About Us – IPSI

IPSI Secretariat

Aboli Gore Advisor - JHU-IPSI

Akriti Mehta Senior Public Health Specialist, IPSI and Associate, International Health Department, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Aparajita Program Manager - India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI)

Harsha Joshi Program Officer - India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI)

Krishna Dipankar Rao Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Madhavi Misra Senior Program Officer- India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI)

Sara Bennett Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Shveta Budhraja Grants & Administration Specialist, IPSI

Krishna Dipankar Rao

Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Krishna D. Rao’s research work broadly focuses on health systems in low and middle-income countries. He is interested in finding ways to improve access to health services in resource poor areas and in the application of research methods drawn from the social sciences and economics to seek solutions to these issues. Previously, Dr. Rao has worked in Afghanistan and India. He also serves as an Assistant Editor of the International Journal for Equity in Health. Within the area of health systems, his work has largely been on three areas – human resources, health services, and health financing.

kdrao@jhu.edu

Sara Bennett

Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Sara Bennett has a background in politics and economics, and has a broad interest in health systems having previously studied issues in health financing, the role of the private sector, health worker motivation, changing roles of government and the impact of global health initiatives on health systems. Currently her interests lie in understanding and addressing some of the institutional challenges in promoting stronger governance for health.

sbennett@jhu.edu

Akriti Mehta

Senior Public Health Specialist, IPSI and Associate, International Health Department, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Akriti has a background in health policy and management and has previously worked with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. Her work is focused on understanding primary health care in the context of low and middle-income countries. Her research uses quantitative methods to measure and evaluate primary health care performance, more specifically, quality of care and equity.

Akriti holds a PhD in Health Systems from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Master of Public Administration from New York University.

amehta41@jhu.edu

Harsha Joshi

Program Officer - India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI)

Harsha is a Public Health professional with Post-graduation in Health Policy, Economics and Finance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has about four years’ experience in supporting states in program implementation and undertaking evaluations at National Health Systems Resource Centre, Delhi. She has worked in Community Processes and Comprehensive Primary Health Care division at NHSRC and was involved in developing guidelines, training modules for Ayushman Bharat- Health and Wellness Centre initiative. Her key interest areas are Health Policy and Systems Research and Primary Health Care.

hjoshi2@jhu.edu

Madhavi Misra

Senior Program Officer- India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI)

Madhavi Misra is a public health specialist with close to 15yrs of work experience in India on health systems and maternal and child health. She has rich knowledge of India’s public health system, its challenges and the road ahead. Madhavi has previously authored a book on an interest area close to her heart – ‘Innovations in maternal health: case studies from India’ published by SAGE publishers. She has worked and contributed to the growth of some of India’s premier research and policy organization such as Public Health Foundation of India, Population Foundation of India and Oxford Policy Management Ltd. Madhavi has worked in the Ministry of Health (Govt of India) on comprehensive abortion care, and with Population Council on research on women’s groups and health interventions.

Madhavi has studied at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences where she did an MA in Social Work and then at University of Warwick where she undertook another master’s degree in public health. Madhavi is a Chevening Gurukul fellow selected by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2017 where she did her fellowship at the University of Oxford, U.K. Madhavi is currently pursuing her Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) degree at Johns Hopkins University, USA. She is leading a large project on strengthening India’s primary health care in and is working with the Johns Hopkins University’s India office.

mmisra2@jhu.edu

Shveta Budhraja

Grants & Administration Specialist, IPSI

Shveta Budhraja is a Grants Financial Management expert with over 21 years of experience. She has handled multiple large concurrent grants from various donors and specializes in their financial management, budgeting, audits and compliances. She has worked with Public Health Foundation of India as Grants Controller and has been an advisor to National Entrepreneurship Network, Grants Consultant to Centre for Policy Research. Travelled extensively, she has received training from multiple funding agencies including LSHTM & Oxford School of Public Health. A people’s friendly face and always ready to help the researchers and project staff with their grant budgeting & fund management related issues.

