Team

Gene Bukhman, MD, PhD, is a cardiologist and medical anthropologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), where he founded the Center for Integration Science and serves as its Executive Director. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine and an Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he also directs the Program in Global Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and Social Change. He is the Senior Health and Policy Advisor on NCDs to Partners In Health (PIH), the Director of the BWH Advanced Clinical Fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease and Global Health Equity, and the Director of the BWH Research Fellowship in Type 1 Diabetes and Global Health Equity. Dr. Bukhman completed his medical training and doctorate in medical anthropology at the University of Arizona, an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a cardiology fellowship at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Over the past 15 years, Dr. Bukhman has argued that for those living in extreme poverty, NCDs are best understood as part of the “long tail” of global health equity that demands a new “science of integration.” He has translated this critique into practical delivery strategies such as the Package of Essential NCD Interventions – Plus (PEN-Plus), that are now impacting patients’ lives in more than a dozen countries.

Dr. Bukhman is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters that apply a range of methodologies from ethnography and archival research to epidemiology and mathematical modeling to identify solutions to the problem of “NCDI Poverty.” Dr. Bukhman was the lead-author and co-chair of the 1996-2020 Lancet Commission on Reframing NCDs and Injuries for the Poorest Billion, and is co-chair of the 22-country NCDI Poverty Network launched in December of 2020 to support implementation of the Lancet Commission’s recommendations.

Dr. Emmanuel Mensah is an internist and Firm Chief in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He serves as the Managing Director of the Center for Integration Science in Global Health Equity and the West Africa Lead for the NCDI Poverty Network. He holds a faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School.

Prior to joining the NCDI Poverty Network, Dr. Mensah split his time between practicing medicine and management consulting at McKinsey and Company. As a management consultant, his interest and work focused on healthcare delivery systems and strategy work for various clients along the healthcare value chain globally. Dr Mensah also practices as an internist at Tema General Hospital in Ghana.

His academic interests are in health disparities and unconscious bias and its impact on patient care. He lectures on the topic at Harvard Medical School and directs the mentorship of Underrepresented in Medicine trainees at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Dr. Mensah earned a BA in Mathematics and Biology from Dartmouth College, his MD from Harvard Medical School, and his MBA from Harvard Business School. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School.

Emily Yale is the Director of Finance and Operations for the Center for Integration Science in Global Health Equity. She holds an MPH in Global Health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Public Health from Elon University. Emily has worked for several global health organizations dedicated to improving the health of vulnerable populations. She has primarily worked in the areas of program management, finance and administration, operations, compliance, and business development.

Prior to joining the Center, Emily worked at the Center for Global Health at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), supporting community health projects in rural Uganda. Before MGH, Emily worked for an International NGO, John Snow, Inc. (JSI), where she managed large USAID-funded HIV/AIDS projects in East Africa and frequently traveled to field offices to provide local staff with training on operations, finance, and U.S. government contract compliance.

Alma Adler is the Research and Monitoring and Evaluation Director for the Center for Integration Science (CIS) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital since 2018. Dr. Adler began her career as a bioanthropologist receiving her PhD in 2005, but later received an MSc in Public Health/Developing Countries, Epidemiology Stream from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Before joining CIS, Dr. Adler was an Assistant Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where she was a member of the Centre for Chronic Diseases and the Centre for  Maternal, Adolescent, Reproductive, & Child Health. Other positions Dr. Adler has held include systematic review specialist at the Cochrane Heart Group and Science Officer at the World Heart Federation. Dr. Adler’s research focuses on three areas: Implementation science, mixed methods evaluations of complex interventions, and evidence synthesis. She has led implementation research projects in nine countries on three continents. Dr. Adler has over 50 publications and numerous media appearances.

Paula Brewer Byron is the Communications Director for the NCDI Poverty Network. She has spent most of her communications career in the fields of medicine, public health, and human rights. Most recently she worked at Virginia Tech, first as communications director for a startup medical school and biomedical research institute, then as senior editor at the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. For the previous dozen years, she was editor of Harvard Medical School’s magazine, and before that she served as communications director for what was then the Harvard AIDS Institute, an initiative of the Harvard School of Public Health. One of Byron’s principal specialties is publications. In addition to editing Harvard Medicine, she has served as editor of Illumination, an annual magazine at Virginia Tech; Carilion Medicine, the biannual magazine of a regional health system; Silent Spring Review, a publication focused on the environmental causes of breast cancer; Baobab, the daily newspaper for an AIDS in Africa conference in Senegal; and a range of publications for the AIDS Prevention Initiative in Nigeria, the Reebok Human Rights Awards Program, and the Harvard AIDS Institute. Byron has also edited three books on AIDS in Africa and coauthored a book on human rights heroes around the world.

