YiPEE (Youth co-Production for sustainable Engagement and Empowerment in health) is a collaborative research initiative bringing together multiple disciplines and cultures to work together on a school-based multicomponent intervention for adolescents’ mental health and wellbeing.

Pilvikki Absetz

Pilvikki has a background in behavioral sciences and is a professor of public health at the Tampere University. Her research focuses on behavioral interventions to prevent and to manage non-communicable diseases and to promote health. Her research has always been conducted in the “real world”, in partnerships with health care and other community organizations, both in Finland and internationally in high-income countries as well as in low- and middle-income countries. At Tampere University, she teaches medical students implementation of preventive practices in clinical settings and public health students in application of implementation research methodology in health promotion interventions. 

Pilvikki spends her free time hiking in the Finnish forests together with her friends and her fox terrier Niilo or playing with her 3- and 1-year-old grandchildren. 

Jill Ahs

Jill is a psychiatric epidemiologist and global health researcher. Jill likes using epidemiology to identify modifiable risk factors for mental disorders. She is interested in development of interventions for strengthening children’s and adolescents’ mental health and for reducing intergenerational transmission of psychopathology risk. Jill has worked as a public mental health officer in Sweden, and in academic research at Dartmouth College, US, Duke University, US, and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Jill has coordinated global health research projects in social and psychiatric epidemiology, occupational epidemiology, and infectious disease surveillance. She is pursuing her doctoral degree jointly at Swedish Red Cross University and the Karolinska Institutet. Jill is a graduate of the University of Vermont, US, and has a Masters in Global Health from the Karolinska Institutet. 

Jill enjoys crocheting but only in a circle.

Joyce Arita

Joyce is an experienced program management professional in Nairobi, Kenya. She possesses expertise in project and program management for community mental health and development. Currently serving as the Programs Manager at citiesRISE Nairobi, she oversees a range of projects and initiatives, fostering collaboration among communities and stakeholders in health, education, social services, and other developmental sectors. Joyce’s commitment to youth mental health and development is exemplified through her participation in the Alliance for the Protection of Children. She played a crucial role in launching the youth mental health program in Kenya while working with BasicNeeds BasicRights Kenya. She holds a B.S. in International Business Management from Africa Nazarene University and a diploma in Library and Information Science from the University of Nairobi.

Beyond her professional commitments, Joyce finds solace in long drives and cherishes precious moments with her family.

Fredric Azariah

Fredric is the Global R&D manager at citiesRISE, with over 10 years of experience as a public health researcher. Along with his role leading and implementing programs in Chennai, Fredric supports citiesRISE’s research and development initiatives across countries. Fredric is currently working with arts-based organizations, youth-led initiatives, established NGOs and system leaders to design and build evidence for innovative approaches to youth mental health, with an emphasis on harmonizing these efforts for cross-cultural adaptation. Prior to citiesRISE, he worked at Sangath, a premier research organization in India, where he served as the Executive Director, managing the overall research operations of the organization across all locations. Fredric is experienced at implementing policies and procedures, as well as liaising with and representing organizations to develop strong partnerships.

He loves playing football and is a crazy lifelong fan of Manchester United.

Mariam Claeson

Mariam is Senior Advisor at the Department of Global Health, Karolinska Institutet, working on the political economy of adolescent mental health globally. She has worked more than 30 years in global public health, across reproductive, maternal, child and adolescent health and nutrition, including at the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Global Financing Facility for Women and Children. Mariam’s work has covered rural clinical practice (Tanzania, Bangladesh, and East Bhutan), primary health care (Ethiopia) and health sector development (including, Egypt, Jordan, Uzbekistan, China, and the Philippines). She is known for her contribution to leading international programs and reports on child survival, AIDS in South Asia, global health, and disease control priorities. She serves on several boards.

Mariam loves walking in the forest and foraging for wild mushrooms and berries when in season.

Jeroen de Man

I moved from clinical practice to data science.

I moved from Belgium to the US to India to South Africa.

I moved from HIV to NCDs to mental health.

I moved from longitudinal analysis to survey analysis to psychometrics.

I moved from health systems to health behavior to perceived autonomy.

I moved from the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) to the University of Antwerp (UA) to the University of the Western Cape (UWC).

I am trying to move a lot; being a rock-climbing addict.

