Speakers Archive - WISH

Dr. Abdullah Alarifi

wish admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:26:38 +0000

Dr. Abdullah M. Alarifi is the Director-General of Global Health at the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia and Senior Advisor to the Deputy Minister for Population Health. His work as a public health and global health physician spans global health diplomacy, population health, health-system transformation, and international health policy. He represents Saudi Arabia in key global health processes and contributes to the Kingdom’s engagement with the World Health Organization, through the WHO Executive Board. His work focuses on connecting national health priorities with global health governance, multilateral collaboration, and evidence-informed policy. At the national level, Dr. Alarifi has led and contributed to major population health initiatives, including Saudi Arabia’s National Population Health Strategic Framework and work advancing healthy ageing, healthy life expectancy, the Sustainable Development Goals, and universal health coverage. Dr. Alarifi is also an Adjunct Professor and a member of the Global Health Hub at Alfaisal University, and Co-Founder and Vice Chair of the Saudi Longevity Society. He holds an MBBS from King Saud University and a Master of Public Health from Cardiff University. He is board-certified in both Preventive Medicine and Community Medicine and is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health. He has authored numerous scientific publications and has extensive experience across public health policy, research, academia, and global health diplomacy.

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Dr. Ahmed Elmagarmid

wish admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:23:23 +0000

Ahmed K. Elmagarmid is the Executive Director of the Qatar Computing Research Institute at Hamad Bin Khalifa University and an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University, USA. He previously served as Chief Scientist at Hewlett-Packard’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Elmagarmid has contributed significantly to Qatar’s research and knowledge ecosystem, including the founding of Sidra Medicine and Qatar National Library, and the establishment of the Qatar Genome Program. He has also served on numerous boards in Qatar and the United States. As an accomplished computer scientist, he leads an active research programme focused on data wrangling. He has authored six books and more than 180 research papers and has chaired the IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), ACM SIGMOD, and other international conferences. He is a recipient of the ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award and an IEEE Life Fellow, ACM Fellow, and AAAS Fellow. In 1988, he received the Presidential Young Investigator Award from President Ronald Reagan. In 2020, he joined the Washington Institute’s Council of Advisors and was named a Distinguished Fellow. He also serves as Co-Chair of the AI National Committee. Dr. Elmagarmid has been recognised as a Distinguished Alumnus of The Ohio State University and the University of Dayton.

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Ms. Amani Salah

wish admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 10:28:24 +0000

Amani Salah brings more than 25 years of experience in humanitarian affairs, having worked with the United Nations and international NGOs in some of the most complex crisis settings. She currently serves as Head of Field Coordination for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Syria, based in Damascus, following a one-year assignment as Acting Head of Office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Previously, Amani led the subfield office in Lattakia and oversaw crossline operations in Aleppo, contributing to the delivery of lifesaving assistance in challenging environments. Before working in Syria, she managed the Humanitarian Financing Unit for the Jordan Humanitarian Fund and served as Regional Emergency Fund Manager for Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Her extensive field experience spans Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Her areas of expertise include program development, humanitarian financing, coordination, monitoring and evaluation, capacity building, resource mobilisation, and donor engagement. Amani holds a Master of Business Administration and is committed to principled, effective humanitarian action.

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Dr. Anders Nordstrom

wish admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:27:44 +0000

Anders Nordström is the former Swedish Ambassador for Global Health (2010-2023). He is a medical doctor and completed his studies at the Karolinska Institute. Today, he is an advisor affiliated with the Karolinska Institute and the Stockholm School of Economics. He is currently a member of the board of the Alliance for Health Systems Research, a member of the NUS-Lancet PRIME Commission, Chair of the International Vaccine Institute Global Advisory Group of Experts, and a member of the Virchow Foundation for Global Health Council. Recently, he led the Secretariat for the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (2020-2021) and remains an active contributor to the Panel’s work. At the World Health Organization (WHO), he served as Acting Director-General from May 2006 to January 2007, as Assistant Director-General for General Management from 2003 to 2006, and as Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Services in 2007. He was Head of the WHO Country Office in Sierra Leone from 2015 to 2017. As Interim Executive Director, he established The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as a legal entity in 2002. He previously served as a board member of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the GAVI Alliance, UNAIDS, and the Partnership for Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health, and has chaired a number of international working groups and processes. From 2007 to 2010, he was the Director-General of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

