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Our Executive Committee serves as NCD Child’s executive body that provides operational oversight for all NCD Child activities. The Executive Committee is supported by the Secretariat based at the Centre for Global Child Health at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.
Our Governing Council serves as NCD Child’s governing body and provides strategic guidance and direction in establishing policies and strategies that support NCD Child’s mission and goals that affect the integrity, effectiveness, and sustainability of activities and initiatives of NCD Child.
Meet our Committee and Council Members below.
Dr. Zulfiqar A. Bhutta is the Executive Director of NCD Child, the Inaugural Robert Harding Chair in Global Child Health and Inaugural Ibn Sina Scholar in Global Child Health at the Hospital for Sick Children, Co-Director of SickKids’ Centre for Global Child Health, and Founding Director of both the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, and Institute of Global Health and Development at Aga Khan University. He holds adjunct professorships at universities including Johns HopkinsUniversity and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Dr. Bhutta is a Distinguished National Professor of the Government of Pakistan, co-Chair of the Maternal and Child Health oversight committee of WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, the Coalition of Centres in Global Child Health Chairman, and a leading voice for health professionals supporting integrated maternal, newborn and child health globally.
Dr. Bhutta leads large research groups in Toronto, Karachi and Nairobi with special interests in scaling up evidence-based, community setting interventions and implementation of RMNCAH&N interventions in humanitarian contexts. His work with community health workers influenced maternal and newborn outreach programs for marginalized populations internationally and his group’s work with the WHO and PMNCH is guiding essential global intervention policies for women, children and adolescents.
Dr. Bhutta obtained his MBBS from the University of Peshawar and his PhD from the Karolinska Institute. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. In 2020 he was awarded the honour of Fellow of the Royal Society.
Dr. Alafia Samuels is the retired Director of the George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados and is currently Honorary Professor at the Caribbean Institute for Health Research, UWI, Jamaica.
She is a medical doctor trained at UWI in Jamaica and holds a MPH (Masters in Public Health) and a PhD in Chronic Disease Epidemiology. Both degrees were awarded with honors from Johns Hopkins University.
Her past employment includes being the Advisor in Chronic Diseases at PAHO/WHO, Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, and managing Primary Health Care Services in Jamaica. She has served on the multi-sectoral Barbados National NCD (Non-Communicable Diseases) Commission.
Currently, Dr. Alafia Samuels is a Lancet One Health Commissioner, member of PAHO TAG for NCDs in the Caribbean, co-chair of the World Obesity Foundation Policy and Prevention committee, and Advisor to Healthy Caribbean Coalition
Her research interests include policy and practice in NCD prevention and control, clinical quality of care and evaluation of NCD programs. She was the Principal Investigator of the IDRC funded evaluation of the CARICOM Heads of Government 2007 Non-Communicable Diseases Declaration of Port of Spain.
Dr. Samuels has over 50 peer-reviewed publications.
Hanin Odeh is a Jordanian international development consultant and a public health advocate. She has 16+ years of experience working in the development domain leading programs in education, health, social and economic empowerment, and specifically in humanitarian contexts.
She was the former Director General of Royal Health Awareness Society, a non-profit initiative of Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan. RHAS focuses on promoting wellbeing behaviors and healthy lifestyles among children, youth and communities at large. During her tenure at RHAS, Hanin has contributed to the design and implementation to nation-wide programs with UN agencies (WHO, WFP, UNICEF, UNFPA), WDF, USAID, EU, as well as other regional and local partners. She has also led multiple communications and advocacy efforts with ministries of health and education, related to children’s healthy diets, physical activity, tobacco control, child and maternal health, reproductive health, drugs prevention, road safety, and chronic disease prevention at primary health care level, and more recently in national COVID response.
Hanin was the chair of the organizing committee for the “Third Regional Adolescent Health Conference”, and has also been a founding member of the Jordanian as well as the EMRO NCD Alliances.
