Governance

The Defeating Malaria Board of Directors is a critical governance body appointed by the board Co-Chairs, Andrea Baccarelli, Dean of the Faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Rose Leke, Chair of the Independent Review Committee at GAVI and Emeritus Professor of Immunology and Parasitology at the University of Yaoundé I.
Board members are focused on helping to ensure the fulfillment of the goals of the Defeating Malaria Initiative. It is composed of distinguished individuals who share an awareness and deep concern for the incidence of malaria worldwide, a sense of urgency related to the need and potential to control and eradicate the disease, and a keen interest in the novel, multi-disciplinary approach of the Defeating Malaria Initiative and its approach to solving other critical global public health challenges. Advisors are focused on critical areas of malaria and offer the Board technical expertise toward fulfilling Harvard’s Defeating Malaria Initiative goals.

Rose Leke is Chair of the Independent Review Committee at GAVI and an Emeritus Professor of Immunology and Parasitology at the University of Yaoundé I. Appointed in February 2023, the Gavi IRC is an independent committee of experts that are mandated to review countries’ applications for all types of new funding support, ensuring a holistic view of the broad portfolio of immunization and health systems support Gavi provides to countries, and to make recommendations for funding allocation to the GAVI CEO.
Her primary research interests center on the immunology of parasitic infections, particularly malaria. Professor Leke is keenly interested in global health issues and has been involved in the worldwide Polio Eradication Initiative, global malaria elimination activities, and health systems strengthening efforts. She has effectively trained the next generation of scientists, namely the empowerment of young female scientists and women overall. Higher Women Cameroon, a high-impact mentoring program, is one of her primary initiatives. In March 2013, she stepped down as Head of the Department of Immunology and Parasitology at the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and Director of the Biotechnology Centre at the University of Yaoundé.

Professor Leke served as Co-Chair of the 2020-2022 global engagement called “Rethinking Malaria in the Context of COVID–19” alongside Professor Dyann F. Wirth at Harvard University and serves as Executive Director of the Cam…

Professor Evelyn Korkor Ansah is the Director of the Centre for Malaria Research at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana. She is a Public Health Physician, an Epidemiologist, a fellow of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow. Professor Ansah has served and continues to serve at global and national levels. She is currently a member of the Malaria Policy Advisory Group (MPAG) of the World Health Organization (WHO), providing independent, strategic advice to WHO on all technical areas relating to malaria control and elimination and the Independent Evaluation Panel (IEP) of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Together with Professors Daouda Ndiaye of the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar in Senegal and faculty co-founder, Dyann Wirth of Harvard University, she serves on the Joint Secretariat for “Science of Defeating Malaria,” a global leadership development (previously called “Science of Eradication: Malaria” before it transitioned to Africa in 2023).

Professor Ansah was Vice Chair of the Global Fund’s Technical Review Panel (TRP) to combat HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria from 2014-2018. She was also a member of the Malaria Elimination Oversight Committee (MEOC) of the WHO, the Technical Evaluation Reference Group (TERG) of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS and Malaria, and the Bellagio Academic Selection Panel of the Rockefeller Foundation. She recently co-chaired …

Mr Ray Chambers is a philanthropist and humanitarian who has directed most of his efforts towards helping children. He is the founding chairman of the Points of Light Foundation and co-founder, with Colin Powell, of America’s Promise–The Alliance for Youth. He also co-founded the National Mentoring Partnership and the Millennium Promise Alliance. Mr Chambers is the co-founder of Malaria No More with Peter Chernin. He is also the founding chairman of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and is the former chairman of Wesray Capital Corporation, which he co-founded with William E. Simon. In September 2018, he was appointed Ambassador for Global Strategy for the World Health Organization (WHO) by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. Prior to this role, he served as the Special Envoy for Financing of the Health Related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Special Envoy for Health in Agenda 2030 and for Malaria by UN Secretary-General Ki-moon. He is the first person to hold the newly created position.

Mr J. Christopher Flowers is chairman and chief executive officer of J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC, an investment company founded in 1998 and specializing in financial services. The JC Flowers & Co. Fund has assets under management of US $8 billion. Mr Flowers previously served as a partner in charge of the Financial Institutions Group at Goldman Sachs from 1979–1998. Mr Flowers was among the founders of Goldman’s Financial Institutions Group in 1986 and became a general partner of Goldman in 1988.

