SCI - Programme Staff Profiles
Howard Thompson - Programme Manager |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SCI - Programme Staff Profiles
|
|
Howard Thompson has spent many
years in posts involving both the design and implementation of development
projects, most recently in Brazil; and previously in Egypt, Indonesia,
Kenya, India and Yugoslavia. In the first 3 countries he was Country
Director for the British Council, and he was closely involved in each of
them in educational projects funded by the World Bank and DFID. The
programmes he was responsible for in these posts consisted largely of
bilateral educational and scientific collaboration. His professional
training was in Social Anthropology at Stanford University and subsequently
in Educational Planning at the University of London Institute of Education.
Elisa graduated with a degree in International
Development in 1999 from Brown University. She then worked as a Community
Extension Agent for Peace Corps Niger from 1999 to 2001, where she focused
on community health projects in HIV/AIDS, water sanitation, reproductive
health, mother and child health, and nutrition. While in Niger, she
co-developed and managed several large local and regional projects for Peace
Corps Niger, including an HIV/AIDS national bike ride and a girls education
scholarship. After working in Niger, she moved to London where she first
worked in academic fundraising and then pursued an MSc in International
Health and Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political
Science. After graduating with her MSc in 2003, she worked as a Business
Development Manager for an international health consultancy firm
specialising in providing technical assistance and programme management to
programme focusing on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, and mother and child
health in developing countries. Elisa joined SCI in January 2005. 
Marie-Alice
Deville did most of her studies in France but for her last year of
University, she attended McGill University, Montreal, Canada. This is
where she first developed her interest for thalassaemias, a group of
blood-related inherited disorders, which affect mostly the poor
populations living close to the equator, all around the world.
Marie-Alice thus decided to do a PhD in Molecular and Cellular biology
in the Université Claude Bernard-Lyon I, France, focusing on the
transcriptional regulation of the human genes responsible for the
production of haemoglobin both in control and affected individuals. She
obtained her PhD in 2003 and then resumed her study within the
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, an MRC funded research
institute which is part of Oxford University. After four years there, in
April 2007, Marie-Alice chose to opt for a career closer to the reality
of the health issue in Africa and applied successfully to join SCI in
May 2007. She will be funded by Geneva Global through the Global Network
for Neglected Tropical Disease Control (GNNTDC) to manage the
Burundi/Rwanda NTD control programme.
Lynsey Blair has a broad
background in parasitology. She studied Zoology (B.Sc.) at the University of
Dundee, graduating in 1999, during which time she was awarded a short-term
research grant to investigate economically important plant-pathogens at the
Scottish Crop Research Institute. Her interest moved towards medically
important parasites, focussing on the issue of public health specifically
for schistosomiasis. She then undertook her D. Phil research at the
University of Oxford investigating host-schistosome interactions and, by
demonstrating evolution and coevolution of this host-parasite system within
the laboratory, the resulting implications for control programmes. She has
also previously worked in the public health sector managing medical
databases and operational procedure records. Lynsey joined SCI on October
1st 2003.
Fiona Fleming followed her studies in Parasitology
(BSc) at the University of Glasgow by volunteering for an NGO in rural
Uganda. Whilst there she carried out health education activities in schools
and raised awareness about important local health issues in the community.
She subsequently became a programme manager for the NGO, which also included
the running of a sustainable agriculture programme, and remained in Uganda
for 4 years. She returned to the UK to further her interest in parasitic
worms by studying a Masters in the Control of Infectious Diseases at The
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Whilst working on her MSc,
and for a brief period following it, she carried out a study looking at the
epidemiology of helminth infections in rural Brazil. This was done in
partnership with the Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative and it involved
investigating many aspects influencing helminth infection including spatial
dynamics, multiple species infection, nutrition and socio-economic
background. She began working for SCI in January 2005.