Zeena Johar, PhD
President
Dr. Zeena Johar obtained her PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH – Zurich, in Molecular Modeling and Design, following her Masters in Chemistry with a specialization in Quantum Chemistry from Panjab University. To pursue her passion of translating basic science research towards populations-based applied research, Dr. Johar joined the IKP Trust in 2007. Dr. Johar is one of the founding members of ICTPH, a research institute working towards innovating sustainable, replicable and scalable healthcare delivery models for rural India. As President, Dr. Johar has played an instrumental role in conceptualizing the strategic alignment of ICTPH with the overall mission of IKP Trust. Dr. Johar is currently spearheading the Tanjore Health Systems Pilot, a network of nurse-managed Rural Micro Health Centres (RMHCs) facilitating diagnostic and curative services with a focus on community-based preventive care in conjunction with hamlet-based Community Health Workers (CHWs). Through primary-care provisioning, coupled with relevant financing that supports critical referral networks as well as pricing end-to-end healthcare delivery, ICTPH aims to present optimal health outcomes with minimal health expenditure for rural beneficiaries.
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AVP - Human Capacity
Shyamala Ashok has a Masters in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work and worked in the Development Sector of Health and Welfare with intensive research in the assessments of Quality of Life associated with Dementia, Paraplegia, HIV/AIDS and Schizophrenia for the last 22 years and over. She has adapted to work with high commanded bottom up approaches, with multi stake holders. Her key demonstrated competencies include Organizational and institutional development, Leadership enhancement and ability to work in multi disciplinary and multi-cultural teams. Prior to her term with ICTPH she has been the founder member of Society for Development, Research and Training (SFDRT) working with the underprivileged.
She carries forward the concept of CHW, as the first point of focus for achieving Primary Health Care amidst the deserving communities. However concentrates on seeding and developing the CHW's as master trainers with spaced out need based curriculums. She aims to measure and develop step wise skills amidst the CHW master trainers for creating sustenance for establishing primary health care.
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AVP - Communication & Strategy Development
Subhalakshmi Ganguly has masters’ degrees in biological anthropology from the State University of New York at Binghamton and in education from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. In her anthropology master’s thesis, she studied the health and nutritional status of tribal communities in rural West Bengal. She is a recipient of the William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India from the American India Foundation and an alumna of Teach For America. Her research interests in public health and education focus on issues regarding family and community involvement prevalent in developing countries. At ICTPH, her work involves sharing the organization's research with a wider array of audiences.
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Research Associate - Healthcare Solutions
Laura Costica has a MSc in Economics from the University of Essex. To pursue her interest in applied economic research in developing country settings, she came to India to work with a civil society organization focused on urban development in Gujarat. She has wide experience utilizing data analysis for developing interventions and keen interests in advocacy, activism and the behavioral aspects of public health. At ICTPH, Laura works as a Research Associate in the Healthcare Solutions team, where she contributes to fine-tuning the innovative health systems pilot in Tamil Nadu.
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Research Associate - Epidemiology
Sunayana Sen has a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Sophia College, Mumbai. She completed her Masters in Human Rights, from the University of Calcutta in 2008 and volunteered for several non profit organizations. She worked on several projects related to child health and the human rights of rural populations before she joined ICTPH as a Research Analyst, Epidemiology. She currently works as Research Associate and is involved in several projects housed within ICTPH.
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Research Analyst - Strategy Development
Divya obtained her Master's degree from New York University (NYU) in Media, Culture, and Communication. She obtained her bachelor's degree in Sociology from Stella Maris college in 2007. She has internship experiences in a wide variety of fields including Research, Consulting, and Communications- and in a wide variety of cities including Nairobi, Chennai, and New York. She is interested in Public Health, and is currently working as a Research Analyst with Strategy Development at ICTPH.
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Research Analyst - Human Capacity
Sangeetha obtained her Masters in Social Work, with field practice in Health & Development from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has worked on community health in urban slums, leading CHW’s in health education on communicable diseases and gender sensitization programmes. Her fieldwork experiences in a hospital setting and internship roles with NGO’s include health education, field research, training and counseling supporting themes of preventive, promotive and rehabilitative healthcare. She has also contributed to a PanIIT team effort of developing a Blue Book for Government Industrial Training Institutes in India. Sangeetha was regionally coordinating the implementation of Government schemes on Vocational Education and Training across South India. She joins ICTPH as a Research Analyst in Human Capacity supporting the team’s community development work in rural Tamil Nadu.
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Research Assistant - Human Capacity
Rufin Jenila is a Research Assistant working with the Human Capacity vertical at ICTPH. She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Nursing from the Bishops College of Nursing, Dharapuram (MGR University) and worked at PSG hospitals (Coimbatore ) in the emergency department before she joined the organization.
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Executive Assistant
Erin Jeremiah is Executive Assistant at ICTPH. She has a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration (B.B.A) from the Madras University, Chennai. She has eight years of work experience and is currently assisting the team with all administration related chores.
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Advisor
Dr. Chockalingam graduated from Madras Medical College, one of the oldest in India, in 2003. He has five years of post graduate clinical experience including training in Surgical Laparoscopy and Intervention Gastroenterology in Buffalo, NY. He worked as a Registrar in the Critical Care unit in Apollo hospitals for a year and a half after which he joined ICTPH as Assistant Vice President - Human Capacity. Dr. Chockalingam is the founding member of the CHW (Community Health Worker) focus at ICTPH, looking at alternate disease focus areas e.g. mental health, oral health and sexual health. Dr. Ravikumar also played an instrumental role in operationalising the CHW pilot in Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu - from coordinating field teams for mobilizing the CHW’s to designing and implementing the in-house three phase training programs. Dr. Chockalingam is currently pursuing his Master’s in Public Health (MPH), at The Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University, USA.
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Consultant
Dr. Rajaratnam Abel completed his medical studies from Christian Medical College (CMC) in Tamil Nadu, India. After a period of service in various mission hospitals in Nepal, Ranchi, Pune, Nuzvid and Andhra Pradesh, he joined the Rural Unit for Health and Social Affairs (RUHSA), a Department of CMC. During his time at RUHSA, he completed his Masters of Public Health from The John Hopkins University, USA and then his PhD from The Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, Chennai. At RUHSA he was responsible for developing and leading a Primary Health Care programme in KV Kuppam Block of Vellore District. Currently Dr. Abel is retired and working as a Public Health Consultant.
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Consultant
Dr. Jolly Rajaratnam completed her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from St. Mary's College Tuticorin and Master of Science in Mathematics from St. John's College Palayamkottai, Tamil Nadu, India. She received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from The Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, Chennai. She then joined RUHSA’s Department of Christian Medical College Vellore. She was the Coordinator of Evaluation in RUHSA and ensured the completion of a number of evaluation programmes. She developed the MIS (Management Information System) for the RUHSA Project working with the entire Block consisting of a population of 1,20,000. She was a faculty member for various courses and played a leading role in organizing training in epidemiology and survey methods and in guiding many national and international students who passed through RUHSA. Dr. Rajaratnam has several scientific publications focusing on her research. Currently, she is working as a consultant for two organizations in the health and development sectors.
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Alumnus
Arijit Sarkar was Vice President, Health Care Solutions at ICTPH from November 2008 to June 2010. His primary interests are to invest in and provide support to socially relevant and sustainable business models, with a particular focus on nascent and early stage entrepreneurships. Prior to ICTPH he worked at Lehman Brothers for two years as a Quantitative Research Associate, where he built models of liquidity in public equity markets. He has a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay and is currently pursuing his MBA from IIM, Bangalore.
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