Our Team

Dr Ajay Aggarwal is a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Trust, London. His main research areas are Health Services Research, Global Health and Cancer Policy. He has honorary senior lectureships at King’s College London (Dept. of Cancer Epidemiology and Global Health). University College London (MRC Clinical Trials Unit), and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (Dept. of Health Services Research and Policy). He is the current editor of the Journal of Cancer Policy. Since 2013, he has been the oncology coordinator for the National Prostate Cancer Audit, which aims to assess the processes and outcomes of care for all newly diagnosed men in the English NHS. As part of this work, he has developed the first-ever national radiotherapy outcomes public reporting program. He has previously undertaken innovative research using “big data” to demonstrate how patient choice and hospital competition are key drivers in the adoption of high cost surgical devices for cancer treatment. He has worked at the World Health Organisation, and is collaborating with research partners in Ghana, Botswana, South Africa and India on radiotherapy capacity building projects using AI and cloud technologies.

Ghadeer Alarja is the Senior Palliative Researcher and Instructor at King Hussein Cancer Center (KHCC). Ghadeer has substantial clinical experience in palliative care as a senior nurse coordinator. She completed her postgraduate diploma in palliative care from KHCC and the University of Jordan. Ghadeer is currently focusing on capacity building for clinical research, education and training related to cancer & palliative care under through R4HC-MENA.

Gemma Bowsher is a medical doctor and senior research associate with the King’s College London Conflict and Health Research Group (CHRG). Gemma qualified in medicine in London and completed further academic research training at Harvard University where she gained a master’s in Medical Anthropology. She combines clinical work in London with research exploring health intelligence, global health security and conflict at King’s. She has been awarded a LISS-DTP doctoral scholarship to investigate antimicrobial resistance in conflict settings.

Rabih El Chammay is a psychiatrist and currently the head of the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) at the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) in Lebanon. After founding the program, he led the development of the first National Mental Health and Substance Use Strategy 2015-2020 aiming at reforming the Mental Health System in Lebanon towards community-based mental health services in line with Human rights and latest evidence that is currently under implementation.

Professor Simon Deakin (Centre for Business Research) is the lead co-investigator with overall responsibility for the Cambridge components of the R4HC-MENA programme. He specialises in the economics of law with a focus on market regulation. His work takes a holistic approach to the study of economic development and growth, combining historical research, interview-based fieldwork, and data analytics.

Dr. Abdulkarim Ekzayez is a Syrian medical doctor and epidemiologist. He received his MD from Aleppo University and MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Dr Ekzayez’s current work with R4HC, under the Conflict & Health workstream, focuses on building the research capacity for individuals, organisations and institutions to conduct good quality research related to health in conflict settings. His PhD research, at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, looks at health systems in conflict settings focusing on models to build bottom-up health systems providing case studies of the Syrian conflict, and other similar contexts.

Professor Rita Giacaman is a professor of public health and director of the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University (ICPH/BZU), occupied Palestinian territory. Professor Giacaman is co-leading the mental health research in conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory project along with Dr Hanna Kienzler from the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at KCL.

Professor Richard Harding (Cicely Saunders Centre for Palliative Care) is the Director of the Centre for Global Health at the Cicely Saunders Institute. He is leading the palliative care component of the programme.

Abdullatif Husseini is an associate professor of public health, Director of Teaching, and coordinator of the epidemiology unit at the Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University (ICPH/BZU). He holds a PhD in epidemiology and is a curricula developer and trainer for the research training component of the mental health research in conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory along with colleagues from KCL.

Rawan Kafri holds a MSc degree in Global Health and Development. She is a research assistant at the Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University (ICPH/BZU). Rawan is part of the ICPH/BZU team which is completing a needs assessment for training in research methods for mental health in war and conflict along with colleagues from KCL, and will also be involved in supporting the research training component of the mental health research in conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Hala is a research assistant at the Institute of community and public health in Birzeit University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Al-Quds Bard College and an MSc degree in Clinical Neuropsychiatry from King’s College London. Hala previously worked as a researcher at the Palestinian Neuroscience Initiative in Al-Quds University and as a welfare and wellbeing lead volunteer in King’s College London. Hala is currently working with ICPH and Kings’s on the mental health workstream. Specifically, she will be assisting in capacity building activities including the online course and in the research component pertaining to the effects of uncertainty on mental health in the Palestinian context.

