2020 CUGH Global Health Leadership Awards

Pierre Buekens is W. H. Watkins Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University, New Orleans. He is also the Director of the Center for Emerging Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology (CERPE). Dr. Buekens was the Dean of the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine from 2003 to 2018. He previously was Professor and Chair of the Department of Maternal and Child Health and Associate Dean for Global Health in the School of Public Health at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Buekens earned his MD, MPH, and PhD degrees from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels, Belgium). He is a Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. Dr. Buekens is past chair of the Board of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH).

Dr. Collins Owili is the Emergency Manager for World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme supporting Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States in Northeast Nigeria, where he provides overall leadership and coordinates WHO, government and partners health sector response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis due to decade-long armed conflict and natural disasters. He has more than 20 years’ experience in managing health system strengthening in fragile and conflict-affected countries in East, West and North Africa, where he served as Country and Regional Director for International Non-governmental Organizations. He also held several leadership positions in WHO and UNICEF in Somalia, Kenya, DR Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, South Sudan and Sudan (Darfur).

Dr. Owili has lead numerous health systems recovery initiatives in Africa where he provided capacity building on health sector governance, institutionalized quality improvement initiatives and rebuilt hospitals and clinics in Somalia and DR Congo, which improved access to healthcare for millions of displaced persons and survivors of gender-based violence. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Dr. Owili led technical experts and deployed innovative surveillance systems that significantly improved Ebola prevention and control efforts, and prevented thousands of deaths from Ebola.

Currently, Dr. Owili is a member of Nigeria Operational Humanitarian Country Team (OHCT) and advises the UN Humanitarian coordinator and GoN on health sector humanitarian strategy. He received special commendations from UNDP Administrator, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Yobe State Government for his outstanding contributions to health systems development in Northeast Nigeria and improving health services to displaced persons.

Etinosa Oghogho is a young and committed public health practitioner who is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Public Health at Florida International University. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist and is passionately involved in global health outreach efforts in the USA, Haiti, and Nigeria to reduce health disparities amongst underserved populations particularly in the area of Maternal and Child Health, and Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) in resource-poor settings. Etinosa’s Ph.D. dissertation focuses on reducing the burden of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula (VVF) in Nigeria. At the Reproductive Health and Research Department of WHO Headquarters in Geneva, where she interned, Etinosa conducted research on health systems strengthening to improve SRH outcomes among underserved populations in low-income countries.  Etinosa received the Florida Public Health Association Student Award for her contributions to reducing HIV/STD among underserved women in Miami. She is also a recipient of the 2019 Global Health Consortium Best Presentation Award for her work on VVF in Nigeria.