Dr Thel Hla is a visiting researcher with the IDDO antimicrobial resistance research team. She is an infectious diseases physician by training (MBBS, DTM&H, FRACP) and holds a senior research officer position with The Kids Research Institute (Australia). She has previously worked as a researcher with Myanmar Oxford Clinical Research Unit (MOCRU) in 2019 -2020.
She is currently completing a doctoral thesis focussing on re-purposing penicillins to improve secondary prophylaxis against Strep A, centred around a randomised, controlled Strep A human challenge study. Her other research involvements include demonstration of safety and feasibility of subcutaneous infusion of high dose long-acting penicillin in healthy human volunteers, paving the way for improving treatment of syphilis infection and secondary prophylaxis of rheumatic heart disease.
Mary joined IDDO in January 2025 as a Data Scientist to perform large-scale individual patient data meta-analyses, methods development, and statistical modelling to optimise the treatment of infectious disease. Her research will focus on improving the diagnosis and triage of patients with suspected severe malaria.
In February 2024, Mary defended her PhD thesis, titled 'Differentially Private Methods for Releasing Aggregated Multi-Dimensional Messages'. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of Warwick.
Dhruv is a medical doctor from Zambia with a keen interest in the epidemiology of infectious diseases. At IDDO, Dhruv’s DPhil research focuses on Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention, supervised by Prof. Philippe Guérin, Dr. James Watson and Dr. Prabin Dahal.
Previously, Dhruv completed the MSc in Global Health Science and Epidemiology in Oxford. He is supported by the Rhodes Scholarship. He aims to pursue specialty clinical training after completing his doctoral research in Oxford.
Lucy joined IDDO in November 2024 to work on geospatial models of anti-malarial drug resistance. Lucy has recently submitted her PhD thesis, titled “Informing public health decisions with geospatial models of vector-borne disease”. During her PhD, she developed geospatial models of Plasmodium knowlesi malaria in Southeast Asia and Japanese encephalitis virus in Australia. She also worked on frameworks for model-informed decision-making for disease surveillance site selection.
Before commencing her PhD, she obtained a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Computational Biology, in 2018 and a Master of Computational Biology in 2020 from the University of Melbourne.
Riley joined IDDO in September 2024. As a Data Manager, they work on the management and transformation of diverse data sets that are submitted to IDDO, as well as ensuring the completeness and accuracy of data in the IDDO data repository.
Prior to joining IDDO, they worked as a Data Wrangler for the Oxford-Novartis collaboration where they handled big data from IL-17A inhibitor clinical trials.
Riley holds a MBiol Microbiology/Biotechnology from the University of York and a MSc Data Science from Loughborough University.
Mr Thitthiphone Olinh is a graduate Bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Care from the University of Health Sciences in Laos. He co-founded Precious Plastic Vientiane, an initiative addressing plastic waste in Lao communities, promoting recycling and sustainable environmental practices. Additionally, Mr Thitthiphone conducted research on the knowledge and behavior of self-care among people who has Long COVID-19 in Vientiane Capital, further highlighting his commitment to advancing both health and environmental solutions in Laos. He joined the Medicine Quality Research group in April 2024 as a research assistant, based in Vientiane in the Lao-Oxford-Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust-Research Unit (LOMWRU).
Forhad is a Bangladeshi consultant in medicine with a deep passion for sepsis, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and conducting high-quality clinical trials in low-resource settings. He has been serving in the Bangladesh Civil Service since 2010, demonstrating a strong commitment to public health and clinical excellence. Forhad is a Commonwealth Scholar who was featured in the Yearbook 21 of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, UK. In recognition of his exceptional contributions during the COVID-19 pandemic, he received the prestigious Integrity Award 2021 from the Government of Bangladesh.
Forhad has co-authored the National Guidelines on Clinical Management of COVID-19 and the Standard Treatment Guidelines of Common Infections of Bangladesh, contributing significantly to national healthcare protocols. He also serves as a guest lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK, where he shares his expertise with the next generation of healthcare professionals.
Currently, Forhad is conducting a systematic review to estimate the burden of AMR in Bangladesh in collaboration with Prof. Philippe Guerin at the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO). He is also leading a randomized controlled trial to investigate the role of procalcitonin in reducing antibiotic therapy in adult sepsis patients under the supervision of Prof. Arjen Dondorp. Forhad’s work is driven by his dedication to improving healthcare standards and outcomes in resource-limited settings through rigorous research and clinical innovation.
Dr Aninda Nishat Moitry is a DPhil in Clinical Medicine student based at the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory. She started her PhD in October 2023 under the supervision of Professor Philippe Guerin, and Drs. James Watson, Makoto Saito, and Stephanie Dellicour. Her doctoral research will investigate the safety of a range of antimalarial drugs used for treating acute malaria during pregnancy, with the goal to generate robust evidence to inform policy maker, regulators, clinicians, and pregnant women.
Dr Moitry is a medical doctor by training and completed her MSc in Epidemiology from Imperial College London with Chevening Scholarship. She also gained an MPH from BRAC University, Bangladesh. She became a Fellow member of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), United Kingdom in 2022.
Prior to starting her PhD, Dr Moitry was working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. In addition to teaching Epidemiology and Public Health, she has worked on a number of research projects on maternal and child health, infectious diseases, and equity issues in health services utilisation in the last 7 years, and actively engaged in policy advocacy.
Cindy is a WHO/TDR Clinical Research Leadership Fellow at Infectious Diseases Data Observatory, University of Oxford. Specifically, she will work on a malaria in pregnancy research project. She is interested in gaining more knowledge and skill about research and evidence-based medicine.
Before joining IDDO, Cindy worked as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia. She treated many healthy pregnant women and also those with diseases, such as hepatitis B, HIV, syphilis, tuberculosis, dengue hemorrhagic fever, etc. She graduated from Obstetrics and Gynecology Study Program at Faculty of Medicine Universitas Sriwijaya in 2022 and as a medical doctor at the same university in 2016.
Cindy is a member of National Task Force of Reproductive Tract Infection Indonesian Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Their main concern is the antimicrobial resistance and triple elimination eradication program conducted by the Indonesian government for all pregnant women. It consists of Hepatitis B, HIV, and syphilis. Moreover, other endemic diseases in their country become their concern, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and DHF.
Dawit Getachew Assefa has a Master of Science Degree from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, and serves as a Clinical Trials Specialist. Since 2017, he has been imparting knowledge at Dilla University, Ethiopia. Additionally, he has practical experience as a Professional Nurse at Dilla University Referral Hospital and Sekota District Health Center.
In his professional tenure, he has served as a principal investigator in a measles vaccine adverse event surveillance trial in Ethiopia and as a Research Nurse at KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, contributing to multi-country clinical research on TB Prevention therapy for people living with HIV.
Throughout his career, Dawit has amassed expertise in clinical research and evidence synthesis, including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and network meta-analyses. His primary research interests revolve around poverty-related infectious diseases and neglected tropical infectious diseases, with a particular focus on malaria and tuberculosis.
Dawit joined IDDO/WWARN as a WHO/TDR Fellow in 2024, where he will be working on the comparative effectiveness of Artemisinin Combination Therapy on hemoglobin recovery and gametocyte clearance in P. falciparum.