Virtual Global Health Elective

CFHI’s faculty draws on international leaders in academic, community-based, governmental and non-governmental sectors. Meet a sample of CFHI’s amazing team below! A finalized list of faculty and facilitators will be updated prior to the elective start date.

Dra. Susana Alvear is an expert on socioeconomic determinants of health in the region and healthcare delivery strategies in low-resource settings. She has partnered with CFHI since 1996 as Medical Director- Quito, Ecuador. She is an accomplished family physician who obtained her MD and specialty certificates in Ecuador. She then completed clinical education courses at the University of New Mexico and workshops at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Alvear teaches at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, where she manages their residency program.
 Dra. Alvear has participated in multiple disaster response efforts globally,  keynote the American Academy of Family Physicians Global Health Workshop, and led in the transformation of Ecuador’s health system recognized for strengthening primary care and access.

Dr. Joel Buenaventura is a passionate physician who is involved in global health diplomacy and in issues addressing health disparities and inequities in the Philippines and around the world. In 2004, Dr. Buenaventura graduated with honors at the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. The following year, he completed his postgraduate internship at the University of the Philippines General Hospital. In 2011, he earned a Masters in Public Health at Boston University, with a dual concentration in International Health and Health Policy and Management and bestowed the John Snow, Inc. Award in International Health, after doing prestigious internships at the World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and the Médecins Sans Frontières (or Doctors Without Borders) US Office in New York. He has served as a Doctor-to-the Barrio, with seven years of grassroots experience as a rural health physician and later as a Municipal Health Officer in a poor, sixth class, remote island, serving as the only doctor in a town of approximately 10,000 people. Dr. Buenaventura currently serves as the Chief Health Program Officer for the Department of Health-Philippines with a focus on alignment of international health cooperation to local health system needs. Altogether, his valuable education and experience with global health and medicine made him a recipient of various grants and scholarships recognizing his leadership skills and academic excellence.

Hema Pandey oversees dozens of CFHI programs throughout the expansive country of India. Hema has been instrumental in establishing CFHI's growing presence in India, developing new program sites and researching CFHI's growth potential in-country. She has worked for CFHI since 2005. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business & Commerce from Kurukshetra University and a PG diploma Fashion Design from International Institute of Fashion Technology. Her professional interests include rural and urban healthcare, water and sanitation, gender, social development.  Hema serves a key role as a cross-cultural effectiveness advisor and educator for students as they navigate their growth in awareness of cultural dimensions of health and human interactions.

Dr. Charles Chineme Nwobu is a Public Health Physician in Maternal, Adolescent, Reproductive, Sexual and Child Health and a Development Specialist. He holds a Master’s in Public health for development from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and was a student ambassador of this leading institution in public health. He also has a certification in International Development from the prestigious University of Cambridge, UK. He additionally holds a BSc in Medical Sciences and a medical degree (MBChB) from the University of Ghana Medical School. He has experience working in the public and the private health sector in Ghana as a Physician - Family/General Practitioner mostly in Maternal and Child Health. He is a strong global health advocate with prior experience working as a regional leader in the global health organisation IFMSA (International Federation of Medical Students Associations) where he served as the IFMSA Regional Coordinator for Africa for two consecutive years and next as the Alumni Relations Support Division Director. He is part of the Junior Doctors Network (JDN) of the World Medical Association (WMA). Along with serving as CFHI’s Medical and Program Director for Ghana, he also currently serves as a steering and working committee member of an international network known as CHIFA (Child Health and Rights Information for All), with the head office based in the U.K. In the African region, he currently serves as one of the chosen consultants in the expert community of the current African Union Youth Envoy.  

Dr. Cecilia Uribe is the expert on socioeconomic determinants of health in the region and healthcare delivery strategies in low-resource settings. Dr. Uribe is a pediatrician in community-based practice in La Paz, Bolivia.  She has dedicated her life to serving the largely indigenous population, eliminating health disparities and utilizing her positionality as a physician to advocate for the addressing of social determinants of health. She also works at a municipal hospital located in El Alto and is the Secretary General of the Committee of Adolescents for the Bolivian Society of Pediatrics. Dr. Uribe is the inspiration behind the Center for Empowerment of Young Mothers, a locally-lead community health project supported by CFHI.

Dr. Geoffrey Anguyo is the Founder and Executive Director of CFHI’s local partner, a Ugandan non-profit organization that prides itself on the creation of an “Activated Community." Dr. Anguyo has been practicing medicine for over twenty years in Uganda, working in government hospitals, private clinics, and through non-profit healthcare delivery. His specialty is HIV/AIDS. Dr. Anguyo grew up in Northern Uganda. As a child, his family was displaced by political violence, fleeing to Congo DRC. These early experiences were formative, and today Dr. Anguyo remains committed to developing practical solutions to improving healthcare and livelihood in Uganda. Dr. Anguyo is currently working on his Doctorate in Public Health at Bath University in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Jessica Evert straddles international education and the medical profession. As Executive Director of Child Family Health International (CFHI) she leads one of the largest and most well-respected Global Health experiential learning organizations, with over 40 programs in 11 countries, and over 200 collaborating universities. Dr. Evert is Faculty in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where she instructs in Global Health and community-based underserved care and helped develop, as well as completed, the Global Health Clinical Scholars residency track. Dr. Evert is a graduate of the Ohio State University College of Medicine and is a longtime advocate for health-related international education quality and ethical standards. She is author and editor of multiple chapters, articles and books in global health with a focus on education, ethics, and asset-based engagement, including the seminal texts, including Global Health Experiential Education: From Theory to Practice, Developing Global Health Programming: A Guidebook for Medical and Professional Schools, 2nd Ed, Global Health Training in Graduate Medical Education, 2nd Ed and Reflection in Global Health: An Anthology. She helped develop the Forum on Education Abroad's Standards for Health-Related Undergraduate Programs. Dr. Evert is a recipient of Global Health Education Consortium's prestigious Christopher Krogh Award for her dedication to underserved populations at home and abroad. Dr. Evert's research and advocacy areas of focus are the ethics of global educational engagement, competency-based international education, health disparities, asset-based programmatics and reflection.