Dr. Kurmi received his undergraduate degree from Tribhuwan University, Nepal and PhD in Public Health from the University of Aberdeen, UK. He completed his post-doctoral training at the University of Birmingham, UK, in the Institute of Occupational Medicine. He worked as a Senior Scientist in Respiratory Epidemiology at the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health, the University of Oxford, UK. He worked as an Assistant Professor in Respiratory Epidemiology in the Division of Respirology, Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada and Associate Professor in Epidemiology and Evidence-based Healthcare Research at Coventry University, UK. Currently, he is working as a Professor in Climate Change and Health at University of Lincoln, UK. He was the chair of the Respiratory Epidemiology Group (6.01) of the European Respiratory Society and the Fellows of the Royal Society of Public Health. He has worked in several large prospective cohorts across all geographical regions, including in biobank studies. His primary research expertise is Respiratory Epidemiology, Health Effects of Climate Change, and Environmental Health Epidemiology. He has been teaching observational research methods and problem-based learning to undergraduate and postgraduate students. He has set up a family cohort in two regions of Nepal to understand the major determinants of health, particularly lung health in children.
Dr. Nagendra Chaudhary completed his primary medical education (MBBS) from Manipal College of Medical Sciences, Pokhara, Nepal (2001-2005) on a full scholarship provided by the government of Nepal. He was appointed as a chief medical officer at Lumbini Primary Health Centre, Lumbini, Nepal, for two years under the Nepal government. Further, Dr. Chaudhary was given a scholarship to study his postgraduate in Pediatrics from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, one of the prestigious institutes of India (2010-2012).
Dr. Chaudhary is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Universal College of Medical Sciences, Bhairahawa, Nepal. He has a teaching experience of more than a decade of with both undergraduate and postgraduate students in Pediatrics. He has supervised postgraduates in Pediatrics for the last ten years. He has more than 50 publications, authored four books, and contributed chapters in pediatric books. He is also a member of editorial boards and a reviewer of many national and international journals. He has presented numerous oral papers/posters/faculty speakers on national and international platforms. His research interests mainly focus on Neonatology, Pediatric Pulmonology and General Pediatrics.
Professor Charlotte Bolton is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Nottingham, UK and a clinical consultant. Her focus is on chronic lung disease including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and early life factors of later lung health. In addition, she has an interest in pulmonary rehabilitation and chronic disease management. She has active research collaborations with colleagues in Nepal, through Global Challenges in Research Funding (GCRF) since 2018. She is a member of the British Thoracic Society Global Health Group
Paul M. O’Byrne obtained his Medical Degree at University College, Dublin. He is currently the Dean and Vice President of the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. His research interests focus on the mechanisms and treatment of asthma. He has published more than 500 peer reviewed papers and has an h-index (Google Scholar) of 124. His accolades include the James H. Graham Award of Merit of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada; election to the Royal Society of Canada; the European Respiratory Society Congress Award and Medal; election to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences; and, McMaster’s top academic award, Distinguished University Professor. In 2017, the American College of Chest Physicians named him a Giant of Chest Medicine and more recently, he received an Honorary Life Achievement Award from the Ontario Thoracic Society, the Jack Hirsh Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement from McMaster University and Medical Graduate Distinguished Alumnus Award from University College, Dublin.
Prof Padam Simkhada is Professor of Global Health and International Associate Dean at the University of Huddersfield. Previously, he was Professor and Associate Dean at Liverpool John Moores University (2014-2019), Senior Lecturer in International Health at Sheffield University (2010-2014) and Programme Co-ordinator and Lecturer in International Health at the University of Aberdeen (2002-2010).
Most of Prof Simkhada’s research are based on Nepal. He is currently working in a number of research projects including MRC funded research project on impact of federalization on Nepal’s health system. Prof Simkhada world leading researcher in Global Health. He has published over 200 research articles and book chapters in peer reviewed journal. Over 25 students have completed their doctorate (PhD) under his supervision. He has received many prestigious awards of public health field such as Global Health Award.
