Director of the Institute of Health Research and Coordinator of the Centre for Health Policy and Implementation Research at the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Prof Margaret Gyapong, has been appointed the new chair of TDR’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC).

The new chair is replacing Professor Charles Mgone from January 2023, said a release from TDR.

Prof Gyapong accepting the role said, “I am humbled at this opportunity to Chair STAC.”

She added that “Having benefited from several training and research grants and being recognised several times by TDR, I see this as an opportunity to serve. I look forward to working with the team to ensure that we work together to achieve the objectives set out in the new TDR strategy.”

Profile

A medical anthropologist by training, Professor Gyapong is currently Director of the Institute of Health Research and Coordinator of the Centre for Health Policy and Implementation Research at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana.

The Centre was designated as a TDR Satellite Training Centre for Implementation Research in 2018 under her leadership.

Professor Gyapong has had a longstanding relationship with TDR since 1992. She previously served as Vice-Chair of TDR’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Integrated Community-Based Interventions (2008-2010), co-Chair of TDR’s Technical Review Group on Social Science and Gender and member of the MIM/TDR Taskforce on Malaria Research Capability Strengthening in Africa (2003-2010).

Professor Gyapong has also been a member of the Partnership for Social Science in Infectious Diseases of Poverty, the WHO Steering Committee on Implementation Research (2011-2015) and the Steering Group for the WHO/GMP Global Technical Strategy on Malaria (2010–2013), as well as Chair of the WHO Lymphatic Filariasis Guidelines Development Group (2017).

She is a member of WHO’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Group on Neglected Tropical Diseases (STAG-NTD) and the WHO/AFRO Advisory Committee on Health Research and Development.