At JHIPL’s IPSI office at New Delhi, Shveta is responsible for the grant financial management and administrative work.

sbudhra1@jhu.edu

Aboli Gore

Advisor - JHU-IPSI

Aboli Gore is a senior Public Health professional and brings in 35 years of experience working within the health sector. After doing her MBBS she did Post Graduation in Community Medicine. She has also done Diploma in Reproductive Health from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Diploma in Public Health Nutrition. She has worked with FPAI, UNICEF, JICA, FHI 360 , PwC , Care India and Jhpiego where she has been instrumental in Public Health Management while balancing the technical correctness and optimal need. She has played a pivotal role in partnering with other players to strengthen public health programming. Her career span covers designing of differential strategies for different level of health programme management. She has been on the core committees for SBA, Skills lab, NQAS at the national level. Her core expertise is in MCH, Reproductive Health and Skill development. She is a National assessor for NQAS which is a quality assurance programme of GoI for public health facilities.

She is also recipient of prestigious MS Signature award for the unparallel contribution and extraordinary efforts for capacity building and training of the medical and paramedical workers in EmONC services by establishing first Skills lab in Madhya Pradesh, India

Aparajita

Program Manager - India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI)

Aparajita is a public health professional with an MSc in Public Health for Development from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She has experience working with grassroots organizations to advance primary healthcare and strengthen health systems through community linkages. Additionally, she has also worked with the National Health Authority (NHA) in the Nudge and Innovation space to improve scheme delivery as well as uptake of PMJAY and ABDM.

Her areas of interest include primary health care, health system strengthening, and decentralization of public health.

Associate Faculty

Johns Hopkins University

AIIMS, Delhi Team

Anand Krishnan Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Mohan Bairwa Associate Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Nikhil Tandon Professor and Head, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Preet Verma Consultant, Technical Unit, India Primary Health Care Support Initiative Project

Priyanka Parhad Consultant, Technical Unit, India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI) Project

Sumit Malhotra Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Anand Krishnan

Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Anand Krishnan’s work has spanned the entire spectrum of public health from evidence generation to developing tools for its deployment and finally policies and program development. Evidence generated by him include those on NCD burden assessment, community-based prevention of NCDs, addressing primary health care through NCDs. He has more than 300 publications to his credit in national and international journals. He also leads the AIIMS support unit to Registrar General of India for the Verbal autopsy based mortality surveillance system in the country.
He heads the WHO Collaborating Centre for Capacity Building and Research in community-based strategies for NCDs prevention and control and has worked with Many South-east Asian countries in conducting National NCD risk factor surveys and development of their National Multi-sectoral action plan for prevention and control of NCDs. He is member of the Board of the National Health System Resource Centre, which is the technical wing of the Ministry of health and family welfare and advises on technical aspects of the National health Mission. He is also involved with the Innovation and Learning Centre centered at AIIMS New Delhi which support District health officials (at Mewat district) in implementation of the different national health initiatives including the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre scheme. He is a member of the curriculum committee for the Community Health Officers, a newly introduced mid-level health care provider under this scheme. He is a member of multiple national and international bodies in public health and his contribution in public health has been well recognized by national level organizations like Indian Public Health Association, Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine, Indian Council of Medical Research, National Academy of Medical Sciences through conferment of orations, fellowships, and awards.

kanand@aiims.ac.in

Mohan Bairwa

Associate Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Dr. Bairwa is medical doctor and public health specialist, trained in Health Management and Community Health. His areas of interest are disease burden, noncommunicable disease epidemiology, health systems, and evidence-based public health practice. He has supported WHO-SEARO in developing and implementing virtual training and capacity building on people-centred NCD service delivery in primary health care of South East Asian countries. Previously, he was faculty of Epidemiology and Health Management and Program Coordinator of Johns Hopkins-IIHMR co-operative MPH program at IIHMR University, Jaipur. Dr. Bairwa has over 50 publications and his h- index is 15. He is editorial board member of BMC Public Health and Lung India.

