International Health Faculty and Alumna Included on First Canadian Women in Global Health List

Nasreen Jessani, DrPH ’15 and Rosemary Morgan, PhD, MSc of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health were 2 of just over 100 Canadian women included in the first Canadian Women in Global Health List. Published by the Canadian Society for International Health, the List recognizes leaders across academia, government, non-governmental organizations, civil society, and international organizations who have made substantial contributions to global health. The List also seeks to improve the visibility of women’s achievements and expertise in global health. 

Jessani, an associate faculty at the Bloomberg School and an alumna of the Department of International Health, was honored for her research, teaching, and implementation efforts that focus on a wide range of global health issues, including the nexus between health policy and systems research, innovations in evidence-informed policy and practice, and the power of relationships and networks in affecting public health. Jessani works across Africa and Asia on strategic engagement and integrated knowledge translation for evidence-informed decision making. She is currently Senior Technical Advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Family Planning and Reproductive Health based at the School. She also serves as Vice-Chair for the Evidence to Action Thematic Working Group for Health Systems Global, the first international membership organization fully dedicated to promoting health systems research and knowledge translation. She is also currently on AcademyHealth’s Translation and Dissemination Institute’s advisory board. Jessani’s work in public health spans extensively across Kenya, Bangladesh, Thailand, Pakistan, Vietnam, Uganda, Canada, USA, and South Africa. Jessani is based in South Africa where she is also faculty at Stellenbosch University. Prior to joining the Bloomberg School, Jessani worked for Canada’s International Development Research Centre based in Ottawa and then Kenya managing a large portfolio of grants across East and Southern Africa.

Morgan, an assistant scientist in the Department, was honored for her expertise in gender, intersectionality, and health systems research focusing on low- and middle-income country contexts. At the Bloomberg School, Morgan works on a number of global and public health projects as a gender advisor.

She co-leads Research in Gender and Ethics (RinGs): Building Stronger Health Systems, a DFID funded project that brings together four research networks encompassing 23 institutions across 26 countries in a partnership to galvanize gender and ethics analysis in health systems research. In addition, she works as a gender advisor on RADAR, an initiative developing tools to assist in the implementation of measurement approaches for maternal, neonatal, and child health and nutrition programs. She also works in a similar capacity on a project to evaluate Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Programs based in Mozambique and Senegal.

At the Bloomberg School, Morgan developed and teaches a course entitled, Introduction to Gender Analysis within Health Research and Interventions. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, she was a Lecturer in Global Health Policy for the Global Public Health Unit at the University of Edinburgh, and a Research and Teaching Fellow at the Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development at the University of Leeds.  

The Canadian Women in Global Health List was developed by a working group of Canadians that called for nominations from across the country, disciplines, and sectors in global health. Initiated by Jocalyn Clark from The Lancet, and founded in collaboration with Eva Slawecki from the Canadian Society for International Health and Sarah Lawley from the Government of Canada, the List is housed by the Canadian Society for International Health. In an introductory letter, working group members expressed their hope that media, government, funders, and others seeking technical experts will turn to the List as a resource. They also encourage others who are looking to broaden, deepen, or diversify their networks and communities of practice to refer to the List.