Global Health Grand Rounds
Sponsored by University Hospitals Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health in collaboration with University Hospitals Health Services Research Center and Case Western Reserve University Andrew B. Kaufman Global Medicine Pathway.
The Global Health Grand Rounds is a free virtual event open to the academic community on the second Tuesday of each month from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. U.S. EST. The session consists of extramural-funded researchers, leaders and renowned experts invited to share their scholarly insights on cutting-edge research and perspectives on global health.
2026 Speakers
Igho Ofotokun, MD, MSc, FIDSA
Dr. Ofotokun is Chair of the Department of Medicine at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University and serves as Physician-in-Chief for the University Hospitals Health System. His research focuses on the impact of age-related comorbidities on healthy aging in persons with HIV and leads global collaborations to understand the underlying pathobiology. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and recipient of the 2024 NFID Maxwell Finland Scientific Achievement Award and the 2025 American Academy of Microbiology Honorary Diversity Lecturer Award.
Case Western Reserve University
Beena Kamath-Rayne, MD, MPH, FAAP
Dr. Kamath-Rayne is the Senior Vice President of Global Health and Clinical Skills at the American Academy of Pediatrics and a practicing neonatologist at Northwestern University and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She oversees the AAP’s global health portfolio, clinical skills training programs and the NICU Verification Program. Her work centers on the development, implementation and evaluation of programs to improve pediatric outcomes worldwide, including Helping Babies Breathe and the WHO Essential Newborn Care course, among others. She has served on the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation Neonatal Content Expert Group since 2016, and has research supported by the Gates Foundation, NIH, and the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Foundation. She is a member of the Society for Pediatric Research and was inducted into the American Pediatric Society in 2025.
Matthew Bonds, PhD
Matthew Bonds is an associate professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School and cofounder of Pivot. He holds PhDs in both economics and ecology from the University of Georgia, and his work broadly explores complex systems at the intersection of health and economic development. His research spans mathematical and statistical modeling of coupled human–ecological systems and field-based implementation science. Pivot partners with the Government of Madagascar to develop a model health system serving a population of one million. By building novel data systems across all levels of care—community, primary, and hospital—and integrating population and geospatial data, the partnership aims to advance the science of health system transformation. This work has generated some of the strongest evidence in Africa on how strengthening local health systems improves population health.
Rajesh Vedanthan, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA
Dr. Rajesh Vedanthan is the Director of the Section for Global Health in the Institute for Excellence in Health Equity at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is Professor with Tenure in the Departments of Population Health and Medicine/Cardiology. He is a physician-scientist who is internationally recognized for his contributions to improving global cardiovascular health and health equity. His areas of interest include implementation science, global health delivery, global cardiology, climate change and health, capacity building, and the intersection of health and development.
He is the Principal Investigator or co-investigator of multiple global health-related NIH grants, and he has been continuously supported by NIH grants for nearly 15 years. He is also the Executive Director of AMPATH Ghana, which, in partnership with the University for Development Studies and Tamale Teaching Hospital in Tamale, northern Ghana, aims to improve the health and well-being of people in communities in northern Ghana; educate tomorrow’s medical experts worldwide; and jointly research breakthroughs that will inform improvements in population health and health equity around the world.
He has mentored and supervised nearly 100 trainees, leading to several abstracts, publications, and research awards including several AHA Student Scholarships in Cardiovascular Disease, multiple Fogarty Global Health and T32 Fellows, as well as career development awards.
Elizabeth Brickley, PhD
Dr. Brickley is Director of the Center for Global Health at the Colorado School of Public Health, inaugural holder of the Stephen Berman, MD Endowed Chair in Global Health and Professor in Infectious Disease Epidemiology & International Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her research addresses infectious and environmental exposures during pregnancy and early childhood across more than 30 countries, informing interventions for polio, Zika, and leprosy. She has served on WHO advisory committees on vaccine safety and global polio monitoring.
Gregory Valentine, MD, MEd, FAAP
Dr. Valentine is Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Washington. His research examines maternal infection and inflammation, particularly periodontal disease, and its impact on pregnancy and neonatal outcomes, while developing affordable innovations for resource-limited settings. He serves as a WHO consultant on antenatal corticosteroids and Every Newborn Action Plan, with work supported by the NIH and Thrasher Foundation.
Melissa Bauserman, MD, MPH, DTM&H
Dr. Bauserman is Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and U.S. Principal Investigator for the UNC-Kinshasa School of Public Health partnership within the NICHD Global Network for Women and Children’s Health Research. Her research focuses on malaria in early pregnancy, fetal growth, and stunting, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was elected to the American Pediatric Society in 2025. Her with work has been supported by the NIH and Gates Foundation.
Christine Ngaruiya, MD, MSc, DTM&H
Dr. Ngaruiya is Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University and directs the Stanford Emergency Medicine International Global and Population Health Section. Her research addresses noncommunicable diseases, barriers to care, and implementation science, with a focus on Africa. Her work has been supported by the NIH, Gates Foundation, USAID, World Bank, and American Psychiatric Association.
Sudha Jayaraman, MD, MSc, FACS
Dr. Jayaraman is Professor in the Department of Surgery and Director of the Center for Global Surgery at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on trauma systems and injury epidemiology in Uganda and Rwanda. She serves as a Board Examiner for the College of Surgeons of East, Central, and Southern Africa and was awarded the Cliff C. Snyder MD Far Eastern Presidential Endowed Chair (2023) and the J. Englebert Dunphy Visiting Professorship at UCSF (2025). Her work has been supported by the NIH, NIHR, and Rotary Foundation.
Prabhat Jha, MD, DPhil
Dr. Jha is Professor and Head of the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on large-scale epidemiological studies of major causes of death in low-resource settings and randomized intervention trials. His work informed the global tobacco control treaty signed by over 180 countries and quantified malaria mortality, leading to vaccine trials. A Rhodes Scholar, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada (2012) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the U.S. National Academy of Medicine.
Anne CC Lee, MD, MPH
Dr. Lee is Levinger Family Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Founding Director of the Global Alliance for Infant and Maternal Health Research at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School. Her research focuses on perinatal epidemiology and interventions to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality globally. She invented the Bili-ruler, a non-invasive tool for screening newborn jaundice in low-resource settings. She was elected to the American Pediatric Society in 2022. Her work has been supported by the NIH and Gates Foundation.
Hema Magge, MD, MS
Dr. Magge is Senior Officer for Innovation to Scale on the Africa Health team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where she leads efforts to integrate high-quality clinical service delivery for women and infants. From 2020 to 2024, she directed strategic investments in global newborn health before transitioning to her current role focused on scaling innovations in Africa. Previously, she served as Executive Director for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Ethiopia. Her work emphasizes health system improvement, implementation research, and equity-driven program design.