Evelina Flodkvist

Evelina is a global health professional with a background in development studies and global health. She has field experience in gender-based violence studies in low-income settings. She has been working with European Union grants management and has been involved in several EU projects. Evalina holds a Master’s degree in Global Health from Uppsala University in Sweden, and has a deep interest in human rights, global health and development work. 

She loves sports, playing games and competing in everything that can be competed in.

Matt Hughsam

Matt is Director of Strategic Initiatives at citiesRISE. He is a researcher, facilitator, and coach passionate about bringing together grassroots-led and systems-led efforts toward transformative change. Matt entered justice work as a college student opposing Canadian government cuts to refugee healthcare coverage. Since then, he has supported global health initiatives in diverse contexts. He has worked on programs ranging from community-based interventions and movement building initiatives to supporting evidence-informed decision-making in national governments. He holds a Bachelor of Health Sciences from McMaster University, where he later taught global health, and a Master of Public Health from Harvard University, where he trained and coached with adaptive leadership experts. Matt also serves on the Advisory Board for Youth Combating Neglected Tropical Diseases. At citiesRISE, Matt helps lead design, strategy, and partnerships efforts. 

Matt loves reading sci-fi and outdoor adventures.

Shreya Jha

Shreya is co-founder of the Relational Wellbeing Collaborative which works on promoting sustainable wellbeing through strategies for systemic change. Shreya’s thinking on wellbeing builds on a foundational training in inclusive mental health and has been further refined over roughly 20 years of research and programmatic work  related to wellbeing, mental health, gender and poverty, among others. Since 2009 she has been working with Sarah on developing the relational approach to wellbeing, grounded in research, primarily in India and Zambia. Shreya greatly values the reflexive approach of the Relational Wellbeing Collaborative, which has an iterative approach based on collaboration with partners. Shreya holds a Ph.D. in the Sociology of Development from the University of Bath, UK, and a Diploma in Counselling Skills from Saarthak; a mental-health organization in New Delhi, India.

YooNa Kim

YooNa is an international educator and seasoned mental health specialist with over 10 years of experience empowering thousands of youth to build their capacity and resilience. YooNa moved to the United States to deepen her work on inner development and psychosocial support for communities in distress, and studied the intersection of spirituality and mental health at Columbia University’s Spirituality Mind Body Institute. As part of her entrepreneurial journey, YooNa joined citiesRISE to launch new efforts such as the capacity building training for youth leaders in Nairobi, the development of the inner work research program on gratitude, kindness and hope with Columbia University, the learning platform for early stage innovators and the culture of informal gathering spaces within citiesRISE. 

YooNa’s passion is to create spaces where people can explore their inner journey and find their signature strengths.

Carina King

Carina is an Infectious Diseases Epidemiologist, with a primary research background in pediatric pneumonia diagnosis, treatment and management in sub-Saharan Africa. She has worked in research for nearly 15 years across projects in the UK, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa and Bangladesh, including multiple pragmatic cluster RCTs of community-based interventions. Carina completed MSC in Control of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Carina is particularly interested in clinical research conducted at the community level and health systems approaches to improving adoption of medical technologies. At the Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, she is an Associate Professor of Global Health. 

When she escapes academia, Carina has secret ambitions to be a landscape gardener (despite not growing a single edible tomato in 5 years of trying).

Suresh Kumar

Suresh is a clinical researcher, psychiatrist, and technical lead for citiesRISE’s R&D efforts in India and globally. At citiesRISE, he leads collaborative efforts to develop innovations to bring the best of evidence and communities’ own experience for young people’s mental health and well-being, including the Whole School Approach in primary and secondary schools, Gathering Spaces within informal settlements, the Youth Leaders Network and Youth Challenge Awards and other innovative approaches. He brings over 40 years of experience in the field of mental health and drug use prevention, treatment as a service provider, professor, trainer, researcher, and international consultant. Suresh holds an M.D. from Madras University and a Master in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.

Happily married for 38 years to Shakuntala, a Psychiatrist, Suresh enjoys music, books, long walks and being with the children.

Victor Olusoji Ladele

Victor is the portfolio manager at UNICEF’s Office of Innovation focused on Mental Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing Innovation. He manages a global portfolio of digital and non-digital mental health solutions that are run out of 22 UNICEF country offices and are geared towards scale. Before joining UNICEF, Victor helped launch UNDP’s award-winning innovation Accelerator Labs in Fiji, served in the field as a doctor with WHO Health Emergencies and with UN Peacekeeping, gaining valuable experience across North, West & Central Africa, North America, and Asia Pacific regions. With degrees in medicine and business entrepreneurship, Victor is an innovation thought leader with over 10 years experience driving growth and change within humanitarian and development organizations. 