He has completed M.Sc. in Public Health and Health Promotion with distinction from Brunel University in 1999 and PhD from Southampton University in 2002. Before he moved to the UK, he worked for Save the Children (UK) and Ministry of Health in Nepal. He is also a Visiting Professor in Nepal, Visiting Professor in Bournemouth University and Liverpool John Moores University and Adjunct Faculty at Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences Nagpur, India. He has experience of working many countries including North America, Africa and Asia.
Paramjit Gill is Professor of General Practice, University of Warwick, UK. He is involved in wide range of interdisciplinary activity encompassing methodologies from both the quantitative and qualitative paradigms. However, the thread cross cutting this is the promotion of research excellence in primary care by addressing national and global health inequalities.
Dr Regmi is a global health researcher and has predominantly studied around health and wellbeing of migrants and left-behinds, young people’s sexual health, health promotion and health of ethnic minority populations. He also has an interest in Research Ethics and Research Capacity Strengthening in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in the South Asia.
He studied MSc (Health Services and Public Health Research) and PhD (Public Health) at the University of Aberdeen, UK. He also completed Master’s degree in Population Studies from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Before joining to the Bournemouth University, He had worked at Family Health International 360 (FHI360) as a Senior Surveillance and Research Specialist.
Dr. Jagat Jeevan Ghimire is a Nepalese pediatrician and subspecialist in pediatric pulmonology and intensive care.
Dr. Ghimire completed his MD in Pediatrics from Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu and later pursued a Doctorate of medicine (DM)in Pediatric Pulmonology and Intensive Care at AIIMS New Delhi, one of South Asia’s leading academic centers for pediatric subspecialty training and research. During his time at AIIMS, he actively contributed to clinical research, multicenter collaboration, and academic teaching. A key highlight of his academic work is his contribution to a randomized controlled trial published in the journal CHEST: ”Azithromycin for Poorly Controlled Asthma in Children”.
Dr. Ghimire is currently based in Kathmandu, where he works as a consultant pediatric pulmonologist and intensivist, contributing to both institutional care and private practice. His clinical and academic focus includes:
Childhood asthma and allergy
Recurrent and chronic lung diseases
Pediatric sleep-related breathing disorders
Infant lung function assessment (including TBFVL)
Bronchoscopy and advanced pulmonary diagnostics
He continues to be engaged in research, protocol development, and teaching, with a focus on translating evidence-based practices into the Nepalese healthcare setting.
Puspa Raj Pant is a Public Health Researcher with a specialty in Injury Prevention research, Road Safety, and Safety Promotion. He has over a decade long experience in these fields. His expertise includes: conducting social and public health surveys and qualitative studies; engaging community and stakeholders for public health and behavior change interventions; dissemination/ communication using social/ media. He is continuously promoting injury prevention and road safety in Nepal through peer reviewed articles, social media, newspaper columns and media. Dr Pant is a Research Fellow at UWE Bristol and Social Science Investigator at NIRI.
Edwin van Teijlingen is Professor of Reproductive Health Research & joint director of the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH), Bournemouth University, UK. Edwin has been an Associate Editor of BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth since 2008. He is Visiting Faculty at the University of Nottingham, UK, Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences and Nobel College (both in Nepal) and the Centre for Disability Studies, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India. He is trained as a medical sociologist and has published over 300 papers. He has conducted research in South Asia, especially Nepal, Bangladesh and India, for nearly two decades.
Dr. Tara Sigdel is an associate professor of surgery at the University of California. He obtained his PhD in biochemistry from Miami University (OH) followed by postdoctoral training in biomarker discovery, immunology, and organ transplantation at Stanford University. Dr. Sigdel is actively involved in the identification of non-invasive biomarkers genes, peptides, proteins, and antibodies that monitor disease status after kidney transplantation. He has authored and co-authored more than 90 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Dr. Sigdel is also a founder, Board Member, and Director (Natural and Applied Sciences) of Nexus Institute of Research and Innovation (NIRI): a society established to promote quality research and innovation in Nepal and beyond. Dr. Sigdel is a founder member of the International Nepali Biomedical Society (INBS) which is established to promote networking and communication among Nepali who is in the field of biomedicine. Dr. Sigdel is passionate about communicating with the Nepali community in the US and in Nepal. He has been running “Chautari” both in person and online where he collaborates with Dr. Toya Baral to speak with guests who have useful messages to the community. Because of his passion for training and mentoring young students in Nepal, he is leading the collaboration between NIRI and Lokopakar to mentor public high school students in different districts of Nepal.
