on indigent care and community based health financing organizations. An expert on malaria financing, Mr. Derriennic is co-chair of the Roll Back Malaria Resources Working Group. He is fluent in English and French and is based in Tunisia. Mr. Derriennic has an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Glendale Arizona.
yann_derriennic@abtassoc.com

Ms. De Valdenebro has over 20 years experience in the management, design, creation, and production of printed matter, collaterals, and electronic information systems for private and public sector agencies and government entities. Likewise, she has experience in providing training both nationally and internationally, in presentation techniques, graphic design, website development, and various software packages for personnel in ministries of health, education, and planning and statistics for countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Ms. De Valdenebro has designed and produced hundreds of products including reports, brochures, circulars, logotypes, books, magazines, catalogs, flyers, portfolios, exhibits, newsletters, toolkits, websites, and multimedia presentations. In 2003, she designed and produced the U.S. Department of Education’s annual report and report to Congress. Previously, Ms. De Valdenebro directed her own consulting and contracting firm where she established contracts with various U.S. government agencies as well as with other public and private sector companies. Ms. De Valdenebro is a native Spanish speaker, and received her BA and master’s in art and communication from Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogotá, Colombia.
mariaclaudia_de_valdenebro@abtassoc.com

Dr. Arin Dutta is a health economist and modeler with 6 years of experience in the fields of HIV/AIDS, infectious disease, and international political economy. He previously worked at the RAND Corporation where his research encompassed social sector analysis, governance and international development, M&E for international health projects, cost-effectiveness modeling of HIV/AIDS programs, and the epidemiology of infectious diseases. Dr. Dutta has also worked with the Brookings Institution and the Development Economics Research Group at the World Bank. His research in health economics has focused on resource allocation decisions and cost-effectiveness analysis for health programs in resource-poor settings. Dr. Dutta was for several years a consultant at the World Bank where he was involved with the global plan for pandemic influenza control since the inception of multilateral efforts in 2006, and also with economic analyses for health, nutrition, and population projects and technical assistance in the East Asia region. His research has been published in various fora including several policy working papers for the World Bank and in the World Bank Research Observer. Recent and forthcoming assignments for Health Systems 20/20 include costing of TB and HIV services in Nigeria and Ethiopia, human resources for health assessments and forecasts in Africa, and health workforce planning in Egypt. Dr. Dutta has a PhD in policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School and undergraduate degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Delhi.
arin_dutta@abtassoc.com

Dr. Rena Eichler has earned an international reputation as a leader in the design, implementation, and evaluation of payment systems that link provider/consumer payments to results. In Haiti, Dr. Eichler designed and helped implement a USAID-funded program that contracts with NGOs whose payments are linked to the achievement of health results. In addition, Dr. Eichler partnered with the World Bank and WHO to identify tuberculosis control programs that use financial and material incentives to improve case detection and treatment completion. Widely disseminated results are now influencing tuberculosis programs worldwide to introduce incentives that address program performance challenges. Recognition that nonfunctional health systems cannot prevent disease and promote health led Dr. Eichler to partner with the Partners for Health Reformplus (PHRplus) project to lay the foundation for the creation of the Health Systems Action Network (HSAN), a global entity that will promote stronger and more coordinated action to strengthen health systems. Dr. Eichler has effectively integrated private sector management skills with her technical training as an economist to manage and mentor mid-level staff and to develop, manage, implement, and evaluate field and research activities. In addition, she has presented the results of her work at numerous workshops, conferences, and technical seminars. Dr. Eichler holds a PhD in economics from Boston University.
renaeichler@comcast.net

Marianne El-Khoury is an economist focusing on Health Systems 20/20 work on health workforce planning in Egypt. Previously, Marianne spent 5 years working at both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, where she focused on a wide variety of fields including public sector governance, poverty alleviation, public expenditure management, and financial sector reform. She has extensive experience in data analysis and participated in various technical assistance missions to countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. She holds a master's degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University with a concentration in development studies. She has a second master's degree and a BA in economics from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. Marianne is fluent in Arabic, English, and French and has working knowledge of Spanish.
marianne_elkhoury@abtassoc.com

Dr. Escobar received both her MD and MPH from the University of Chile and is a graduate from PAHO’s Diploma in Management of Health Care Organizations and International Health programs. She has 24 four years of experience as an MD, a public health expert consultant, and a senior director and manager of public and private health institutions. She has directed some of the largest public and private hospitals in Chile and has extensive experience in the interaction between public and private health agents. She has been a consultant in a dozen countries in Latin America and the Caribbean advising governments and public institutions on issues pertaining to primary health care delivery, epidemiology, hospital and health services management and evaluation, financing, medical models, provider payment, health insurance, and quality assurance. In Chile, she co-authored studies that defined provider payment mechanisms in the public sector for the National Health Fund and the MOH. She has served as medical director of one of Chile’s largest HMOs, participated in the management of one of the country’s largest preferred provider organizations, Integramedica, and was medical director of Colmena Golden Cross for 5 years.
liliana.escobar@bitran.cl