Victor makes friends easily, loves to spend time with family and to travel, often in combination! 

Christina Laurenzi

Christina is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Life Course Health Research at Stellenbosch University, where she focuses on adolescent and participatory engagement, mental health interventions, and implementation science approaches to evaluation. She is passionate about South-South collaboration and generating evidence to inform programming that can support marginalized individuals and communities. Christina has collaborated with a diverse range of partners, including the World Health Organization, UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, Plan International, One to One Africa Children’s Fund, and citiesRISE. She received her doctorate from Stellenbosch University in 2020. Her research focused on community health worker programs, adolescent mental health interventions, maternal and child health, and implementation science methodologies.

Christina loves cooking, playing classical piano, and exploring Cape Town’s beautiful beaches and mountain paths in her free time.

Anu Linnansaari

Anu is a public health researcher with a particular focus on policy implementation. Anu is specialized in qualitative methods and realistic approach and has experience in working with behavioral and implementation science theories and frameworks. Her professional background is in education. She has worked as a health and physical education teacher in upper secondary school for several years before becoming a full-time researcher. Due to experience in both research and practice, Anu is keen on building bridges between the two fields for better public health. 

Anu has three children who are keeping her life busy and multifaceted outside of work. Although her pitching skills are a bit rusty at the moment, Anu is a former national champion in Finnish baseball.

Oliver Mbayi

Oliver is a storyteller. He has 25 years of working with individuals and communities in conflict as an artiste healer. His expertise in counseling psychology and creative healing has endeared him to communities and institutions where he facilitates the efficacy of theater in mental health, psychosocial support and social reconciliation. Oliver is presently a lecturer at Kenyatta University in the Department of Communication, Film and Theatre Studies where he teaches art of storytelling, dramatherapy, psychodrama, community theater and children’s theater. Oliver has trained and mentored members in arts approaches to peace-building and advocacy and facilitated experiential workshops for international interns with Kenya’s grassroots communities in peace, dialogue and intercultural communication. Oliver leads citiesRISE arts strategy and training on principles that inform mental health among the global youth community. 

Oliver has a passion for cooking and interior decoration.

G J Melendez-Torres

G.J. is Professor of Clinical and Social Epidemiology at the University of Exeter (UK), Extraordinary Faculty at Stellenbosch University and holds the citiesRISE Research Chair. He is a nurse and epidemiologist with a methodologically intensive and policy-facing portfolio of research that includes child and adolescent health and intimate partner violence, with a focus on evaluation and randomized trials. G.J. leads the School for Public Health Environments Research at Exeter, which is the University’s membership in the NIHR School for Public Health Research, as well as a number of major grants on health technology assessment and evidence synthesis.  

G.J. is particularly passionate about food, and thinks all people everywhere should try a Philadelphia cheesesteak (vegetarian is okay) at some point in their lives.

Monika Martens

Monika has a background in European Public Health (Ba EPH), Global Health (MSc in GH), Management and Organisation (MA in applied economics) and is heavily committed to social improvement and transdisciplinary work. She is currently working as a junior researcher at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp and is also a PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp. She is conducting research on scale-up whilst applying complexity and systems thinking to the evaluation of policy dialogues and strategies for integrated care. This research is part of an European Union-funded Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, which is about scaling up integrated chronic care in three different countries in Europe and Asia.

Monika enjoys hip-hop dancing in her free time, and is excited to start working in mental health!

Stefan Swartling Peterson

Stefan is a Public Health Physician and Professor of Global Health. Stefan has roughly 20 years of experience working in East Africa on health systems and implementation science related to child survival, perinatal quality of care, and capacity development. He served as the Global Chief of Health for UNICEF from 2016 to 2020k. In January 2021, he returned to Karolinska Institutet as a Professor of Global Transformation for Health, with affiliations to Uppsala and Makerere Universities in Sweden and Uganda, respectively. Stefan holds a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University and a PhD from Uppsala University. He has extensive experience working with government health ministries and has implemented projects supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Gates Foundation, and the European Union. Stefan is also a co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières in Sweden.

