Executive Committee
WHO Headquarters
Tanja Kuchenmüller
Unit Head, Evidence to Policy and Impact, Research for Health Department, Science Division, World Health Organization, Switzerland
Tanja Kuchenmüller leads the Evidence to Policy and Impact unit in the Research for Health Department/Science Division at WHO. The unit has the dual mandate of (1) strengthening country capacity in generating, translating and using the best available research evidence in policies and practice, and (2) providing leadership on policies in research to ensure access and scale-up. Previously, she led the knowledge translation work at the WHO Regional Office for Europe and coordinated a related unit on Knowledge Management, Evidence and Research for Policy-Making unit. In the past, Tanja also worked on public health-related initiatives with the United Nations Development Programme and the German Development Service.
Rahim Azami
Technical Officer, Evidence to Policy and Impact, Evidence to Policy and Impact Unit, Research for Health Department, Science Division, World Health Organization, Switzerland
M. Rahim Azami is a public health professional specializing in social determinants of health in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). After two successful years with the Science Division at WHO headquarters, focusing on evidence-informed health policies, he is now an epidemiologist with the WHO Health Emergencies Program. With over 10 years of international experience, Rahim, a trained medical doctor, holds advanced degrees in development studies and public health. His expertise includes managing and evaluating programs on maternal, child, and adolescent health, aging populations, food security, and public health nutrition. Rahim is dedicated to finding sustainable solutions to global challenges and is passionate about global health, health policy, research evidence, public health data, development, equity, and equality.
Dr Matthias Helble
Scientist, Evidence to Policy and Impact, Research for Health Department, Science Division, World Health Organization, Switzerland
Dr Matthias Helble is a Scientist in the Evidence Research Policy Unit of the Research for Health Department of WHO in Geneva. Previously, he worked as Senior Economist in the Economic Research Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila and at the ADB Institute in Tokyo. He started his professional career at the World Bank, before moving to WHO and then to the World Trade Organization. His research focuses the topics of health and international trade and has been published in numerous scientific journals. He is the lead author of several flagship publications of international organizations and has co-edited eleven books. Matthias holds graduate degrees in economics from the University of Tübingen (MSc), University of Wisconsin-Madison (MA), and Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (PhD) and was a research fellow at Yale University.
Bastien Kolt
Technical Officer, Evidence to Policy and Impact, Evidence to Policy and Impact Unit, Research for Health Department, Science Division, World Health Organization, Switzerland
Bastien Kolt is a Technical Officer in the Research for Health Department, Science Division, of the World Health Organization (WHO) and part of the WHO Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) Secretariat. Through his work he strives to improve methods and processes that effectively translate evidence into public health policy. Bastien has published several peer-reviewed journal articles on the impacts of social protection and nutrition interventions on health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. He holds a Master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University and previously held research and operations positions at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the World Bank in Washington, DC.
Regional Offices
Joseph Okeibunor
Team leader, Research Development and Innovation programme in the Assistant Regional Director’s cluster, WHO Regional Office for Africa
Dr. Joseph Okeibunor is currently the team lead for Research Development and Innovation programme in the Assistant Regional Director’s cluster in WHO Regional Office for Africa, an office which acts to strengthen collaboration with partners and other knowledge-based institutions in the region and beyond, on employing evidence to impact on health of the people. He is a public health expert with over 25 years experience. He has held many research positions with WHO. Prior to joining the World Health Organization as staff, he had a distinctive research career as an academic staff of the University of Nigeria, where he rose to the rank of a Professor and Dean. As an academic he conducted many researches and support the evidence led fight again neglected tropical disease in Africa. He coordinated the extensive study of community directed interventions into health problems in African, sponsored by WHO/TDR and Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, among other studies. He has an extensive publication record in high impact peer review journal, of international repute.
