Team Bios
Kwame Agyarko
Kwame Agyarko is ALMA’s Technical Coordinator and a social scientist who has fifteen years of work experience in the field of health programming. Kwame has held numerous management and coordination roles with national and international organizations including the Centre for the Development of People, UNICEF, The Global Fund, and the World Health Organization. Kwame’s work is concentrated on the coordination and development of integrated malaria control programs. He has contributed to over ten publications for major organizations and scholarly journals, focusing on the social impacts of communicable diseases and the development of health policy. Kwame holds a BA in geography and sociology and an MA in rural development.
Mary Mei
Mary Mei is ALMA’s Program Associate and supports the ALMA team on a variety of projects. Her roles include organizing and facilitating ALMA’s domestic and international conferences, overseeing ALMA’s external communications, and developing a new communications tool to engage with African Ministers of Health. Prior to joining ALMA, Mary was Associate Program Officer at the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Malaria. Mary holds a degree in Political Science and Economics from Wellesley College.
Melanie Renshaw
Dr. Melanie Renshaw is ALMA’s Chief Technical Advisor and provides support and guidance to the organization. Melanie’s role includes oversight of the ALMA Scorecard for Action and Accountability including tracking country level progress in achieving key malaria and health targets in Africa, supporting national malaria control programmes and Ministries of Health in Africa to resolve technical and implementation bottlenecks. She also works to facilitate filling key funding gaps and enhance procurement mechanisms. She co-chairs the Roll Back Malaria Harmonization Working Group. Her previous employment history includes positions at country, regional and headquarter level for UNICEF, the Wellcome Trust, the World Health Organization, several UK research institutions, and numerous consultancies.
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur is the Director for ALMA’s New York office. Saleemah is committed to leveraging every asset to end malaria deaths, which is integral to significant progress on the Millennium Development Goals. She has developed multi-million dollar partnerships over ten years to advance global development, interfaith action and dialogue and corporate social responsibility across national and international organizations. In addition, Saleemah is an expert on Muslim women in the West and is well known for her published work, Living Islam Out Loud. She is a graduate of Columbia University.
Samson Katikiti
Samson Katikiti is ALMA’s Database Manager and Surveillance Specialist. Samson holds a BSc Honours in Engineering and post graduate degree in Information and Knowledge Management. He has worked at the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Africa managing the sub-regional malaria database for East and Southern Africa. He supported establishing composite malaria databases, use of Geographical Information Systems in malaria control and production of routine malaria surveillance bulletins in East and Southern African countries. During his tenure, Samson has contributed to the conduct of malaria program reviews and supporting conduct malaria indicator surveys in East and Southern Africa.