Michael Wilson, MPH

AA&D South Africa, Executive Director

Since 2020, Michael has served as Executive Director as AA&D South Africa. Since co-founding AA&D, Michael has worked to establish and support existing partnerships across AA&D’s global TB, harm-reduction, diabetes, and refugee health projects and activities. In his current role, Michael is supporting the rollout of service delivery grants to integrate screening and linkage to care for TB and non-communicable diseases in Durban, South Africa.  Michael also serves as one of the founding directors of the Bellhaven Harm Reduction Centre, South Africa's first low-threshold harm reduction centre.

Prior to AA&D, Michael helped to manage a federally-qualified community health center for the homeless in Richmond, Virginia where he led a $1.5 million USD project to expand the center’s provision of primary medical, behavioral health, and substance use therapy programs. Michael holds a Masters in Public Health from UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and a Bachelor of Science in biology from Virginia Military Institute.

Michael serves as Board Treasurer for AA&D, and holds a visiting appointment as adjunct assistant professor at UNC Chapel Hill’s Gillings School. Contact: michaelw@aadglobal.org

 Tom Nicholson, MIDP
AA&D Executive Director

Tom is AA&D's founding Executive Director, responsible for its operations and strategic direction. Until October 2021, he held an appointment as Associate in Research at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, at the Duke Center for International Development (DCID) but resigned in protest against their Covid-19 policies for local staff and students. He served on the Board of Directors for the Global Health Council in Washington D.C. from 2018 to 2020 on the audit and membership committees.

Tom worked as a project manager and director at Partners in Health (PIH) for 7 years prior, mostly in the former Soviet Union and Rwanda. His work focused primarily on tuberculosis programs, and on health infrastructure strengthening that is patient centered, flexible, and community-based. Tom was previously an International Development Policy Fellow at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, studied government and post-soviet studies at Indiana University - Bloomington, and was a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Tom served as Board President and Executive Director for AA&D for 7 years and advises for the United Nations on infectious disease program design. Contact: tomn@aadglobal.org

Amanda Brumwell, MAS
Managing Director

Amanda serves as the Managing Director for AA&D. She works closely with site-based partners and teams to manage AA&D’s contributions to collaborative implementation and research initiatives. Amanda began working with AA&D in 2015 at the initiation of the TB Drug Access Atlas project. She has since has served with AA&D's partners at REACH in Chennai, India, and worked as a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. Amanda oversees AA&D’s initiatives on the US-Mexico border and supports efforts with the Zero TB Initiative, harm reduction and TB-diabetes co-infection projects. She earned her BS and AB from Duke University, and her Masters Degree from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Population Health Management. Amanda is currently also a PhD candidate at University of Washington.

Salmaan Keshavjee, MD, PhD, ScM
Board Vice President, Senior Clinician
Dr. Keshavjee is Associate Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Center for the HMS Global Health Delivery - Dubai. He is an anthropologist, medical doctor, and historian. Dr. Keshavjee’s research spans four areas: (1) multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) treatment and policy; (2) health-sector reform and access to health care and medical technology in transitional societies, with a special focus on countries of the former Soviet Union (Central Asia and the Russian Federation); (3) the role of non-governmental organizations in globalization and the formation of trans-border civil society; and (4) modernity, social institutions, civil society, and health in the Middle East and Central Asia.

In addition to being an active clinician, his methodological expertise is in ethnography, participant-observation, and qualitative interview techniques. Dr. Keshavjee has led efforts in Tomsk, Siberia, which is the first systematic effort to treat MDR-TB in the Russian Federation in accordance with international clinical practice standards. Between 2006 and 2008 he led the effort to treat MDR-TB/HIV co-infection in Lesotho, which was the first of its kind in this Sub-Saharan African country.

Mercedes Corina Becerra, Sc.D.
AA&D Epidemiologist
Dr. Becerra's research focuses on the treatment and epidemiology of drug-resistant tuberculosis. She also studies the burden of tuberculosis in the child and adult household contacts of patients with drug-resistant tuberculosis and strategies to improve contact investigation, case detection, and treatment in high-risk households. She is an Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and sits on AA&D's board.

Dilshad Jaff

Consultant for Complex Emergencies

Dilshad is a medical doctor and Program Coordinator for Solutions for Complex Emergencies, Research, Innovation, and Global Solutions at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dilshad is working with AA&D to explore opportunities to serve communities displaced or traumatized as a result of conflict around the world.  He has worked extensively with the Iraqi Ministry of Health, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and other humanitarian aid groups active in the border areas in Iraq.

Jade Tso

Consultant

Jade began working at Advance Access & Delivery in 2019 as the Zero Tuberculosis Initiative’s Data for Action Fellow and then as Program Manager. She acted as a consultant for the Global Fund Tuberculosis Program in the Republic of Georgia and conducted a cost analysis of tuberculosis programs in Lima, Peru. Additionally, she worked on COVID-19 prevention projects in Oklahoma City, including testing and mobile clinics for people experiencing homelessness, in collaboration with local clinics, shelters, and public health authorities. Jade is now a medical student at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine where she is a part of the Academic Research Careers for Medical Doctors (ARC-MD) honors pathway. She was also named a 2021-2023 Anne C. Carter Global Health Fellow by the American Medical Women’s Association. She graduated with distinction from Duke University in 2019 with a BS in Biology and minors in Global Health and Chemistry. 

Susan Omar

Program Advisor and Consultant

Susan brings more than 15 years of leadership and field experience in development and humanitarian relief, working on multi-sector project implementation, education, health, and emergency response mechanisms for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), largely in the Middle East.

Susan has also worked with academic entities like UNC Chapel Hill to support students and faculty members with her broad linguistic skills in Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish, and English. She boasts a considerable background supporting vulnerable populations, victims, and ethnic minority groups, centering around human rights, civil society, gender, and mental health.

Torres Mabuyi

Social Work and Treatment Accompaniment Lead

Torres holds a degree in Bachelor of Social work with honors in Psychology and a three year Diploma in Youth Development from the University of South Africa.

For the last three years, Torres has worked to provide treatment and psychosocial support to homeless patients living with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diabetes and substance use disorders.

Prior to working in public health, Torres managed an early childhood development center which offered a school readiness programs for children living in Dalton hostel in Durban.

Torres is currently employed as a social worker and medical compliance officer for AA&D South Africa, facilitating group and individual psychosocial sessions at Bellhaven Harm Reduction Centre and supporting the NCD-LINK project.