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Professor Andrea B. Maier

wish admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 20:33:14 +0000

Andrea Maier is the Oon Chiew Seng Professor in Medicine at the NUS Academy of Healthy Longevity, National University of Singapore, and Professor of Gerontology at the Department of Human Movement Sciences, VU Amsterdam. From 2016 to early 2021, she served as Divisional Director at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia, and as Professor of Medicine and Aged Care at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She graduated in Medicine from the University of Lübeck, Germany, and was registered in the Netherlands in 2009 as a Specialist in Internal Medicine-Geriatrics. She was appointed Full Professor of Gerontology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands in 2013. Andrea B. Maier is an authority in geroscience and precision geromedicine, with more than 500 peer-reviewed publications (h-index: 92; i10-index: 382). She is an invited member and advisor to international academic and health policy committees and funding agencies, including the World Health Organization, where she contributes to the evaluation of the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing, and Hevolution. She is the Founding President and immediate past President of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society and serves as a selected member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities, a Fellow of the Atria Academy of Science and Medicine, and a Board Member of the Academy for Health and Lifespan Research. In 2023, she co-founded the NUS Academy for Healthy Longevity to conduct, teach and disseminate geroscience and precision geromedicine. To bring the highest standards of evidence-based precision geromedicine into clinical practice, she founded Chi Longevity, Asia’s first evidence-based precision geromedicine clinic, in 2022 and established Maier’s Longevity in 2024 in the Netherlands.

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Professor Anushka Alankar Patel

wish admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 10:32:37 +0000

Professor Anushka Patel is a cardiologist and CEO of The George Institute for Global Health. She holds a conjoint professorial appointment at UNSW Sydney and a visiting professorship at Imperial College London. With over 25 years of experience in clinical and implementation science, she has led research programs that have shaped cardiovascular disease prevention and care worldwide. Her early leadership of the landmark ADVANCE trial set new standards in vascular disease prevention for people with diabetes. Her work subsequently expanded to finding solutions that bridge research and real-world impact, most notably through the development of cardiovascular “polypills” and digital health technologies that strengthen primary care systems. This combination therapy research directly led to the creation of George Medicines, a social enterprise that Professor Patel currently chairs and that is bringing a low-cost triple combination antihypertensive to market. Following its FDA approval in 2025, licensing agreements for the treatment have been secured in multiple regions. Her contributions have been recognized with numerous honours, including the Gustav Nossal Medal in Global Health from the Australian Academy of Science. At The George Institute, Professor Patel supports a team of more than 1,000 staff across four major offices in Australia, India, and the UK, driving collaborative research with global reach. She also helps shape national and international health policy. She chairs the Research Committee of the Australian Government’s National Health and Medical Research Council and has advised organizations such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

