Working groups leadership bios

Chair
Mark Hanson, Institute of Development Sciences, University of Southampton

Mark Hanson is Director of the Institute of Developmental Sciences and BHF Professor at the University of Southampton, UK.  He is a founder and past President of the International Society for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease and Honorary Fellow of the RCOG and RCPCH. He co-Chairs the FIGO Pregnancy and NCDs Committee and the Pregnancy Obesity and Nutrition Initiative (PONI). His research concerns how the developmental environment affects health across the life-course, from mechanisms to interventions, in both high and low-middle income countries.  Mark pioneered LifeLab to promote health literacy in school students. Mark has authored over 400 original papers and 11 academic and popular books and is actively engaged in wider advocacy for developmental science and its applications to clinical medicine and public health policy.

Vice Chair
Karen Walker, Council of International Neonatal Nurses (COINN)

Karen Walker is a Clinical Associate Professor with the University of Sydney and is the Neonatal Clinical Nurse Consultant at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia. As a neonatal nurse for over 30 years, she has extensive state, national and international collaborations. She is the current President of the Council of international Neonatal Nurses, Past-president of the Australian College of Neonatal Nurses, a founding member of the Alliance for Global Neonatal Nurses (ALLIGN) and a board member of the new Global Alliance for Newborn Care (GLANCE), a parent led organisation that aims to create, empower and support a global parent voice in each region of the world. She is passionate about improving health outcomes across the lifespan, decreasing maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity and ensuring equitable access to universal health care and education as well as supporting and advocating for neonatal nurses. This includes health workforce strengthening, advocacy on health policy and the impact on disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. Karen co-authored the recently published World Health Organisation publication Human Resources for Health: Strategies for improving neonatal care capacity in facility settings in low- and middle-income countries. She is also working on the revision of the WHO/UNICEF Every Newborn Action Plan and Care of the small and sick education modules for the WHO. Karen has published widely and is an invited national and international speaker.

Vice Chair
Mike Mbizvo, Population Council Zambia

Mike Mbizvo is a Senior Associate and Country Director for Population Council, in Zambia. This entails providing research, scientific, and technical leadership in the Council’s mission areas. He has constant dialogue with Government Ministries, Country Missions, and multiple research and training stakeholders in the country, region and globally, to facilitate and support policy and programs towards advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, and HIV prevention and care, through generation and synthesis of evidence. Previously he was Director for Reproductive Health and Research, including HRP at WHO/HQ; and Professor at University of Zimbabwe. 

Co-Chair
Pauline Irungu, PATH

Pauline Irungu is the Advocacy and Policy Country Lead for PATH in Kenya. She has two decades’ experience engaging with governments in the African region advocating for stronger policies and investments in women and children’s health, and global health research and development. In her role she provides technical oversite to PATH Kenya’s advocacy efforts, supports advocacy efforts regionally in collaboration with the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) and builds high level strategic partnerships with governments, development partners and civil society. Prior to this role, she led PATH’s Global Campaign for Microbicides (GCM) in East Africa, advocating for an enabling policy environment for research and development of women-initiated HIV prevention options. She also led programs at KANCO focused on HIV community communications, policy engagement and community-preparedness for HIV vaccine research in Kenya.

Pauline serves as one of three global civil society representatives to the Global Financing Facility (GFF) for Women, Children and Adolescents (GFF) Investors Group. She is a member of the Africa Medicines Regulatory Harmonization Partnership Platform. She serves on various national technical working groups on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in Kenya including appointment to the Kenya Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition Multi-stakeholder Country Platform (RMNCAH-N MCP) due to her global and national expertise.

Vice Chair
Jon Klein, International Pediatric Association (IPA)

Jonathan D. Klein is Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the Savithri and Samuel Raj Endowed Professor of Pediatrics and Executive Vice Head of the Department of Pediatrics at the UIC College of Medicine. He serves on the International Pediatric Association (IPA) Executive Committee as Treasurer and as IPA focal point for WHO and UN activities.  He is an adolescent medicine specialist and a health services researcher known for his leadership and expertise in preventive services, youth development, tobacco control, and for translation of research into clinical and public health practice and global child health policy. He joined the UIC faculty in 2017, having spent from 1992–2009 at the University of Rochester College of Medicine, and 2009–17 as Associate Executive Director at the American Academy of Pediatrics, where he designed and led the Academy’s research, newborn survival, and global immunization programs, and the AAP Richmond Center’s evidence-based advocacy for the elimination of children's exposure to tobacco and secondhand smoke.  Most recently, he led the partnership between IPA, UNICEF and WHO to translate emerging evidence on COVID-19 and children and adolescents into actionable guidelines for national child health leaders.

Vice Chair (<30)
Sophie Arseneault, International Planned Parenthood Federation

Sophie Arseneault serves as a Board Director for the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR), supporting community-led approaches to regressive policies impeding the sexual and reproductive rights of vulnerable women and girls across the Americas and Caribbean through the change, implementation, and monitoring of national, regional, and international policies, and progressive and international stances at the United Nations.

While completing a Baccalaureate of Arts at McGill University in International Development, Health Geography, and Gender, Sophie has facilitated meaningful youth engagement in global health diplomacy - particularly within the United Nations' Economic and Social Council during the 59th Commission on Social Development, 65th Commission on the Status of Women, and 54th Commission on Population and Development as the Inaugural Policy Director of the International Relations Students' Association of McGill University.

Moreover, Sophie has assisted Amref Health Africa on the Canada-Africa Initiative to Address Maternal, Newborn, and Child Mortality (CAIA-MNCM) - aiming to strengthen healthcare systems, reduce the burden of disease, and improve nutrition across twenty districts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania - and Global Affairs Canada's International Humanitarian Assistance Bureau (MENA) in the development, analysis, and use of international humanitarian appeal data.