Shravan Raghav

Shravan is a mental health advocate with lived experience and currently working as the Youth programs lead and Project coordinator for citiesRISE in Chennai. He holds a Bachelors in Psychology and leads a small grassroots initiative called The Safe Place which aims to create mental health awareness among young people in Chennai. He loves connecting with people that enables him to have meaningful conversations with them, and understanding the beauty and uniqueness of different human perspectives and experiences. He wants to add more value to the field of mental health through his work and help build better health systems for the current and future generations.

He enjoys writing, listening to podcasts, watching basketball, and trying to do something creative that makes him happy. He still loves watching cartoons from his childhood days.

Vijaya Raghavan

Vijaya is a Consultant Psychiatrist and heads the Department of Youth Mental Health at Schizophrenia Research Foundation (India). He completed his psychiatry residency from Institute of Mental Health, Madras Medical College in 2015. After that, he joined Schizophrenia Research Foundation and is involved in clinical, research, training, and outreach activities. His research interests are with youth mental health and first episode psychosis. He was awarded Nurturing Clinical Scientist Fellowship by ICMR, India and Fogarty Fellowship by NIH, USA to pursue his doctoral and post-doctoral research. He is leading and/or co-leading various funded research projects especially projects related to youth mental health. He has several research publications to his credit. 

Vijaya loves reading and has special interest in the intersections of Tamil literature/history and mental health.

Upasana Sharma

Upasana is a public health researcher with extensive experience in the areas of mass gathering health research, caregivers; burden, health promotion, and MOOC development. She earned her doctoral degree from AMCHSS, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST, India) supported by a fellowship from Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). In addition to her experience as a research fellow at PGIMER, Chandigarh, and NIMHANS, Bangalore, she has worked as a Consultant at ICMR-National Institute of Epidemiology in India, where she coordinated the implementation of several Massive Open Online Courses. Her work has been published in journals of international and national repute. At citiesRISE, she manages the design and implementation of research programs in India and globally. 

Upasana is an avid dog lover and a travel enthusiast who enjoys exploring new places.

Jad Shedrawy

Jad is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet. He did his masters within health economy policy and management followed by a PhD at the institution within cost effectiveness of latent tuberculosis screening among migrants in Stockholm. Jad is a pharmacist and a health economist with experience in cost-effectiveness analysis, health outcome measures and economic assessment of healthcare programs. He has worked within infectious disease control and evaluation of screening and vaccination programs with focus on high-risk groups. He has experience with quality of life and disease disabilities measure. He has worked at WHO and UNHCR and Stockholm County Council. For the YiPEE project, Jad is supporting and analyzing the health outcome measures and the economic evaluation of the intervention.

Jad is keen on photography and is taking professional photography courses.

Moitreyee Sinha

Moitreyee is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of citiesRISE, a multi-stakeholder initiative that includes many of the world’s leading experts, youth leaders and practitioners working to increase hope, inclusion, and access to care for young people. Originally from India, Moitreyee has been guided by the core belief that everything is connected, and that large-scale social transformation happens when people, communities and institutions work together. Moitreyee spent 10 years in research and development at General Electric (GE) where she successfully led multidisciplinary teams, leveraging diverse skill-sets to find ways to translate discoveries across sectors. From R&D, she moved to leading GE Foundation’s Global Health portfolio in 22 countries, forging connections across cultures and sectors to build multi-stakeholder initiatives in maternal child health and technology for health. 

Moitreyee loves arts, music and nature, and enjoys painting, hiking and meeting people from different cultures.

R Thara

Thara is a psychiatrist, a leading researcher in community mental health, and the co-founder and Vice Chair of SCARF (Schizophrenia Research Foundation), a non-governmental organization based in Chennai, India. She completed her PhD on Disability in Schizophrenia and used that information to lobby for psychiatric disability. She has worked closely with the WHO and forged research collaborations with many international reputed centers. She has led the pathbreaking Madras Longitudinal Study which followed persons with first episode schizophrenia for 35 years. In 2020, she received the Outstanding Clinical and Community Research Award of SIRS (Schizophrenia International Research Society) for her work on schizophrenia. In 2022, the President of India awarded Thara the Nari Shakti Puraskar for "creating awareness about mental disorders. Thara also received the President’s Gold Medal from the Royal College of Psychiatry, 2010, and Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK, 2014.

