Moses Banda Aron is a public health statistician with over 10 years of experience in Public Health, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and Research. He holds a BSc in Statistics from the University of Malawi and a Master of Public Health from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Israel. Moses is a final-year PhD student at the University of Hamburg in Germany, affiliated with the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany. Currently, Moses works as a Research and Impact Manager at Partners In Health Malawi. His research interests include Snakebite Envenoming and the impact of climate change on Health. 

Moses' African Snakebite Alliance project will involve conducting a nationwide assessment of snakebite burden in Malawi. He aims to understand the spatial distribution of the burden of snakebites across Malawi, based on hospital records, and identify hospitals that would be suitable for snakebite treatment and antivenom storage centres to create policy recommendations for strategically storing antivenom in already limited resources. Additionally, Moses will collect prospective snakebite data from five selected hospitals over a one-year period.

Dr Beth Tippett Barr is an epidemiologist based in Malawi with over two decades of experience in public health programmes and research across Southern and Eastern Africa. In 2022, she founded the Nyanja Health Research Institute to lead impactful research and mentor early- and mid-career scientists in knowledge translation and dissemination.

Her African Snakebite Alliance project, Snakebite in Africa: Know the Epidemiology (SNAKE), will assess snakebite incidence and outcomes in five countries: Malawi, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, and Burkina Faso. By utilising existing Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites, the project will generate robust, standardised, population-based data to inform national estimates and enhance local research capacity through embedded mentorship at participating sites

Dr Rita Salifu is a Lecturer and Postgraduate Coordinator in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the School of Public Health, C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences, Ghana. She holds a PhD in Public Health from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. With over 20 years of experience, her research spans HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, nutrition, and neglected tropical diseases. In 2021, Dr. Salifu was awarded an Early Career Grant by the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene to research the accessibility and availability of snake antivenom.

Dr Salifu’s African Snakebite Alliance project will explore how snakebite envenoming affects women’s livelihoods in rural communities near Mole National Park. Focusing on shea nut and honey producers, she will investigate their exposure to snakebites, their knowledge and practices regarding prevention, and the economic impact of snakebites. By highlighting gendered health vulnerabilities, the research aims to guide policies that protect at-risk women, strengthen local health systems, and promote sustainable development in Ghana and similar regions.

Dr Nathanael Sirili is a Senior Lecturer in Health Systems and Policy at the School of Public Health and Social Sciences, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), Tanzania. He holds a PhD in Public Health from Umeå University, Sweden, and has over ten years of experience in academia, research, and consultancy. His work focuses on strengthening health systems, primary healthcare, community health, and policy analysis, and he has led projects supported by Sida, UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank. To date, he has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles and supervises a diverse range of postgraduate students. Since 2021, he has been a principal investigator for a project on the Village Emergency Care Model in rural Tanzania. 

Dr Sirili’s African Snakebite Alliance project aims to improve snakebite outcomes in rural Tanzania through the Community-Integrated Snakebite Surveillance and Response Model (CISS-RM). This community-based research initiative will co-create a culturally responsive, technology-driven approach to enhance surveillance, identify high-burden areas, and reduce care delays. The model will integrate community health workers, traditional healers, and frontline healthcare providers using a mobile app and emergency transport systems.