Professor Cengiz Kılıç is currently professor of psychiatry at the psychiatry department of Hacettepe University Medical School in Ankara. His main clinical and research interests are in the area of anxiety disorders, traumatic stress, psychiatric assessment and epidemiology. He has substantial experience in the use of structured interviews such as Schedules for Clinical Assessments in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) and Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). He is associate editor of two scientific journals: the Turkish Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of Traumatic Stress.

Alessandro is a PhD student in the Department of Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology at University College London. His interest lies in the intersection between memory and trauma, investigating how phenomena that take place during the traumatic event influence the likelihood of developing intrusive memories. He is exploring this topic among earthquake survivors in Italy and adolescents exposed to high levels of community violence in Brazil. Alessandro’s previous research has focused on survivors of the 2011 Great Eastern Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. As part of the R4HC-MENA, he is working under the supervision of Dr. Hanna Kienzler and Prof. Rita Giacaman on the mental health strand. At the moment, he is researching the impact of structural uncertainty on the mental health of individuals living in the West Bank.

Suzan Mitwalli is an academic researcher and assistant coordinator of the MPH programme at the Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University (ICPH/BZU). Along with colleagues from KCL, she is completing a literature review on uncertainty in wars and conflicts, and will participate in supporting the research training component of the mental health research in conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory. She holds a Master’s degree in Community and Public Health (MPH).

Maysaa Nemer is an associate researcher at the Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University (ICPH/BZU). She holds a PhD in occupational epidemiology and MPhil in International Community Health. Maysaa is part of the ICPH/BZU team which is completing a needs assessment for training in research methods for mental health in war and conflict along with colleagues from KCL, and will also be involved in supporting the research training component of the mental health research in conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory

Preeti Patel is a Reader in Global Health and Conflict in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Dr Patel is Co-Principal Investigator for the R4HC-MENA programme. She is a multi-disciplinary global health specialist working on countries and populations affected by armed conflict, with a focus on non-communicable disease issues, health systems and humanitarian health. At King’s she co-directs the CHRG. She convenes modules on complex political emergencies and health in the Department of War Studies, and conflict and health at King’s Centre for Global Health. Dr Patel has led several studies on tracking development aid for health in conflict-affected countries, global health governance and health systems in post-conflict areas.

Dr. Kai Ruggieri is Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy & Management at Columbia University and a Senior Research Fellow at the CBR. He studies how policy influences population behaviour, and how integrating evidence into policies can improve economic outcomes and population well-being. His current projects involve a number of data-driven policy studies focusing on large-scale behavioural insights related to economic and health choices.

Professor Omar Shamieh, Consultant, Hospice and Palliative Medicine and Chairman, Department of Palliative Care and Home Care Services, King Hussein Cancer Centre, Jordan. Professor Shamieh is the founder and Director of the Center for Palliative & Cancer Care in Conflict. The center will implement the R4HC-MENA project in Jordan. Professor Shamieh is also the Director of the National Palliative Care Committee at the Ministry of Health; the Director of the National Home Care Initiative in Jordan; and the Director of the Palliative Medicine Fellowship at KHCC.

Richard Sullivan is Professor of Cancer and Global Health at King’s College London, Director, Institute of Cancer Policy (ICP) and Director (with Dr Preeti Patel) of the KCL Conflict & Health Research Group. As well as holding a number of Visiting Chairs, Richard is an NCD advisor to the WHO, civil-military advisor to Save the Children, and a member of the National Cancer Grid of India. His research focuses on global cancer policy and planning, and health systems strengthening, particularly conflict ecosystems. He is principle investigator on research programmes ranging from automated radiotherapy planning for low resource settings to use of augmented/virtual reality for cancer surgery, through to political economy to build affordable, equitable cancer control plans. In conflict systems, his research teams have major programs in capacity building in conflict medicine across the Middle East and North Africa (R4HC-MENA), as well as studies of the basic package of health services in Afghanistan, civil-military co-operation in health security, polio eradication and insecurity in Pakistan, and use of intelligence in high security disease outbreaks.

Helen Verdeli is the Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, and Founder and Director of the Global Mental Health Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently a consultant with the WHO on the global dissemination of psychosocial treatments. As a project partner with R4HC-MENA, she is leading local capacity-building projects in depression care for both the Lebanese and the displaced communities in Lebanon, in line with Lebanon Ministry of Public Health’s National Mental Health Strategy.

Wim Zwijnenburg works as project leader Humanitarian Disarmament at the Dutch peace-organization Pax. His work focuses on (open-source) research and advocacy related to conflict, environment and human health and has published research on conflict-pollution subject in the Middle East and the Ukraine. He also is coordinator of the European Forum on Armed Drones and a contributor to the Bellingcat open-source research collective.