About Us

Mark Hoppé is a Public Health entomologist with 30 years’ experience of research, development and advocacy in agricultural and public health insect control. He is currently involved in the development of novel solutions for the control of insects of public health importance, working for Syngenta in Switzerland. Mark studied Crop Protection at Bath University, and holds an MBA in technology management. He is also the chair of the Insecticide Resistance Action Committee’s (IRAC) Public Health team, co-chairs the Roll Back Malaria VCWG’s Integrated Vector Management (IVM) and Insecticide Resistance Management (IRM) workstream, and is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society.

Christopher Kanema works for the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) as Principal Inspector and Heads the Unit responsible for sound management of Pesticides and Toxic Substances in Zambia. He has coordinated several projects in Zambia on sound management of chemicals in general and pesticides in particular. He is currently the focal point for the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade as well as the focal point of the Minamata Convention on Mercury. In his capacity as a focal point, he has represented Zambia in the Conference of the Parties meetings. He is a member of several Technical Committees including the Southern African Pesticides Regulators Forum (SAPReF) and I2I.

Corine Karema is the former Director of the Rwanda National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), where she served in this role for ten years (2006 – 2016). Also, from 2011 to May 2016, she was the head of Malaria & Other Parasitic Diseases (Neglected tropical diseases) Division – Rwanda. During her time at the NMCP, she led the development of malaria control strategies, policies, and research, which has guided the implementation of evidence-based malaria control interventions resulting in increased coverage of critical malaria control interventions with important reductions in malaria morbidity and mortality in Rwanda. Her research has mainly focused on malaria, NTDs, Maternal and child health, as well as epidemiological and public health research. Corine was also the Co-chair of the East African Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Network Coordination committee and member of the diverse WHO scientific and advisory committees including the Global Malaria Control and Elimination technical working group; WHO Steering committee of the Global Technical Strategy for Malaria control and elimination 2016-2030 and RBM GMAP II Task Force.

Marion Law, the Team Lead of the Vector Control Products Team, is a microbiologist with research experience in the area of antibiotic and microbial resistance. Before joining WHO three years ago, she held a number of senior executive positions in Health Canada which included, leading health product evaluation, science policy development and regulatory science operations in the areas of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, control drugs and substances, blood products, and biotechnology drugs as well as pesticides and pest control products. As a previous Chief Registrar of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency of Health Canada, and more recently the Director General of the Therapeutic Products Directorate, Health Canada she has extensive international experience including as head of the Canadian delegation to NAFTA and also to the OECD where she was the Chair of the OECD Working Group on Pesticides.

David Malone, Senior Programme Officer for Vector Control at the BMGF, is an entomologist, with research experience in the area of insecticide resistance and vector biology. Before joining BMGF, David held a role as Senior Business Development Manager for Sumitomo Chemical and prior to this was Technical Manager at the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) in Liverpool. Previously he worked as a civilian medical entomologist for the British Military, at the Cayman Islands Mosquito Research and Control Unit and as Director of Research and Technical Services for the Florida based company Adapco.

Dr Corine Ngufor is Assistant Professor of medical entomology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and lead scientist at the CREC/PAMVERC Research unit in Benin. Her research focuses on the identification of new vector control tools for improved control of pyrethroid-resistant malaria vectors. Corine has several years of experience in the evaluation of vector control products. She has led several IVCC, Industry and WHO-funded research projects contributing to the development of novel LLIN and IRS products and is currently one of the lead investigators of a large-scale UNITAID/Global Fund/IVCC-funded community trial investigating the efficacy of two next-generation LLINs in Benin. As Manager of the CREC/PAMVERC unit, Corine led the Facility to Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) certification becoming the first in West Africa to achieve this status for vector control product evaluation. She has also contributed to the development of high level standard operating procedures and WHO guidelines for evaluating new vector control tools.

Professor Hilary Ranson is a vector biologist whose research focuses on the control of mosquito borne disease, particularly on the use of insecticides in public health. She has led several international consortia to develop and evaluate new approaches for malaria control and currently leads a major interdisciplinary programme to increase the impact of vector control in sub Saharan Africa by filling capacity gaps, strengthening linkages between research and policy, and integrating approaches to target multiple vector borne diseases. Professor Ranson is a member of the Vector Control Advisory Group and provides additional ad hoc technical support to WHO. She works closely with industry partners and has established a testing service at LSTM to evaluate potential new vector control tools against a range of characterized mosquito populations from the field.

Graham has more than 30 years' experience in entomological research including laboratory and field studies on mosquito vectors of disease. He has expertise in pesticide resistance research, pest control product efficacy testing, and the development and implementation of quality management systems compliant with the OECD principles of Good Laboratory Practice. Following his PhD at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (supervised by Professor Janet Hemingway) and postdoctoral research at Cardiff University, Graham took the sideways step into industry becoming Technical Director at a CRO conducting product testing for the pest control industry. He then established his own successful consultancy before joining IVCC in 2016. At IVCC, Graham is responsible for supporting the GLP certification of collaborating African trials facilities, trials capacity resource planning, quality management and facility relationship management. He is also technical lead and support on new and repurposed active ingredient projects, insecticide analysis, formulation and biochemistry projects. Graham is a Member of the UK Research Quality Association and Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. He was previously a consultant to WHO on GLP certification and was for 10 years a member of IVCC’s External Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC).

Sheila Tamara Shawa (Ph.D.) is a Senior Program Officer at the Africa Union Commission in the department of Social Affairs under the AIDS, TB, Malaria and Other infectious diseases (ATM & OIDs) division. She is the focal person for TB, NTDs and the CHWs workers initiative. Dr Shawa possesses expertise in diseases control programs with over 10 years extensive experience in public health, policy formulation & advocacy, and preparedness to epidemics. Dr Shawa was instrumental in the establishment of the Africa CDC as senior project officer where she was responsible for coordinating activities in the regional collaborating centres including in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa and technical activities at HQ. Dr Shawa coordinated the development of 5 year Strategic Plan of the Africa CDC.