Papreen Nahar, PhD, University of Sussex, United Kingdom
Papreen Nahar is a medical anthropologist with over 20 years of experience in global health research, capacity building, and fostering equitable community engagement partnerships in South Asia and East Africa. She specializes in ethnography, employing qualitative and participatory research methodologies, as well as gender and intersectionality frameworks, to enhance the sustainability of health services for vulnerable populations in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Papreen’s expertise spans neglected long-term conditions like infertility and childlessness, neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and mental health. She has led capacity-building and global health research projects across Bangladesh, India, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, South America, the Netherlands, and the UK. She has published extensively on topics such as infertility-childlessness, Podoconiosis, Antimicrobial-Resistance, Diabetes, Depression, Cardiovascular diseases, Co-designing NHS feedback system, M-Health, Migrants' well-being & acculturation, Adolescent Sexuality, and Natural disasters. Papreen is currently a Senior Research Fellow in Medical Anthropology and Global Health at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex.
Weblink: https://www.bsms.ac.uk/about/contact-us/staff/dr-papreen-nahar.aspx
Laura Dean, PhD, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom
Laura Dean is a public health specialist with over 15 years of experience of research, capacity strengthening, and partnerships for community led-development and health systems strengthening in Africa and Asia. Laura’s training is in the social sciences and her research utilises qualitative, narrative, and participatory research methodologies to support the strengthening of people-centred health systems for the management of neglected tropical diseases, disability inclusion and the integration of mental health services. She has led multiple multi-partner research programmes, developing long standing research collaborations across fragile and conflict affected States within West and Central Africa and South Asia. Drawing on intersectionality and gender theory, all of the research that she leads engages with marginalised populations and people with lived experience of NTDs, mental health conditions and disability to ensure their needs, values and priorities are recognised within health systems reform and community action. Laura is currently a Reader in Social Science and Global Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and leads the Mental Health, Inclusion, NTDs and Disability (MIND) research group.
Lisa Dikomitis, PhD, University of Kent, United Kingdom
Professor Lisa Dikomitis is a Belgian-Cypriot medical anthropologist. She is the Director of the Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, a research unit with over 60 researchers, and Co-Director of Research at the Kent and Medway Medical School. Professor Dikomitis was awarded over £24 million from UK funding bodies, of which over £9 million as lead investigator (including global health programmes ECLIPSE, ORI, and SOLACE). After completing significant ethnographic work on refugee issues and displacement, Professor Dikomitis expanded her research beyond social anthropology to engage with timely issues in health research. Her work is characterized by generating bridges between radically different academic disciplines. Professor Dikomitis has pioneered new and transformative ways of conducting interdisciplinary global health research, combining anthropology, development studies and health services research with culturally appropriate and context-bespoke community engagement. She published over 90 peer-reviewed publications, including a monograph and edited volumes. Strongly committed to communicating science publicly, she curated several exhibitions and podcasts, and regularly writes for non-academic audiences. Professor Dikomitis has been member of several NIHR, AHRC, MRC and Wellcome funding panels.
Weblink: https://research.kent.ac.uk/chss/person/lisa-dikomitis/
Clarice Mota, PhD, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil
Clarice Mota is an Anthropologist with a master's degree in Collective Health, PhD in Sociology at the Federal University of Bahia and a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of York, UK. Since 2009, she is a full-time professor at the Institute of Collective Health, Federal University of Bahia, under the Department of Public Health. Vice-coordinator of the Integrated Program for Research and Technical Cooperation Community, Family and Health (FASA), she participated in research projects as coordinator and researcher, focusing on communities and groups affected by social vulnerability, racial inequality and neglected diseases, such as: “Accessibility in Primary Health Care from the Perspective of the Black Population in a neighborhood of Salvador - focus on Sickle Cell Disease and Diabetes Melittus II” (2009-2011); The candomblé family and the religious network: role in the production of meanings and health care practices (2010-2012); Therapeutic itineraries of people with sickle cell disease in Salvador: a study on accessibility to health services (2014-2016); Vulnerability, Therapeutic Itineraries and Comprehensive Care in the face of Chronicity: focus on Sickle Cell Disease and Chronic Leuchemia (2017-2020); - Empowering people with Cutaneous Leishmaniasis: Research and Intervention Programme to improve patient itinerary and reduce Stigma via Community Education (Brazil) (2020-2024); Living conditions and health of quilombola communities in Bahia and Sergipe (2020-2024).