Anders Løkke Ottesen has predominantly researched around various dimensions of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), encompassing lung function, rehabilitation, asthma, smoking cessation, lung cancer, communication, telemedicine, anxiety, and palliation. He holds a doctoral degree in medicine and have contributed to the authorship of 133 PubMed indexed papers, in addition to collaborating on books, papers, guidelines, posters, etc. He has actively engaged as a reviewer across diverse areas within respiratory medicine, maintaining an H-index of 25 and also supervised/co-supervised Ph.D. and medical students and have served as an opponent in this capacity as well.His clinical proficiency spans a range of areas, including COPD, rehabilitation, lung cancer, lung fibrosis, pulmonary infections, palliation, asthma, and cough, among others. With a wealth of teaching experience, both post-graduate and pre-graduate, he has contributed to lectures and congress chairs both nationally and internationally, predominantly focused on COPD. He has initiated and participated in a series of investigator-led and sponsor-led studies. His role extends to the Trial Nation Steering Committee within Respiratory Medicine. He has lent his expertise to advisory boards for the National Board of Health, Regional and Trans-Regional Groups, as well as national and international advisory boards in collaboration with Pharma Industry. His collaborations have successfully secured funding for numerous Ph.D. projects, along with minor grants and unrestricted grants exceeding 500,000 Euro
Dr. Gayathri De Lanerolle has worked in the clinical and academic domain for almost 2 decades as a Principal or Co-Investigator. Her ongoing research projects involve an array of Clinical trials and Epidemiology studies in a variety of clinical areas. Dr De Lanerolle has over a decade of industry sponsored immunotherapy trial experience for a variety of cancers and, first-in-human clinical studies evaluating a variety of investigational medicinal products, medical devices and complex interventions. She has a special interest in Women's Health and associated Disease Sequalae, Chronic conditions, Multimorbidity and Infectious diseases. In addition, Dr DeLanerolle she has experience in clinical leadership and research management.
John Hurst is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at UCL. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh Medical School in 1997 and was appointed Senior Lecturer then Reader in Respiratory Medicine at UCL, and Honorary Consultant at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust in October 2007.
John is COPD Lead for the Royal College of Physicians National Asthma and COPD Audit Programme, Chief Editor of the European Respiratory Monograph, and is on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and the European Respiratory Journal. He chairs the Multi-Morbidity Working Group of the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD).
Dr. S. K. Tyagi, presently working as Professor at Department of Energy Science and Engineering, IIT Delhi and joined as Associate Professor on 10th April, 2017. He has worked as Director/Scientist-E at Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Renewable Energy, Kapurthala during 2011-2017and Assistant Professor at SMVDU, Katra (J&K) during 2008-2011. Prior to this he has been Invited Scientist at Korea Institute of Energy Research, South Korea, and Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou and Xiamen University, Xiamen, China during 2002–2008.
Dr. Tyagi has more than 28 years of research experience and expertise in the area of renewable (clean) energy and made a significant contribution in RD&D activities. He has published more than 300 articles of repute, guided 15 Ph.D. Theses, 16 M.Tech. & B. Tech. Projects.
Recently Dr. Tyagi has developed the clean technology which can be used for cooking and process-heating for jaggery production and brick-kiln and heat driven cooling system for cold storage applications using agro- and agro-processing wastes and reached the level of emission level even below LPG based combustion devices for which 01 patent has been granted while, 04 more have been filed.
He has also completed several RD&D projects (as PI/Co-PI) of worth of 250 million INR funded by MNRE, CSIR, DRDO, CPCB, and British Councoil, UK. He is member several reputed societies such as, Indian Science Congress, Indian Physics Association, Solar Energy Society of India, Indian Society for Heating, Refrigeration, Airconditioning Engineers (ISHRAE).