Ludovic Reveiz
Regional advisor on Health Research Management within the Department for Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health, Pan American Health Organization
Dr Ludovic Reveiz is regional advisor on Health Research Management within the Department for Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health at the Pan American Health Organization. In 2010, he joined the Pan American Health Organization, the regional office for the Americas of the World Health Organization, where he collaborated with Ministries of Health, UN Agencies, public health institutions and non-governmental organizations throughout the Americas to support strengthening institutional capacities in the generation, use and evaluation of evidence in decision-making for policy, systems and services. He is also the coordinator of the Clinical Management team for the PAHO/WHO Incident Management System that was activated to provide direct emergency response to Ministries of Health and other national authorities for surveillance, laboratory capacity, support health care services, infection prevention control, clinical management and risk communication. Dr Ludovic Reveiz has played a key role helping to improve health research governance and management in national health research systems and to implement efficient evidence-informed health interventions, integrating sound technical analyses into a broad set of policy, systems, public health, services and programs. Dr Reveiz has authored or co-authored more than 100 scholarly articles, book chapters and commentaries applying clinical, public health and Health Policy and Systems Research to strengthen health systems. He is a physician by training with a MSc in Clinical Epidemiology and a PhD in Public health.
Sasha Peiris
Technical Professional, Science and Knowledge for Impact, Department for Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health, Pan American Health Organization
Dr Sasha Peiris has over 15 years of experience, including 10 years at WHO/PAHO in clinical management, research and development, and humanitarian health at a global level.
At present, she works on strengthening and supporting health research and implementation of evidence-informed health interventions in the Americas.
Marge Reinap
Technical Officer on Evidence for Policy, Evidence to Policy Development, Division of Country Health Policies and Systems, WHO Regional Office for Europe
Marge Reinap is leading the work on Evidence to Policy Development under the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems at WHO Regional Office for Europe since 2020. Her work area covers providing support to Member States in strengthening, monitoring and evaluate national capacity to identify, translate and use evidence for policy including in the area of intersectoral policy-making for health, working towards achieving Goal 3 of the SDGs. The work involves strengthening partnerships on strategic evidence-informed policy-making, capacity building and the development of tools, frameworks and materials. She joined WHO in 2012 as the Head of Country Office in Estonia where she was responsible for the WHO operations in the country. Among several work areas shea also supported Estonia in its work on guideline development programme and evidence-informed policy-making. She started her professional career in the Public Health department in the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia as an analyst and later served as Head of Health Policy. Her background is public sector economics. Currently, she is finalizing studies for her second master degree, which is on Global Health Policy in London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has co-authored publications and peer-reviewed papers related to health policy and evidence-informed policy-making.
Mehrnaz Kheirandish
Regional Advisor, Evidence and Data to Policy, Division of Science, Information and Dissemination, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean
Mehrnaz Kheirandish is Regional Advisor for Evidence and Data to Policy at the Division for Science, Information, and Dissemination in the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the World Health Organization. She is leading the programs related to Evidence-Informed Policy-Making in the region to enhance the institutional capacity for use of evidence for policy development of health. Mehrnaz has an MD and a PhD in Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmaceutical Management, with extensive experience of different aspects of Evidence-informed policy-making processes at national and international levels. Among key previous positions, she held the position of Director General for Assessment and Control of Prescribing and Use of Medicines and Health-Related Products in Iran FDA, and represented FDA in key national Committee such as the National High Council for Health Insurance. She has developed HTA reports and national guidelines, has been responsible for their implementation, and has published her work in academic journals.
Roberta Tosques
Technical Officer, Evidence and Data to Policy, Division of Science, Information and Dissemination, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean
Roberta Tosques is a Technical Officer in the Evidence and Data to Policy unit, in WHO EMRO. She works at different programs aimed at enhancing the institutional capacity for using evidence and data for policy development. She holds a Master Degree in International Cooperation, and a Master Degree in International Relations.
EVIPNet Country Members
Laura Boeira
Executive Director, Instituto Veredas - Brazil
PhD candidate in Social Psychology at PUCRS. Executive Director of Instituto Veredas, a Brazilian NGO dedicated to knowledge translation for public policies.
Camille Togo
Technical consultant, General Coordination of Evidence in Health, Department of Science and Technology at the Secretariat for Science, Technology, Innovation and Health Complex at the Ministry of Health - Brazil
Graduated in Nutrition from University of Brasilia. Master and PhD in Human Nutrition - University of Brasilia.