Among Mr Flower’s philanthropic engagements include serving as a trustee of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, launching and supporting NetsforLife, co-founding the Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative in Africa, supporting the Harlem Parolee Initiative, and founding the J.C. Flowers Foundation. He graduated magna cum laude in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University in 1979.

Dr Nobuaki Mito graduated from the Department of Agricultural Chemistry at Nagoya University in 1983. He undertook doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Kozo Ishizuka at Tsukuba University in 1989. He joined the Department of Vegetable Crops at the University of California Davis to work with Professor Alan Bennett as a Visiting Scientist researching gene expression during tomato fruit maturation.
In 1985, Dr Mito joined Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. In 2007, He became Group Manager, Environmental Health Science Research at Agricultural Chemicals Research Laboratory (presently, Health & Crop Sciences Research Laboratory) at Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. He also served as General Manager of Vector Control Department in 2008, leading the development of a long-lasting insecticidal net, new mosquito larvicide formulation, and mosquito indoor residual spraying product.

In 2013, Dr Mito has been assigned as General Manager of the Intellectual Property Department at Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. He became responsible for Corporate Business Development as Managing Executive Officer in 2017. In 2019, he served as Managing Executive Officer responsible for Planning, R&D, and Pharmaceutical Chemicals Department at Health & Crop Sciences Sector. He became President of the Health & Crop Science Sector in 2020.

Professor Daouda Ndiaye is the head of the Department of Parasitology and Mycology in the Faculty of Medicine, Pharmacy at Cheikh Anta Diop University. He is also head of the parasitology laboratories at LeDantec Research and Teaching Hospital and founding director of the newly established UCAD’s International Center for Research and Training in Applied Genomics and Health Surveillance (CIGASS) in Dakar, Senegal. Professor Ndiaye is the general secretary of the UCAD Center of Excellence CEA-SAME and a member of the UCAD scientific advisory committee. Professor Ndiaye manages field site activities in Senegal for a number of collaborating institutions, including Harvard University, Tulane University, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He serves as director of the International Research and Training Center on Infectious Pathogens and Genomics and Director of the Senegal Harvard Malaria Initiative. Together with Professors Evelyn Ansah of the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana and faculty co-founder, Dyann Wirth of Harvard University, he serves on the Joint Secretariat for “Science of Defeating Malaria,” a global leadership development (previously called “Science of Eradication: Malaria” before it transitioned to Africa in 2023).

Professor Ndiaye has extensive experience interacting with international collaborators and scientific bodies, having worked with collaborators from other malaria-endemic countries as well as with partners in Europ…

Mr Daniel H. Stern is co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Reservoir Capital Group, a New York-based investment management firm. Prior to founding Reservoir Capital Group in 1998, Mr Stern co-founded and was president of Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment advisory firm. Mr Stern has participated in forming and developing numerous investment management entities, including Starwood Capital, Och-Ziff Capital Management, HBK Investments, Ellington Capital Management, and Anchorage Capital, among others. He previously worked with the Burden Family in New York and the Bass Family in Fort Worth, Texas.

Mr Stern is president of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. He is a trustee of the Mt. Sinai Medical Center, the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He is a Board member of Harvard University’s Defeating Malaria: From the Genes to the Globe Initiative. Mr Stern earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and a master’s of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Dr David Walton was appointed the Global Malaria Coordinator for the US President’s Malaria Initiative, by President Biden in 2022. He brings over two decades of experience working in global health, including working on the ground in Haiti to fight the 2010 cholera outbreak and on the front lines of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. Dr Walton has a proven track record of building local partnerships to expand access to care and providing primary health services to the hardest-to-reach populations.
Led by USAID and co-implemented with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PMI supports 27 partner country programs in sub-Saharan Africa and the Greater Mekong Subregion in Southeast Asia – accounting for over 80 percent of the world’s malaria burden. Together with global partners and national governments, PMI has helped save 10.6 million lives and prevented 1.7 billion malaria cases.