Dr. Laurel Hatt has nine years of experience in international and domestic health research, with expertise in health economics, econometrics, international health systems reform, and statistical analysis of data from large surveys. She is currently conducting a costing study on HIV/AIDS services in Cote d’Ivoire as well as managing the AWARE-Reproductive Health project in West Africa. Dr. Hatt has experience in National Health Accounts analysis, impact evaluations, and qualitative research methods. She came to Abt Associates from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she analyzed demographic and health survey data from Indonesia, Burkina Faso, and Ghana for the Initiative for Maternal Mortality Program Assessment. She also worked on the Zinc Task Force, the Family Health and Child Survival Project, and the Inter-Agency Working Group on Private Participation and Child Health, doing extensive research and data analysis for these projects. Previously, Dr. Hatt consulted for the World Bank, examining health care-seeking behaviors among the rural poor in Indonesia, and their perceptions of health system quality. She received her MPH and PhD in international health from Johns Hopkins. She has conversational language abilities in French, Spanish, and Indonesian.
Laurel_Hatt@abtassoc.com

David Hotchkiss is the monitoring and evaluation advisor for Health Systems 20/20 and a professor in Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He is a health economist and demographer with more than 17 years of experience in research, teaching, and consultancy in more than 15 low- and middle-income countries. Most of his research relates to health care financing and utilization, including demand analysis, sources of financing, equity analysis, and evaluations of health systems strengthening interventions. He has published more than 30 articles in peer-reviewed health economics and policy journals, and has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and USAID. He received his MA in demography from Georgetown University and his PhD in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
hotchkis@tulane.edu

Dr. Mursaleena Islam is an economist with more than 7 years of experience conducting research and managing implementation in a wide variety of projects. Dr. Islam specializes in international development, health and environmental economics with expertise in health financing and economics, health policy, financial planning, costing, and health systems. Her work has included: studying health-seeking behavior of the urban poor in Asia, understanding the economic impact of avian flu, and developing alternate financing mechanisms to increase access to health care services by the poor. Dr. Islam has also been involved in the design of a health systems assessment approach under the Partners for Health Reformplus and Health Systems 20/20 projects and coordinated development and pilot testing internally and with external partners. Previously, she worked on evaluation of water management policies in Bangladesh and managed projects on economic valuation and litigation in the US corporate sector. She has experience coordinating large project teams, synthesizing and disseminating study findings, and collaborating with partners in multi-disciplinary and multi-regional settings. Dr. Islam received her BS degree in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her MA in economics from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and her PhD in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
mursaleena_islam@abtassoc.com

Steve Joyce is an accomplished trainer, facilitator, and senior organizational development specialist with over 20 years of experience in designing and implementing activities for private and public sector organizations in the United States and in countries in Africa, Asia/Near East, Latin America, and Europe and Eurasia. He specializes in stakeholder participation, team building, institutional-strengthening programs, management and leadership development, and policy dialogue. He has worked in the health, agriculture, privatization, and environment sectors, largely designing and implementing processes to enable the participation of broadly diverse stakeholders in development programs and activities. For five years, Mr. Joyce served as the public awareness specialist for the USAID-funded Agriculture Policy Reform Project in Cairo, Egypt and helped develop the capacity of associations to engage their stakeholders and implement processes that effectively communicate information to promote reform. Recently, Mr. Joyce has participated in a local government decentralization effort in Albania, conducting needs assessments and designing participatory processes to include stakeholders. At present, as TRG project manager for the USAID-funded Agricultural Development Project in Iraq, Mr. Joyce is designing and facilitating stakeholder workshops that help build collegiality and a shared vision while actively engaging stakeholders in problem solving, planning, and implementation. He has an MA in English literature from the University of Chicago.
sjoyce@trg-inc.com

Dr. Gilbert Kombe serves as HIV/AIDS senior technical advisor and oversees the technical approach to HIV/AIDS in the Health Systems 20/20 project. He provides leadership to regional and country teams in determining achievable, sustainable short- and long-term strategies to strengthen health system capacity to provide effective HIV/AIDS and service interventions. He is a public health physician with extensive experience in primary health care and public health in both developing countries and the United States. His international experience includes designing and implementing tuberculosis control programs, costing and financing of health services programs, health systems strengthening, maternal and child health, and HIV/AIDS. His research areas include access to and utilization of services, barriers to health care, health disparities, and evaluation research. He has extensive experience as a master trainer and serves as adjunct professor of global health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Dr. Kombe has a master’s degree in international public health from the George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery (general practitioner) from Tongji Medical University in China. He is fluent in Chinese, English, Bemba, and Swahili.
gilbert_kombe@abtassoc.com