drmohanbairwa@gmail.com

Nikhil Tandon

Professor and Head, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

As a clinical researcher Nikhil Tandon’s work focuses on the epidemiology of chronic diseases, translational and implementation science research. He has authored over 400 peer-reviewed publications. Nikhil has been the recipient of the fellowships of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, Royal College of Physicians, Indian Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Sciences. He is also the recipient of the Dr BC Roy Award (2005) and was awarded the Padma Shri in 2015.

Preet Verma

Consultant, Technical Unit, India Primary Health Care Support Initiative Project

Affiliation: Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

Preet has a Post Graduate Diploma Health Management from IIHMR, Jaipur and Bachelor of Dental Surgery from the Government Dental College Rohtak. She has a decade of experience in project management & implementation including donor funded projects, program design & operations, quality assurance, implementation of innovations, evidence generation, public health assessment, recruitment, medical services management, hospital operations, capacity building, business development etc. She has gained technical experience in public health space while working closely with government policies & program implementation. Through her professional journey she had the opportunity to support in delivery of comprehensive primary health care services as envisaged under Ayushman Bharat- Health & Wellness Center initiative across four states in India including usage of digital health interventions –Telemedicine audio-video consultations, Point of care diagnostics (POCDs), capacity building and skill enhancement through both classroom settings & virtual trainings, and electronic health records (EHR), community mobilization including development of communications & IEC materials & related analytics for program mid-course correction. Her work also involved designing approaches to generate evidence on impact of pilot interventions and key lessons learnt, in drafting of technical narratives, research reports & dissemination products. She has been involved in Implementation of National Quality Assurance Standards (NQAS), NABH, LaQshya and Kayakalp Standards/operational guidelines at public health facilities (District Hospital, Sub District Hospital, Community Health Centre, and Primary Health Centre) and achieved accreditation. She also has an experience of managing medical services, academic programs and human resource in one of India’s largest multi-specialty hospitals.

dr.preetaiims@gmail.com

Priyanka Parhad

Consultant, Technical Unit, India Primary Health Care Support Initiative (IPSI) Project

Priyanka Parhad is a public health professional with a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Raipur. With over five years of experience in health systems strengthening, her expertise is particularly focused on comprehensive primary health care.

During her tenure at the State Health Resource Centre (SHSRC) in Chhattisgarh, she contributed to improving the functionality of Health and Wellness Centers under the Ayushman Bharat Program. Her work involved building the capacity of primary health care teams, overseeing program implementation and leading significant research initiatives aimed at strengthening the health system. Prior to her role at the SHSRC, she served as a dental surgeon with the National Health Mission (NHM), Chhattisgarh.

Her key areas of interest include health policy, health system strengthening, and primary health care.

Sumit Malhotra

Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi

Sumit Malhotra served at Comprehensive Rural Health Services Project, Ballabgarh from 2014 to 2019. He has authored a book on Primary Health Care- Indian Scenario with support of World Health Organization- Country Office India and has several publications in National and International indexed peer reviewed journals. He has led health systems based projects evaluating performance of national health initiatives at district and block levels. He is also the nodal person for Innovation and Learning Centre and strengthening implementation of comprehensive primary health care in aspirational district Mewat (Nuh) of Haryana. He is also using tele-mentoring mechanisms for capacity building of primary health workforce. Sumit is the national level master trainer for newer packages rolled out under comprehensive primary health care and has trained several batches of national level trainers and primary health care functionaries. He was also part of a national level task force for mentoring mid-level health care providers at health and wellness centres, constituted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. As part of IPSI project, he is engaged in development and roll out of implementation research activities for state and district level program managers, aiming to enhance implementation research capacity.

drsumitaiims2012@gmail.com