TAG Members

Alex Fajardo is Executive Director of El Sol Neighborhood Educational Center and a U.S. national leader in advancing the Community Health Worker/Promotor model. With over 30 years of experience in community empowerment and a master’s in clinical psychology, he has designed and led transformative CHW programs that strengthen families and revitalize neighborhoods. Alex founded the El Sol Community Health Worker Training Center and has trained CHWs across the U.S., Mexico, and Japan. A recognized advocate and consultant, he contributes to statewide and national CHW initiatives, focusing on workforce identity, equity, and sustainable community-based health system.

Shivani Shukla is a Country Investments & Knowledge Associate at the Financing Alliance for Health (FAH), where she leads the organization’s work on evidence, policy, and advocacy to advance sustainable financing for primary and community health systems across Africa. She works with governments, funders, and global partners to shape strategies that strengthen health systems and promote equitable, long-term investment in frontline care.

Shivani’s prior experience spans research, policy, and implementation with institutions including the UK Government, UNESCAP, Columbia University, and Imperial College London. She holds an MSc in Health and International Development from the London School of Economics and is also a Doctoral Researcher in Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, focusing on climate-resilient and sustainably financed health systems.

Professor Joseph Ana is Lead Senior Fellow and Consultant at the Africa Centre for Clinical Governance Research and Patient Safety at HRI West Africa in Calabar, Nigeria. He is a member of the HIFA Steering Group and the HIFA Working Group on community health workers. Joseph was driven by his interest in strengthening health systems for quality care improvement to leave a lucrative medical practice in the UK and return to Nigeria to take up post as Commissioner for Health in Cross River State. As Commissioner, he led the designing and pilot of the 12-Pillar Clinical Governance Programme in Nigeria. Professor Ana is the Country Coordinator of Practical Approach to Care Kit (PACK) Nigeria Programme for Primary Health Care, and a member of the Statutory National Tertiary Health Institutions Standards Committee of the Federal Ministry of Health of Nigeria. He has been the pioneer Chairman of both the NMA National Committee on Clinical Governance and Research since 2012 and the Quality & Performance subcommittee of the Technical Working Group for the implementation of the Nigeria Health Act 2014. He is a pioneer Trustee-Director of the NMF (Nigerian Medical Forum) which took the British Medical Journal to West Africa in 1995.

Wuleta Betemariam is the Director for JSI’s Center for Healthy Women, Children and Communities.  Prior to joining the Center, Ms Betemariam was the Project Director for the Last Ten Kilometers Project in Ethiopia which focused on community health systems funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, and USAID. Ms Betemariam served as the Deputy Director of EngenderHealth’s Program Division in New York, where she provided strategic direction and oversight of country and global programs. Before joining EngenderHealth in New York, Ms Betemariam established EngenderHealth’s presence in Ethiopia as well as a program in Sudan and was the country director for the two countries. Ms. Betemariam also has seven years experience as technical advisor for USAID’s Population, Health and Nutrition Office, with focus in Ethiopia.  Ms. Betemariam holds a Masters Degree in Public Health and Public Policy from the University of Michigan.  Wuleta is currently enrolled in a Doctoral Program in Public Health Leadership at the University of Illinois – Chicago. Her dissertation is focused on the factors of high and low performance of the Health Extension Workers in Ethiopia.

Donna Bjerregaard was a Senior Technical Advisor at Initiatives Inc. for 20 years, providing support to civil society organizations, community groups, governments and international organizations. She managed CHW Central from its inception in 2011 until her retirement in 2018; the development of the site to date is a result of her outstanding stewardship.

Donna has extensive experience in curriculum design, quality improvement, community health worker assessment tools, organizational and program capacity development and training and community health promotion. She has authored training manuals, handbooks and position papers. During her long career in public health development, Donna lived and worked in India, Nigeria, and Jordan and provided technical assistance in Africa, Asia and South America. Donna is excited to stay connected to the CHW Central community as a TAG member.

Seth Doyle is the Manager of the Community Health Improvement Program at the Northwest Regional Primary Care Association (NWRPCA) In this role, he oversees NWRPCA’s examination of, and response to, changing population demographics and dynamics, models of community collaboration that address health disparities and promote equity, models of clinical care delivery, and workforce and staffing innovations for community health centers. Seth joined NWRPCA in 2007 as Migrant Health Coordinator, providing training and technical assistance to migrant health centers in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

Prior to joining NWRPCA, Seth worked as a Health Educator and Case Manager for the Urban League of Rhode Island. Seth holds a master’s degree in Latin American Studies with a Public Health Minor from the University of New Mexico. Seth’s research interests include migration, health, and human rights. He has studied and conducted field research in Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Mexico.

Durrell J. Fox is a Community Health Worker (CHW) with over 27 years of experience providing outreach, direct services, case management support and advocacy for HIV+ adolescents/young adults, their families and communities. He is currently a Community Health Worker-Health Equity Consultant at JSI and recently served as a Technical Advisor for the MA Department of Public Health’s Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund (PWTF) which employs over 70 CHWs across the state. He is a proud member of the CHW workforce continuing to serve in a volunteer CHW role coordinating and staffing a young men’s rites of passage program in Boston for young men.

David Musoke, MSc, PhD is a Lecturer in the Department of Disease Control and Environmental Health at Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH), Uganda. David is Co-Chair of the Health Systems Global Thematic Working Group on Community Health Workers (CHWs). He is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), UK as well as the Uganda lead of the MakSPH – NTU health partnership that has supported over 600 CHWs for more than 10 years. He has been involved in vast work related to CHWs including teaching, programme implementation, management and research which has been disseminated extensively including publications. David is also the Secretary of the International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH) Africa group, as well as Chair of the Africa Academy for Environmental Health.

Daniel Palazuelos, MD, MPH is a global health implementor-educator who holds positions at Harvard Medical School, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Partners In Health (PIH) including: clinical work as an attending physician with the BWH hospitalist in-patient service; graduate medical education support as the assistant director of the Global Health Equity residency at BWH; clinical and research leadership as the chief strategist for PIH-Mexico; accompaniment of CHW projects across all PIH sites through a quality improvement task force that hosts summits, authors papers, and represents PIH at national and international meetings.

For years, Dan worked to create the strategy for, and successfully launch, of the PIH project in Mexico, Compañeros en Salud-Mexico, which is not only a service provider for local people in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Chiapas, but also a platform for U.S. and Mexican medical trainees to learn about global health and to conduct implementation research. In addition to an emphasis on extensive preparation and on-site mentorship, this program offers collaborators the capacity to support intensive and logistically complex research efforts.

Henry Perry, III, MD, PhD, MPH is a Senior Associate in the Health Systems Program of the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. He joined Hopkins in 2009; his career prior to that has included stints working with Future Generations, Curamericas Global, ICDDR,B, the BASICS Project in Bangladesh, and Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti. His work has taken him to many countries, including Bangladesh, Bolivia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Tibet (China), Arunachal Pradesh (India), and Peru. Dr. Perry has a formal background in medicine (including general surgery), public health, sociology and anthropology; he conducts research on community-based primary health care.