Hanin is a current Member of the World Heart Federation’s Tobacco Expert Group, and has contributed to a recent published policy brief related to harmful impact of E-cigarettes on Cardio-vascular health.
Prior to her appointment at RHAS in 2015, Hanin worked about 8 years at the King Abdullah II Fund for Development, last role was the Fund’s Programs and Initiatives Manager. She also worked as an Assistant Manager at PwC’s Middle East Public Sector Institute, where she developed and delivered Learning and Development trainings for upskilling public sector leaders across the Middle East.
Hanin holds an MSc. in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics, where she focused her thesis on ‘Host Countries Responses to Refugees Influx: The case of Jordan’. She has extensive experience in nonprofit strategic management, business development, and public private partnerships. She attended an executive program on NGOs management at Harvard Kennedy School. She is also a certified Project Management Professional.
Hanin Odeh is a Jordanian international development consultant and a public health advocate. She has 16+ years of experience working in the development domain leading programs in education, health, social and economic empowerment, and specifically in humanitarian contexts.
She was the former Director General of Royal Health Awareness Society, a non-profit initiative of Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan. RHAS focuses on promoting wellbeing behaviors and healthy lifestyles among children, youth and communities at large. During her tenure at RHAS, Hanin has contributed to the design and implementation to nation-wide programs with UN agencies (WHO, WFP, UNICEF, UNFPA), WDF, USAID, EU, as well as other regional and local partners. She has also led multiple communications and advocacy efforts with ministries of health and education, related to children’s healthy diets, physical activity, tobacco control, child and maternal health, reproductive health, drugs prevention, road safety, and chronic disease prevention at primary health care level, and more recently in national COVID response.
Hanin was the chair of the organizing committee for the “Third Regional Adolescent Health Conference”, and has also been a founding member of the Jordanian as well as the EMRO NCD Alliances.
Hanin is a current Member of the World Heart Federation’s Tobacco Expert Group, and has contributed to a recent published policy brief related to harmful impact of E-cigarettes on Cardio-vascular health.
Prior to her appointment at RHAS in 2015, Hanin worked about 8 years at the King Abdullah II Fund for Development, last role was the Fund’s Programs and Initiatives Manager. She also worked as an Assistant Manager at PwC’s Middle East Public Sector Institute, where she developed and delivered Learning and Development trainings for upskilling public sector leaders across the Middle East.
Hanin holds an MSc. in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics, where she focused her thesis on ‘Host Countries Responses to Refugees Influx: The case of Jordan’. She has extensive experience in nonprofit strategic management, business development, and public private partnerships. She attended an executive program on NGOs management at Harvard Kennedy School. She is also a certified Project Management Professional.
Dr. Alafia Samuels is the retired Director of the George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados and is currently Honorary Professor at the Caribbean Institute for Health Research, UWI, Jamaica.
She is a medical doctor trained at UWI in Jamaica and holds a MPH (Masters in Public Health) and a PhD in Chronic Disease Epidemiology. Both degrees were awarded with honors from Johns Hopkins University.
Her past employment includes being the Advisor in Chronic Diseases at PAHO/WHO, Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, and managing Primary Health Care Services in Jamaica. She has served on the multi-sectoral Barbados National NCD (Non-Communicable Diseases) Commission.
Currently, Dr. Alafia Samuels is a Lancet One Health Commissioner, member of PAHO TAG for NCDs in the Caribbean, co-chair of the World Obesity Foundation Policy and Prevention committee, and Advisor to Healthy Caribbean Coalition
Her research interests include policy and practice in NCD prevention and control, clinical quality of care and evaluation of NCD programs. She was the Principal Investigator of the IDRC funded evaluation of the CARICOM Heads of Government 2007 Non-Communicable Diseases Declaration of Port of Spain.
Dr. Samuels has over 50 peer-reviewed publications.
Centre for Global Child Health
The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)
525 University Avenue
Suite 702
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5G 2L3