Facilitators

Massimo Ciotti is a Medical doctor with specialisation in hygiene and public health as well as medical statistics. Until 2021 he worked as the ECDC Deputy Head of Unit Public Health Functions / Head of Section Emergency Preparedness and Response. During his career he has been managing multiple EU-wide and largescale Programmes and been working at the intersection of highly technical subject matter areas and in highly sensitive political arenas.

Dr Petra Dickmann MA, MBBS, MD, PhD is a senior health security specialist working for international organisations (WHO, IFRC, UNICEF) and governments on biosafety, biosecurity, health security and resilience. Her main areas of interests are risk communication governance and the social interface of health and security; she has been pioneering novel approaches of social laboratory workshop designs and conducting ‘incubator’ workshops at global level. Petra holds a PhD on health security (ETH Zurich / HU Berlin) and did her MD on CRBN threats (Kings College London/Frankfurt University). Her post-PhD degree (Habilitation) is in Public Health that she teaches as senior lecturer at Jena University Hospital. 

Ente Rood is Senior epidemiologist and infectious disease surveillance specialist with more than 10 years of experience in Global health and infectious disease epidemiology. Dr. Rood is an expert providing technical assistance in the field of epidemiology, and public health, and developing applied data analysis methodologies for program monitoring and evaluation. He is advisor and trainer is support of National governments on infectious disease surveillance of outbreak prone diseases. He is Global MEL manager and advisor on COVID-19 infection prevention on the ASCEND programme in East Africa and South East Asia. He leads a team of 17 national and regional MEL managers responsible for the routine programme M&E as well as the design, training and implementation of disease specific assessments and project evaluation surveys. He is Co-founder of the Centre for Applied Spatial Epidemiology (CASE), which supports National Governments and international health professionals to make data-informed decisions. 

Fernando is the Team leader of the Education unit at KIT- Royal Tropical Institute and Member of the academic Examination board (2018-2020). He is  Coordinator of the NTC (Netherlands Course in Global Health and Tropical Medicine) and of the MIH (Master in International Health) programmes at KIT. He facilitates sessions for different modules of the Master in Public Health at KIT (Master in Public Health), including Epidemiology and Statistics modules (1 and 2) at KIT. Over the 20 years’ experience in research, monitoring and evaluation, and training. Fer- nando’s professional experience is mainly linked to Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa Prior to his time at KIT, Fernando worked as field epidemiologist for Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) Mozambique and later in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Among other tasks he contributed with the planning, implementation and M&E of Programmes related to HIV/AIDS, TB, (primary) health care for displaced & vulnerable populations. Beside his education tasks Fernando has worked in a wide range of assignments. 

Flora Haderer is a Medical Doctor, holding a Master of Science in Public Health. Since 2019, she is Research Associate/Programme Coordinator at the German Robert Koch Institute, planning and facilitating participatory trainings (face to face and webinars) and targeting Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and COVID-19 interventions. She has been Consultant for Ebola Virus Preparedness Planning (internal deployment with the Austrian MoH) and Member of the core team of Ebola Virus emergency preparedness and response planning.

Jake Mathewson holds an MSc at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the Control of Infectious Diseases. He is an Epidemiologist with a background in critical care and a strong foundation in infectious disease control. Working with the KIT Epidemiology department since March 2020, Jake has been engaged in projects focused on active case finding for tuberculosis in Pakistan, COVID-19 surveillance in Afghanistan, and monitoring and evaluation for Neglected Tropical Diseases across numerous African and South Asian countries through the ASCEND project.

Joachim Gromotka has a long track-record of Managing a team of national and international staff in Hamburg and abroad. He has been managing over 30 multi-annual TA contracts with annual turnover of EUR 12 Mio and provided TA to projects, particularly in health financing and procurement.

Mahdi Abdelwahab is a Global Health advisor and Training & Learning Specialist with expertise in health education, and qualitative research methods. Madhdi is committed to innovation in health education, including E-Learning, interactive and adaptive learning, and serious games. He is currently coordinating the Master of Public Health at KIT while working simultaneously on several research and training development projects.

Myrte Wassenaar is a medical doctor and quantitative researcher from the Netherlands with a particular interest in global health and infectious diseases. She is currently working as an advisor in health systems strengthening at KIT Royal Tropical Institute.