Peer Reviewers
Prof. Dr. med Rolf Korte
Jason Taylor Wright MSFS MA
Dr. Richard Zaleskis
Dr. Masoud Dara
Annette Vester
Prof. Mushtaque Chowdhury
Gina Lagomarsino
Christopher Castle
Regina Görgen
Dr. Itziar Larizgoitia
Dr. Manfred Zahorka
Dr. Joy Backory
Dr. Greg Munro
Prof. Dr. med Rolf Korte
Rolf Korte is Honorary Professor at the Justus-Liebig University, Department of Hygiene and Environmental Health teaching tropical medicine, and international health. He is a senior health policy advisor to the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and the German development agency, GTZ.
Until recently he was Chair of the independent Technical Evaluation Reference Group (TERG) appointed by the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM). He is currently Member of the Joint Coordinating Board of the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR).
He was the Director of the Health and Education Department of the German development agency, GTZ, for many years and represented his organization in many fora including the World Health Assembly and technical bodies of WHO.
He served for many years as a co-editor of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology. He led the establishment of Tropical Medicine and International Health, a European Journal, a merger of several national journals and still serves on the editorial board.
Rolf Korte was two times President of the German Society for Tropical Medicine and International Health (DTG) and Founding President of the Federation of European Societies for Tropical Medicine and International Health (FESTMIH). He obtained a public health degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and completed postgraduate training in Nutrition, Tropical Medicine and Quality Management, his special areas of interest.
He has published substantially in scientific journals.
He lived and worked in Kenya, Tanzania and Papua New Guinea.
Jason Taylor Wright MSFS MA
Jason Wright is Multilateral Team Leader and Liaison to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of HIV/AIDS. From 2002 to 2008, he was Donor Coordinator Advisor in the USAID Bureau for Global Health.
From 1998 to 2002, Mr. Wright was HIV/AIDS Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Global Health Affairs. From 1997 to 1998, he was Special Assistant to the Director of the HHS Office of International and Refugee Health.
Mr. Wright has a Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS), a Master of Arts (MA) in History, and a Certificate in German Public and International Affairs from Georgetown University. He has a Bachelor of Arts (BA) summa cum laude in Political Economy (Historical Concentration) and German Language and Literature with a Minor in Political Science from Tulane University. He earned the Murphy Prize in Political Economy and the German Government Prize for Excellence in German. He spent his Junior Year Abroad at the Universität Hamburg.
Dr. Richard Zaleskis graduated from Riga Medical University with a Medical Doctor degree in 1976. Since then he has dedicated his entire practical and scientific career to the study and combat of tuberculosis (TB). In 1984 he graduated with a Ph.D. from the Central Research Institute of Tuberculosis in Moscow. Afterwards he worked at the Tuberculosis Chair of the Medical University in Riga – first as Assistant Professor, then Associated Professor and later as Head of the Chair as well as deputy director of the Latvian Centre for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases.
Since 1994 he works for WHO in different positions, and since 2000 for the Copenhagen based WHO Regional Office for Europe as a WHO Regional Adviser for TB Control.
He is a member of: International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (UNION) and vice chair of UNION’s Tuberculosis Scientific section; Executive Committee and Council of UNION Europe region; Latvian Association of Pneumologists. He is the Author and co-author of number of papers and articles.
Dr. Masoud Dara
After graduation from Medical University and working in infectious diseases/TB hospital in Iran, Dr Masoud Dara obtained medical board from The United States in 1998. Dr Dara continued his carrier in public health with Médecins Sans Frontières implementing TB control projects in Central Asian Republics 1998-2000 and thereafter rebuilding health system of after-war Kosovo 2000-2001.
In 2001-2003 he joined the World Health Organization in the Russian Federation as a Medical Officer assisting the country improving TB control. Since 2003, Dr Dara has been working as a senior consultant at the international unit of KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation and WHO consultant/adviser. He has 12 years working experience in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and West Africa, supporting national TB control programs in the civilian and penitentiary sectors, providing technical advice, program reviews, assisting in clinical and programmatic management of MDR-TB, TB/HIV, TB policy making and training of staff in the region.
He is a member of the MDR-TB, TB/HIV and TB Infection control working groups of Stop TB partnership, the scientific committee of “Patients-Centered approaches” a project funded by the EU in West Africa, the Health in Prison Project in Europe, GLC consultant, the Wolfheze programme committee and the Chair of International scientific working group on TB control in prisons. Dr Dara is the author and co-author of a number of articles and guidelines related to TB control.
Anette Vester is the focal point on harm reduction, injecting drug use and prisons in the WHO HIV department. Her main tasks are to develop the evidence base, normative guidance and advocacy documents, and provide advocacy and technical assistance on these issues at the global level.
Prof. Mushtaque Chowdhury is a senior adviser and associate director of the Rockefeller Foundation. He is also a professor of population and family health at Columbia University. Prior to joining the Foundation, Prof Chowdhury was deputy executive director of BRAC and founding dean of the James P. Grant School of Public Health in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Gina Lagomarsino
Gina Lagomarsino is a Managing Director at Results for Development (R4D) with a focus on health system design and financing. She leads the Center for Health Market Innovations, which collects and analyzes information on programs and policies with potential to improve health markets in developing countries. She is also one of the founders of the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage, a low and middle income countries implementing national health insurance reforms.