Technical consultant at the General Coordination of Evidence in Health, at the Department of Science and Technology, at the Secretariat for Science, Technology, Innovation and Health Complex at the Ministry of Health – Brazil.
Donald Simeon
Director, Caribbean Centre for Health Systems Research and Development – Trinidad and Tobago
Professor Donald Simeon is Director, Caribbean Centre for Health Systems Research and Development and Professor of Biostatistics and Public Health at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, The UWI, St. Augustine. He is a Chartered Statistician as well as a Fellow and Council Member of the Royal Statistical Society, UK. He is also a Registered Public Health Nutritionist (Trinidad and Tobago and UK). He is a member of the Global Steering Group of the WHO Evidence informed Policy Network (EVIPNet), Chair of the Caribbean Regional Hub of the Planetary Health Alliance as well as Chair or member of various Research Ethics Committees. Professor Simeon’s professional interests include public health, biostatistics, nutrition, research and data ethics, health policy and systems research, and planetary health. He has published over 75 scientific papers in peer-reviewed international journals with over 4100 citations, in addition to chapters in books/encyclopedia and other professional reports. He has also delivered over 80 presentations at scientific and professional meetings throughout the Americas, Africa and Europe, and was listed among the top 2% most impactful researchers (career-long) in the Stanford University Reports. His h-index is 34 and he has received over 7.8 million USD in academic grants.
Polonca Truden-Dobrin
Head of National Preventive Programme for Children and Adolescents, National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
Polonca Truden-Dobrin graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Ljubljana. She holds a MSc degree in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is a specialist in epidemiology and public health.
Her main activities at the National Institute of Public Health are in child public health, in particular in coordination and development of preventive health programmes. She is the head of the National preventive programme for children and adolescents. The work involves strengthening partnerships, capacity building and development of interventions. She works in the area of knowledge translation and evidence informed policy making and is the representative of Slovenia in the WHO EURO EVIPNet network. She participated in projects financed by EU Cohesion fund, DG Sanco, DG Research and Norwegian Financial Mechanism. She has co-authored publications and papers related to child public health and evidence-informed policy-making.
Marcela Tirdea
Head of Department Public Policy Coordination and European Integration, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Moldova – Republic of Moldova
Dr. Marcela Țîrdea has worked for almost 15 years at the Ministry of Health of Moldova. Since 2014 she has been a contact person within WHO EVIPNet Europe, actively promoting the use of evidence in policy-making. The Evidence Brief for Policy “Informing amendments to the alcohol control legislation directed at reducing harmful use of alcohol in Moldova”, developed under her leadership and used to amend the alcohol control legislation, has improved alcohol control measures and reduced harmful use of alcohol.
Sultana Al Sabahi
Knowledge translation and health economics specialist. Directorate General of Planning and Studies, Ministry of Health, Oman – Oman
Driven by a firm belief in research's transformative power to foster healthier, wealthier, and more stable communities, I am dedicated to translating robust evidence into impactful policies and practices. Holding a Ph.D. in Health Policy, my expertise lies in evidence-informed policymaking and health economics. As a Knowledge Translation Specialist at the Omani Ministry of Health, I empower policymakers through synthesizing evidence for informed decision-making. Together, let's pave the way for a brighter future through evidence-based policy. Meet Sultana Al Sabahi, bridging research and policy for positive change with unwavering commitment.
Elham Ahmadnezhad
Director on Health System, National Institute of Health Research – Islamic Republic of Iran
Elham Ahmadnezhad, PhD (MPH, MD), is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Iran's National Institute of Health Research, Iran. She holds a doctoral degree in Epidemiology and has extensive experience in academic and executive roles. Elham has served as a consultant for organizations like the UNDP, WHO, and the Ministry of Health in Iran, focusing on health policy and systems research. She has also held executive positions at NIHR and has a strong publication record in the field of health policy and systems research and evidence-informed policy making.
IT Support
Mahmoud Hanafy
Technical Assistant, IT, WHO EMRO