Dr Walton takes the helm of PMI after serving as the Senior Director of Global Health at the Butterfly Network, Inc., co-founding Build Health International, and 15 years with Partners In Health. Dr Walton was previously an Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He earned a Medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a master’s degree in Public Health from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women…

Dr Philip Welkhoff is director of the Malaria Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Previously, he served as director of research at the Institute for Disease Modeling. There, he helped develop computer simulations of malaria, polio, and other disease transmission dynamics to assist public health professionals and other scientists in planning the eradication of different diseases.

Dr Welkhoff received a Special Achievement Award as a Hertz Fellow in 2009 for his work on malaria modeling. He earned dual undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin, and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Applied and Computational Mathematics from Princeton University. At Princeton, his work focused on biophysically-inspired models of neural circuits for perceptual decision-making. He has served on the Board of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation and he now serves as a senior interviewer. Prior to joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he served as a pro bono external advisor to various programs, including Agriculture and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene.

Professor Dyann F. Wirth has been a major malaria research leader for over 30 years. Recognizing the importance of bringing cutting-edge genomic science to the study of infectious diseases, she joined the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard shortly after its establishment to lead its infectious diseases initiative. two-term Using a multidisciplinary approach, her group explores challenges related to mosquito biology and the malaria parasite.

Leveraging the genomic tools of the human genome project, the group has applied state-of-the-art technologies and novel approaches to better understand the fundamental biology of the malaria parasite, its evolution, and mechanisms of drug and insecticide resistance. This work has provided new insight into how the malaria parasite has evolved, specifically in population biology, drug resistance, and antigenicity. The group’s current efforts seek to determine the number and identity of genes expressed by the parasite in response to drug treatment and to evaluate the role of these genes in parasite survival. This work aims to understand basic molecular mechanisms in protozoan parasites. Current findings have significantly contributed to advancing our understanding of malaria vaccine efficacy with long-term R&D goals to discover and apply preventive and therapeutic interventions against malaria infection. The group’s research activities are made possible through collaborative research partnerships with investigators, universitie…

In August 2023, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate stepped down from Harvard Chan School to take on a crucial new role as Nigeria’s Minister of Health and Social Welfare. Prior to this role, Dr Muhammad Ali Pate was appointed Julio Frenk Professor of Public Health Leadership in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (July 2019-2023). Professor Pate took a leave of absence (from summer 2019 to September 2021) to serve the joint role of Global Director of Health, Nutrition, and Population at the World Bank Group and Director, Global Financing Facility for Women, Children, and Adolescents, an NGO in Washington, DC. While at Harvard Chan School, Muhammad has led a commission on the future of health and economic resiliency in Africa; the multidisciplinary, multinational group is expected to issue its recommendations in late 2023.

Dr Pate is the former Minister of State for Health of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 2011–2013 and a former President’s Economic Management Team member. During his tenure as the Minister of Health, he helped mobilize more than US$1 billion in additional financing for primary health care, chaired the Presidential Task Force on Polio Eradication in Nigeria, and developed innovative results-based initiatives, including a prevention program to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV and a clinical governance effort. Since June 2010, Dr Pate has co-chaired the Private Sector Health Allianc…

Daniel Ngamije Madandi, MD, MPH, was appointed Director of the Global Malaria Programme at the World Health Organization on April 8, 2023. He formerly served as the Rwandan Minister of Health from February 2020 to November 2022. During this time, he led the development and execution of the Health Sector Strategic Plan as well as the development and implementation of the COVID-19 comprehensive response plan.
In a previous role (2018–2019), Dr Ngamije was the National Programme Officer for Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in Kigali’s WHO Rwanda country office. Before that, he spent 10 years (2007–2017) coordinating, for the Rwandan Ministry of Health, the mobilization of resources and implementation of projects funded by multilateral and bilateral partners through the Single Project Implementation Unit (SPIU). Between 2005 and 2007, he coordinated Rwanda’s National Malaria Control Programme.

Dr Ngamije is the former Co-chair of the Pandemic Fund, a collaborative partnership that finances critical investments to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response capacities at national, regional, and global levels, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. He is also a member of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), an independent monitoring and accountability body to ensure preparedness for global health crises.