Neil Gupta is the Policy Director for the NCDI Poverty Network and serves a lead role in facilitating and supporting National NCDI Poverty Commissions and the NCDI Poverty Network Steering Committee. An internist and pediatrician by training, Dr. Gupta was previously the Chief Medical Officer for Partners In Health in Rwanda, where he was responsible for the strategy, design, and implementation of clinical programs in collaboration with the Ministry of Health. He later joined PIH’s NCD Synergies team and supported the development of the Lancet NCDI Poverty Commission from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Dr. Gupta is also the Primary Investigator for the Simplifying Hepatitis C Antiviral Therapy for Elsewhere in the Developing World study, which aims to promote access and availability of Hepatitis C treatment. Dr. Gupta is a graduate of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Harvard School of Public Health, and he completed his residency training at Brigham & Women’s and Boston Children’s Hospitals. He is currently an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Andrew Marx is a communications consultant and former Communications Director for the NCDI Poverty Network. Before joining the Program, Andrew worked for over 25 years as writer/editor, communications specialist, and program manager with organizations dedicated to global health, social justice, and equitable and sustainable development, including seven years as Director of Communications for Partners In Health, three years as Deputy Director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative, and nine years as Chief of the Public Information and Multimedia unit at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. Andrew got his start in journalism and communications working at an activist news agency (Liberation News Service) for seven years, including one year reporting from Africa, and later led editorial and information technology projects at the New York Times Company for 11 years.

Gedeon Ngoga is the Director of PEN-Plus Training for the NCDI Poverty Network. Over the last decade, Gedeon’s work has focused on the implementation of NCD care delivery models in low-resource settings including developing a dedicated training and mentoring program for PEN-Plus health care workers dominated mainly by nurses and clinical officers in the PIH supported clinics. This has involved clinical duties as well as a wide programmatic and leadership role for the NCD program which eventually led to national implementation of the model and scale-up of NCD services to all district hospitals of Rwanda.

Mr. Ngoga has a Master of Public Health in International Health and Development and his current role supports Network countries in addressing knowledge gaps to achieve global health equity by developing career pathways. Gedeon works on training models that teach and equip non-specialist NCD providers with needed competencies to manage severe NCD conditions in their home countries, which prevents suffering and death among the most vulnerable.

Dr. Emily Wroe is an internist and expert in global health, serving as the Director of Programs for the NCDI Poverty Network and the Center for Integration Science. In this role she supports the implementation and expansion of PEN-Plus programs. Dr. Wroe’s expertise in health systems for chronic diseases stems from several years working as Partners In Health’s Chief Medical Officer in Malawi, where she worked closely with the Ministry of Health to strengthen health care in the rural district of Neno. In Malawi she led the team to integrate HIV and NCD clinics, spearheaded a stepped-wedge study of a community health worker program, and helped launch two clinics for patients with severe NCDs, which was the beginning of the PEN-Plus programming in Malawi. Her role expanded to support southern Africa as NCD Synergies’ Associate Director of Policy & Implementation and as the co-chair to the Ministry of Health for Malawi’s National NCDs & Injuries of Poverty Commission.

Dr. Wroe is also deeply experienced in pandemic response and acts as a Senior Advisor for PIH’s COVID-19 response. She graduated from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health and completed her residency at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. She is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at BWH.

Prof. Dr. Ana Olga Mocumbi (MD, PhD, FESC) is a cardiologist with a particular interest in neglected cardiovascular diseases specifically rheumatic heart disease, cardiomyopathies, heart failure in young people, and women’s cardiovascular health. She is Professor of Cardiology at the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), Mozambique and is Head of the Division of Non-Communicable Diseases at the National Public Health Institute (INS), at the Ministry of Health in Mozambique.

Dr. Mocumbi obtained an MD in 1992 at UEM. She worked in several rural areas of Mozambique from 1992 – 1997 acting as a general practitioner and health manager, gaining experience on management of National Control Programs for major endemic diseases.

Her post-graduate training in cardiology was done in Mozambique (Central Hospital of Maputo and Instituto do Coração) and France (Hospital Necker-Enfants Malades). She holds a Diploma in Pediatric Cardiology from the University René Descartes, Paris V – France.

Dr. Mocumbi worked as a Research Assistant at the Imperial College London (from 2004 until 2008) where she obtained her PhD investigating the Epidemiology of Neglected Cardiovascular Diseases. Under this program she launched a research project on Endomyocardial Fibrosis, which included large-scale community-based studies and clinical research in a rural endemic area of Mozambique (Inharrime), involving collaboration with the Heart Science Centre and Magdi Yacoub Research Institute in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Mocumbi is involved in several local and international research projects and partnerships including international registries and clinical trials. She is Editor of the Cardiovascular Diagnosis and Therapy Journal and has published original papers in peer-reviewed journals and didactic publications.

She is currently Vice President of the Pan African Society of Cardiology (PASCAR) South Region (and Member of the PASCAR Taskforce on Hypertension), Co-Leader of the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute for the Sub-Saharan Region and Member of the World Heart Federation’s Scientific Policy and Advocacy Committee.