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Mr. Charles Sabga

wish admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:42:40 +0000

Charles Sabga is an Attorney-at-Law and holds a Bachelor of Laws degree (LLB) (Honours) from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, a Master of Laws degree (LLM) in Public International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Mediation from the University of the West Indies. After working with the Office of the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago from March 2003 to August 2006, Charles assumed duties as the Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Office in Port of Spain from September 2006 to February 2010. He then served as the ICRC Delegate for Caribbean Community (CARICOM) States from May 2010 to August 2012, based at the ICRC Regional Delegation in Caracas, Venezuela. From September 2012, Charles served as the ICRC Regional Legal Adviser, based in New Delhi, for South Asia and Iran, covering Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iran, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. In November 2014, he assumed the post of the ICRC Legal Adviser to Common Law States, based at the ICRC Headquarters in Geneva, where he held the portfolios of criminal repression, weapons treaties, sexual violence in armed conflict, and private military and security companies, among other issues. In August 2017, Charles became Deputy Head of Delegation of the ICRC’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York City, and thereafter served as the ICRC Diplomatic Adviser for the Asia-Pacific region from November 2018 to April 2019. Subsequently, he assumed duties as the Head of the ICRC’s Mission in the Republic of Korea until December 2020, and then as the Deputy Head of the Regional Delegation for Panama and the Caribbean until his appointment as the Deputy Head of the ICRC Delegation in Iraq (Programmes) in July 2021, where he served until April 2023. In June 2023, Charles returned to the ICRC Headquarters as Senior Delegate to Operations, supporting the ICRC’s work in Russia, Ukraine, and Gaza. From May 2024 to June 2026, he served as the Deputy Head of the ICRC Delegation (Operations) in Afghanistan, with direct responsibility for security and humanitarian operations. On 1 August 2026, Charles assumed the position of Head of the ICRC Delegation in Qatar.

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Ms. Christina Wille

wish admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:19:09 +0000

Christina Wille is the founding Director of Insecurity Insight, an organization that strengthens the evidence base on violence affecting the humanitarian sector. Under her leadership, Insecurity Insight has pioneered the use of AI technology to track attacks on aid workers, healthcare, and education, as well as violence affecting food security, and to identify reports of conflict-related violence. Its data is widely cited in humanitarian reports. Insecurity Insight also analyzes social media sentiment expressed on digital platforms to better understand viral attacks on aid. Christina edits the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition report, highlighting violence affecting health services in conflict zones. She also serves on the boards of the H2H Network and Explosive Weapons Monitor, contributing her expertise to global discussions on violence and humanitarian action and supporting the integration of data-driven insights into humanitarian response strategies. Christina holds an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

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Dr. David William Dodick

wish admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:36:57 +0000

David W. Dodick, MD, is an Emeritus Professor of Neurology and a Mayo Clinic Distinguished Investigator and Distinguished Educator. During his tenure at Mayo Clinic, he founded and directed its headache and concussion programs and co-founded its stroke program. He is currently an Affiliate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Guest Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Adjunct Professor at Thomas Jefferson University. As an internationally recognised neurologist and headache specialist, Dr. Dodick has authored more than 900 peer-reviewed manuscripts and abstracts and authored or edited 13 books. He serves as Chief Science Officer of the Atria Research and Global Health Institute and Chief Medical Officer of Atria Health and Research Institute. Dr. Dodick has held numerous leadership roles in international neurology and patient advocacy. He is Co-Director of the World Federation of Neurology’s World Brain Day and Co-Chair of its Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee and is a co-founder of the International Concussion Society. He has served as Chair of the American Brain Foundation, the International Headache Society’s Global Patient Advocacy Coalition, and the American Migraine Foundation. He is also a former Editor-in-Chief of Cephalalgia and Past-President of both the American Headache Society and the International Headache Society.

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Dr. Dawn Carpenter

wish admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:10:13 +0000

Dr. Dawn M. Carpenter is the Director of Financial Longevity at the Milken Institute’s Center for the Future of Aging, where she leads work at the intersection of financial security, work, health, and longevity. Her research examines how institutions, employers, markets, and public policy can better support people through increasingly long and complex life courses. A financial ethicist by training, Carpenter is also a Practitioner Fellow at Georgetown University, where she previously founded and directed the Solidarity Economy Workshop. Her work explores questions of contributive justice, economic participation, and the ethical design of systems that shape opportunity and well-being. Before entering academia and public policy, Carpenter spent nearly three decades in social-purpose investment banking, helping to structure approximately $3 billion in financing for mission-driven organizations and public institutions. She is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the host of the podcast What Does It Profit?, which examines the moral dimensions of business, finance, and economic life. Her recent work focuses on the relationship between health span and wealth span, the economic consequences of longevity, and the systems needed to help people live longer with greater financial resilience, purpose, and agency.

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