Dr. Alarcos Cieza oversees the World Health Organization’s work on vision, hearing, disability and rehabilitation in her position of Unit Head, Sensory Functions, Disability and Rehabilitation. After obtaining her MSc in psychology in Madrid, Spain, she conducted a Master in Public Health and obtained a PhD in Medical Psychology from the Ludwig-Maximillians University in Munich, Germany.

Martin Taylor has worked as strategist, adviser and manager on global health and development assistance for health for 20 years with a strong focus on supporting countries to strengthen health systems. He has worked for the UK Department for International Development (including four years in Beijing as lead on UK cooperation with China on health systems, HIV/AIDS and TB) and was part of the team that established the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. He studied at the University of Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. From 2013 to 2017, Martin was the head of the division for health systems and health security in WHO Office in Beijing, China. In November 2019, Martin joined the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila as the director of health systems and services.

Dr Richard Seemann is a graduate of Otago Medical School and a specialist in rehabilitation medicine who has previously worked in neurology and elder health services. He has worked for ABI Rehabilitation for 15 years, the last six as full-time director of medical services for the company. He is enthusiastic about providing world-class rehabilitation for his patients with traumatic brain injury and other serious neurological disorders, backed up by a significant research program, and benchmarking with similar services in Australia and the USA. He also believes in providing services specifically targeted to the needs of Maori and the varied ethnic groups that make up the population of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

At Results for Development, Ms. Chikhradze provides technical and managerial leadership, mainly on health systems and health financing. Under the Accelerator project, Tamara works to strengthen rehabilitation in health systems in Ethiopia and Georgia, and to facilitate global learning on improving health financing functions for rehabilitation. She holds an MSc in health policy, planning and financing from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dr. Grace Kabaniha is the Health Financing lead in the WHO Country Office in India where she supports the government’s health financing reforms. Previously she served as the Regional Advisor for Health Economics and Financing at the Regional Office for WHO in Africa and the Health Economist in the WHO Country Office in Uganda. She has over 10 years’ experience in public health and health financing in Lower and Middle-Income countries in Africa and Australia. Prior to her career in public health, Grace worked as Medical Officer in various public and private settings including Baylor College of Medicine- Children’s Foundation Uganda, a Pediatric HIV/AIDS care center.

Dr Padmaja Kankipati holds a PhD in Rehabilitation Science from the University of Pittsburgh and has been working in the field of rehabilitation for the past thirteen years. The focus of her work has been in the area of Assistive Technology (AT) service provision, predominantly wheeled mobility and seating devices. A resolute advocate of education and capacity building among children of special needs, she had been leading many advocacy initiatives, research and development projects.

Pauline works with the World Health Organization Rehabilitation Programme in Geneva, Switzerland. Pauline has worked for WHO for 10 years and was the Disability and Rehabilitation Regional Advisor in their Western Pacific Regional Office from 2011 to 2016. She originally trained as a physiotherapist in Australia and has worked in both the rehabilitation and disability service sector in high and low-income countries for 25 years.

Dr. Razia Pendse has been with the WHO for more than 10 years. Before her current role as regional advisor at SEARO, she worked at the WHO headquarters in Geneva in the Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health on prevention of mother-to-child transmission and malaria in pregnancy, and was responsible for managing partnerships across key stakeholders for improving maternal and newborn care. She has also worked at the country level with UNICEF India, and with non-governmental and community-based organizations in Rajasthan, India. An Indian National, Dr Pendse received her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Rajasthan, India and Masters in Public Health from the University of London, UK.