August 5, 2020
Virtual on-boarding during the pandemic: Introducing new staff members
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Global Health and Global WACh transitioned to a remote workforce starting in March 2020 at the recommendation of public health officials. The pandemic has not shaken our Center’s commitment to improving the health and well-being of women, adolescents, and children, thus we continued with our hiring plans virtually and onboarded critical supportive roles to move our research forward. Get to know the new five new staff members below!
Omid Afzal
Grant Specialist
As a Grant Specialist for Global WACh, Omid is responsible for grant post-award management including budget monitoring, subcontracts management, track and process invoices against milestones and expenditures and he supports PIs with pre-award grants submission. He holds a BA in Language Literacy from the University of Balkh, Mazar-e-Sharif city. In 2009, Omid started his professional career with a French organization ACTED (Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development) as a reporting officer in North, Afghanistan. Later in 2010, worked for the European Union Police Mission for Afghanistan (EUPOL Afghanistan) as an Administrative Assistant. Prior to joining UW, he worked for USAID Afghanistan’s development projects in central Kabul and North as an Assistant Facility Specialist, Program Administrative Specialist, Grants Specialist, and Senior Grants Procurement Officer for more than five years. He supported the grants unit with pre-award, post-awards, and closeout phases and managed subcontracts and acquisition. Outside of the work, Omid enjoys playing football, badminton, and traveling.
Hannah Atlas, MPH
Research Coordinator
As a Research Coordinator, Hannah works across a variety of studies that aim to improve child health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. She received her MPH from the University of Washington Department of Global Health and a BA in Human Biology and Creative Writing from Scripps College.
Mareme Diakhate, MPH
Data Manager
Mareme is a Data Manager and Research Consultant to support a large portfolio of studies that aim to improve child health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. She received her MPH from the University of Washington Department of Global Health in 2020.
Amy Roll, MPH
Implementation Science Data Analyst, DeWorm3
Amy leads the qualitative analysis and supports implementation science research outcomes for the DeWorm3 study which investigates the feasibility of interrupting the transmission of three types of parasitic worms. She holds a BA in Foreign Languages (French) and International Affairs from the University of Puget Sound and a MPH from the University of Washington. During her MPH program, she worked with Global WACh as a Research Assistant for the DeWorm3 study and CIFF sub-grant performing qualitative research and developing a theory of change on research to policy development. Amy has worked on projects at the intersection of conservation and health in the Republic of Congo and Uganda for the Wildlife Conservation Society and Conservation Through Public Health. Prior to that she worked for the Advocacy and Public Policy Department at PATH. Outside of work, Amy enjoys traveling, exploring the PNW, and knitting.
Alex Schaefer, MPA
Data Manager, DeWorm3
Alex joined the Department of Global Health in 2020 after completing her Masters of Public Administration with a focus on Analysis and Evaluation. Prior to graduate school, Alex worked for five years at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) as an analyst and project manager for the evaluation of the Salud Mesoamerica Initiative. With Global WACh, she spends time merging, appending, adjusting, and performing sleuth work on complex datasets for the DeWorm3 project, a large-scale cluster-randomized trial assessing community-wide mass drug administration to interrupt soil-transmitted helminth infection in Benin, India and Malawi. She enjoys problem-solving, applied statistics, and learning new words on the job (like “aliquot”).