Prior to joining R4D, Gina was Senior Health Policy Advisor to Washington, DC Mayor Anthony Williams. She designed and implemented a managed care reform to improve health outcomes and operational sustainability of a public health insurance program serving low-income DC residents. She led the District’s effort to implement the Medical Homes initiative to expand and improve the quality of private community health centers serving the poor. In addition, she led an initiative to develop a new teaching hospital as a public-private partnership between the DC government and Howard University. Prior to her work in the public sector, she was an engagement manager in the Healthcare Practice of McKinsey & Company, where she advised senior executives of health insurance and hospital organizations on strategy and operations. She also worked for Kaiser Permanente, a private integrated financing and delivery system, based in the state of California, where she implemented a new model of primary care at a large multi-specialty medical center and served as a market research consultant for Kaiser insurance products.
Gina holds a Master's in Business Administration from Harvard University and a Bachelor's degree in Public Policy with Honors from Stanford University.
Christopher Castle is the Chief, Section of Education and HIV & AIDS, in the Division of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development in UNESCO’s Education Sector, and he is also the UNESCO Focal Point for HIV and AIDS. Mr. Castle has more than 20 years experience working on development in the areas of education and health.
His most recent position before joining UNESCO in 2004 was as a research associate at the Horizons programme, led by the Population Council, managing operations research in the areas of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support with an emphasis on scaling up programmes and involving populations key to the dynamics of the epidemic. Before Horizons, he worked at HealthLink Worldwide, based in the UK, as the coordinator for their HIV and sexual health programme. Mr. Castle holds a BS in International Studies and French from The American University, and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Regina Görgen, MSc, MPH, PhD (Liverpool)
Regina Görgen is a reproductive health and HIV prevention expert with a longstanding experience in evaluation research (20 years) on regional and national level for government agencies, bilateral donors, development banks, European Community and NGOs in in many countries in Africa and Asia. Her special interest in applied research and backstopping of implementation is adolescent sexual and reproductive health and sex education. She is a lecturer in postgraduate training programmes in reproductive health, sex-education, behavioural change communication and evaluation at universities in Heidelberg and Berlin.
Dr. Itziar Larizgoitia is Coordinator at the World Health Organization (WHO) Patient Safety Programme, where she heads the Knowledge Management & Research Department. Dr Larizgoitia has been with WHO Patient Safety since the launch of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety in 2004. She joined WHO as a senior health specialist in the year 2000 where she joined the team for Health Services Delivery, Quality of Care and Performance Assessment. Dr Larizgoitia has more than 20 years experience in public health where she has taken different challenges related with Quality and Patient Safety Improvement and Health Services Organization. Dr Larizgoitia's qualifications include her Degree as Medical Doctor from the Spanish University of the Basque Region (1982), a Masters of Public Health from Glasgow University, UK (1987), and a Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) by the Department of Health Policy and Management of the Johns Hopkins University, US (1996).
Dr. Manfred Zahorka, MPH, DTMP&H, EOQ-QSM, EOQ Auditor; senior public health expert, epidemiologist, project manager, family physician, quality systems manager at the Swiss Centre for International Health within the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) has some 20 years of experience working in development cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central & Eastern Europe and Central Asia managing and evaluating projects in the area of Maternal and Child Health with a focus on Perinatology, Family Planning and Family Health, quality assurance and quality management. In the various projects he provides training, managerial and implementation support in operations research activities (Situation analysis studies, baseline assessments and evaluation research, user satisfaction, etc.), conducts and supports Quality Assurance and Quality Management processes at a systemic and institutional level. He supported the implementation of quality assurance initiatives in the Gambia family planning program, implemented Quality Management schemes in Romanian, Ukrainian and Moldovan health care institutions and was the team leader of the evaluation of the GTZ SQI approach in Guinea Conakry 2005.
His current tasks are:
- Team leader for various Maternal and Child Health related programs in several countries in Eastern Europe funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
- Team leader for the SDC funded health sector support programs in the Great Lakes region (Rwanda, Burundi, South-Kivu/DRC)
- Quality Systems Manager for SCIH
- Team Leader for World Bank funded continuous quality improvement in health projects in Romania and QA/QM expert for quality components of SDC funded and SCIH managed programs in Eastern Europe.
- Various consultancies for training in QM and continuous quality improvement, evaluation of QM related projects, internal and systems audits in health care institutions.
Dr. Joy Backory is a France-trained HIV physician, who has extensive knowledge in ARV treatment programmes in resource-poor settings, community experience as a past AIDS activist and experience in the national AIDS programme management in Mauritius. He is currently a civil society Partnerships adviser in the UNAIDS Secretariat in Geneva, working primarily on technical support for the civil society and the latter’s role in the broader health and development agenda.
Dr. Greg Munro
Associate Director of Technical Support, International HIV/AIDS Alliance
Dr Greg Munro is a medical doctor who has a Masters degree in both Public Health and in HIV management. He has had extensive experience in co-ordinating and managing Global Fund technical support and capacity development in the multi-lateral, civil society and private sectors across four continents, but with a specific focus on civil society in sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently the Associate Director of Technical Support at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance secretariat in Brighton, United Kingdom.