Mark Tomlinson

Mark is a clinical psychologist and currently works full-time in research – mainly in the area of child and adolescent development across the life course. He has worked at the University of Cape Town, and the Medical Research Council. Mark has done a randomized controlled trial on improving the quality of the mother-infant relationship and infant attachment in a peri-urban settlement in Cape Town. He is currently the Co-Director of the Institute for Life Course Health Research at Stellenbosch University and is also Professor of Maternal and Child Health at Queens University, Belfast. Mark completed B.A. from Rhodes College, a B.A. Honours from Wits University, a masters in Clinical Psychology from the University of Cape Town, and received doctorate from the University of Reading in the UK.

Mark loves music, gardening, and cooking and is a lifelong supporter of Liverpool.

Josefien van Olmen

Josefien is a practicing Family Physician in rural and urban settings of the Netherlands. She researches chronic diseases and health systems fields in different countries. Josefien’s research career began in 2010, with a reflection on the effects of societal transitions on health care. Her PhD focused on the transition of mobile health in low and middle-income countries, and its potential for self-management. In 2019, Josefien accepted a tenure track position. Her focus is development and implementation of the research plan for spearheading research on Quality of Integrated Care. Her work focuses on the domain of chronic diseases and health systems fields, in different countries. Josefien’s present research program at the University of Antwerp has three tracks — diversity and multi-morbidity; intra, extramural and intersectoral collaboration; and health information and health information systems. 

Josefien is a general practitioner and enjoys seeing patients tremendously.

Austin Walker

Austin has 12 years of experience supporting international development research and evidence-based programs focused on improving livelihoods and addressing inequality. As a Fulbright Scholar, Austin led his own research into Kenyan youth perspectives of development initiatives. Subsequently he joined Innovations for Poverty Action in Uganda where he managed a series of randomized controlled trials. Austin went on to join Evidence Action’s Washington, D.C. office where he spent 4 years supporting the organization’s Deworm the World Initiative as it grew to reach over 280 million children across parts of Africa and Southeast Asia before moving into a leadership role, overseeing the organization’s global operations department. 

Austin enjoys spending time cooking, in the woods and along the shores of Maine where he grew up, and traveling with his partner.

Maureen Wanjiru

Maureen is a dedicated youth leader and mental health advocate based in Kenya. She is passionate about transforming and empowering young people and communities as well as ensuring persons with lived experiences are fully included on the basis of equality and non-discrimination. At citiesRISE, Maureen works on assessing the needs of the youth leaders network globally, supporting youth initiatives related to mental health, informing youth engagement and mobilization strategy as well as supporting programmatic work in Nairobi. As part of deepening her knowledge on advocacy, she has completed the Bridge SDG-CRPD Module 1 and 2 training by the International Disability Alliance. Maureen holds a Bachelors’ degree in Education (Special Needs Education) with her specialization being emotional and behavioral disorders.

Maureen enjoys spending time with her family and friends, dancing as well as trying out new dishes.

Sarah White 

Sarah is a leading thinker and analyst of wellbeing. In 2020, along with Shreya Jha, she co-founded the Relational Wellbeing Collaborative. This Into-British partnership aims to advance a more social, integrative and systemic approach to wellbeing. Sarah is keen on working with organizations and communities which are looking at applying such an approach in practice. Sarah’s focus is to provide strategic support to people and organizations working for social justice. Before setting up the collaborative, Sarah was Professor of International development and wellbeing at the University of Bath, UK. Sarah has several publications on subjects such as gender, child/youth rights, race, religion, NGOs and participation, with a predominant focus in South Asia. 

Sarah is a keen walker, and enjoys daily adventures with a gleeful, curly haired small dog.

Edwin Wouters

Edwin is a professor of medical sociology and head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Antwerp. He has extensive expertise in studying (mental) health and well-being from a health systems perspective. He has led a range of intervention studies (randomized controlled trials) on the psychosocial aspects of health in the global North and South and was one of the leaders of the COVID-19 Student Well-Being Study, which collected data of over 100.000 students across 28 countries during the pandemic. Edwin has received a Ph.D. in Sociology. His research interests include medical sociology; HIV/AIDS; tuberculosis; quality of life; social capital; chronic illness; health systems research; community mobilization; resource-limited countries; policy science; and advanced statistical analysis.

In his free time, Edwin likes reading books to his daughter and doing long runs in the park.