Dr. Tyagi has also been recognized as among top 2% of global scientists from India in the field of Energy, the study published by Stanford University in 2019 and Elsevier in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Mr. Gautam received his undergraduate degree from Pokhara University, Nepal and received M.S in Genetics through NOMA Scholarship from Colombo University, SriLanka in collaboration with Oslo University, Norway. He then joined National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS), Bir Hospital as Genetic Scientist and established a very first genetic laboratory at government level in Nepal back in 2015. He is the co-founder of Decode Genomics and Research Centre, where he has established many protocols to test infectious and genetic diseases prevalent in Nepal. He was appointed as a genetic diagnosis consultant by Ministry of Health and Population, (MoHP) Nepal during COVID-19 pandemics. During pandemic, he worked for the establishment of COVID-19 PCR testing laboratories across the country and was awarded with presidential “JANA SEWA SHREE “ award for this his contribution in confronting COVID-19 in Nepal.
Hubert Lam is an epidemiologist at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford. His main research interest is in the use of large-scale population-based prospective cohort studies at different stages of the life course to investigate various areas in population health. He co-leads the environmental health research theme within the China Kadoorie Biobank. His research also covers the use of birth cohort studies to examine the effects of environmental and occupational exposures and other risk factors in maternal and perinatal outcomes. Hubert contributes to the support and local capacity building required to conduct epidemiological studies in low-resourced settings.
Vanora is Professor of Midwifery in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health at Bournemouth University, England, UK. She is an internationally recognised midwifery researcher, having written over 100 peer-reviewed research articles. Vanora has led a range of studies in the reproductive health field both in the UK and internationally. She conducted one of the first randomised controlled trials of midwife-led care. More recent work has examined the role of labour practices and their impact on maternal and neonatal outcomes, both in low and high-income settings. Vanora serves as a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Maternal and Perinatal Health Guidelines.
He is a Cardiothoracic surgeon, professor and Social worker. He is best known for pioneering Open-heart surgery in Nepal, and for starting an operational cardiac care for the public.
He started a "Poor Patients Relief" program in 2003, with the support of the Government of Nepal, which focuses on providing free Cardiac care for children, elderly and needy.
He post-graduated from National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Dhaka University, in 1994, and later completed an unaccredited United States Medical Licensing Examination (Step I) in 1996 and (Step II and III) in 2000.
Koirala was the Executive Director and Chief of Cardiac Surgery of Shahid Gangalal National Heart Center between 2001 and 2009. He is currently the Executive Director of TU Teaching Hospital. also known for being a philanthropic organization. He is also involved with different national and international projects and campaigns to ensure funds and charity for needy patients.
He has performed over 10,000 heart operations, personally or directly supervised, from 2001 to 2012. Being one of the senior-most surgeon and capable administrator, he was appointed the Director of T.U. Teaching Hospital (TUTH), where he first started his career, in November 2012.
In 2019, Koirala was appointed chairperson of the Nepal Medical Council, the sole government entity that tests the competence of MBBS graduates.
Currently, Prof Koirala is the chairman and founder of Kathmandu Institute of Child Health (KIOCH). KIOCH is a not-for-profit organization established in 2017. It aims to deliver integrated multispecialty high-quality child healthcare that is affordable, accessible, and available to all, thus advancing Quality of Life of Children in Nepal. KIOCH focuses on providing solutions to ever rising healthcare needs and consistent poor health outcomes for millions of children in Nepal. It believes on timely adaptation of scientific medical advances, technologies and valued people-centered care that are of international standards.
Dr. Balmes is a Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, at the School of Public Health, at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MD degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1976. After internal medicine training at Mount Sinai and pulmonary subspecialty, occupational medicine, and research training at Yale, he joined the faculty of USC in 1982. He joined the faculty at UCSF in 1986 and is currently Professor in the Divisions of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG). His major academic activities include several collaborative epidemiological research projects, various advisory and editorial committees, and clinical duties at ZSFG.
Dr. Balmes directed the UCSF Human Exposure Laboratory (HEL), has been studying the respiratory health effects of various air pollutants for approximately 30 years. The HEL was the first group to demonstrate a) histological evidence of ozone-induced airway injury and inflammation in human subjects, b) that asthmatic subjects have greater inflammatory responses to ozone than normal subjects, c) that ozone-induced inflammatory responses in normal subjects attenuate with short-term exposures on consecutive days in the lung, and d) that asthmatic subjects recruit macrophages to the airways with consecutive day exposures. The lab also studied acute cardiovascular responses after both ozone and secondhand tobacco smoke.
Dr. Balmes also collaborates on several epidemiological projects that are run out of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health where he is a Professor of Environmental Health Sciences. One such project is called the Children’s Health and Air Pollution Study (CHAPS). The overall specific goal of CHAPS is to assess the impact of air pollution on the health of children living in the San Joaquin Valley, including adverse effects on immune and metabolic function. He also collaborates on studies of the effects of biomass smoke exposure on the respiratory health of children as well as respiratory and cardiovascular health of adults in rural Guatemala, Malawi, Rwanda, and Nepal.
Dr. Pangeni was born and raised in Syangja, Nepal. He moved to Mumbai after high school to pursue his higher education. He returned to Nepal and worked in various schools and colleges as a teacher/lecturer and moved to the United Kingdom to pursue his Masters and Ph.D. Dr. Pangeni has received his post-doctoral training from Northwestern University and City of Hope National Medical Center in the USA. He received his research training in cancer epigenetics during his Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellowships. Currently, he works on Cancer Genetics/epigenetics and metastases, Cancer epidemiology,
Experimental therapeutics,
Disease diagnostics and drug discovery
Mr. Uprety was born in Lisankhu Sindhupalchok Nepal. He completed his schooling in his birthplace and Darjeeling and then moved to Kathmandu for further study. Uprety has achieved MBA degree in Supply Chain Management from Arunachal University of Studies. Dipak moved to Qatar in 2007 to work in a multinational company. Since then, he has gained experiences working in managerial positions for various multinational companies. These multinational companies included Petrochemical, Energy, Oil & Gas, and other sectors.
During his professional career, Dipak has gained trainings and skills in Procurement and Supply Chain Management, ISO 9001 based Quality Management System, Human Resources, Administration, Asset and Project Management, and more.
Mr. Uprety has appointed as Director of Finance and Administration in March 2023 at NIRI.
Professor Jian Qing Shi is a Senior Medical Statistician working on a variety of Global Health Projects. He is a Professor of Statistics of the Department of Statistics and Data Science and the Director of the Center for Biostatistics, at Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen China. He was a Reader in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics and Assistant Director of Cloud Computing for Big Data CDT at Newcastle University, UK. He is a former Turing Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute.
His research interests include Functional Data Analysis, Missing data and bias analysis and Covariance structural analysis. He has had highly impactful publications, including in the Journal of Royal Statistical Society Series B, Journal of American Statistical Association, Biometrika, Biometrics, Biostatistics and British Medical Journal. He has publish a monograph in Chapman & Hall, CRC ( Gaussian Process Regression Analysis for Functional Data with Choi. T. 2011).
Professor Shi has been awarded a number of grants, including from the Health Innovation Challenge Fund ( £ 2.1 million Jan. 2012 -Jan.2015) and several grants from EPSRC and MRC.
Dr. Gautam is an immunologist who received his doctorate from Max Planck Institute and University of Freiburg, Germany and Postdoctoral from National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. He holds an M.S in Molecular Medicine from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. His core area of expertise includes cellular immunology, CAR-T cell therapy, cancer immunotherapy, gene therapy, vaccines and immune cell memory, clinical trials involving gene and cellular therapies, autoimmunity, congenital and acquired immunodeficiency, and immune metabolism. He has published several high impact scientific papers and patents that have been licensed by pharm giants and biotech in the United States. He is currently serving as a research and strategic leader at AstraZeneca in the United States and is also working as adjunct faculty in American and Indian universities. He is the recipient of awards like Nepal Bidhya Bhushan “Ka” and ”Ga”, Distinguish Alumnus Award – Manipal University, University First Rank – Manipal University, Best Immunology Research Paper Award – NIH, NCI Directors Innovation Award – NIH, NCI – Flex Award, DFZ Postdoctoral and German Excellence Initiative Graduate Study Award. He is a member of several scientific and professional societies: American Society of Immunology, American Society of Hematology, American Association of Cancer Research and Society of Immunotherapy for Cancer. He has co-founded a biotech startup in Germany where he is implementing the tenets of immunology to facilitate the translation of I/O discoveries into improved patient outcome.
