Global Health Topics: TB, TB/HIV co-infection, TB diagnostics, drug-resistant TB

Country: South Africa

Ribka Berhanu is an infectious diseases physician and clinical TB researcher. She is an assistant professor in the department of medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre and divides her time between Johannesburg and Nashville, where she works closely with the Perinatal HIV Research Unit and the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office of the Wits Health Consortium. Her clinical work in the US and South Africa is focused on the care of hospitalized patients with HIV and complex infectious diseases.

Ribka’s research is centered on TB transmission and the impact of molecular TB diagnostics. She is funded through an NIH K08 training grant to study the application of network analysis, geospatial analysis, and whole genome sequencing to understand non-household transmission of TB in South Africa.

Link to Dr. Berhanu's publications. 

Hannah graduated from the University of Alberta with an MSc in Public Health. She wrote her thesis on hospitalized patients' experiences utilizing an acute care needle and syringe program. She was most recently employed as a research coordinator within a research team integrated into a large, urban hospital and a data coordinator for several community-based supervised consumption services. In her free time Hannah enjoys cycling, gardening, and exploring sustainable ways to live and travel.

Diabetes, HIV/AIDS, Public Health, Pulmonary Medicine, Tuberculosis

Brazil

Publications Link

Countries and areas of interest: Cancer initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa, Central or South America; Surgical education in sub-Saharan Africa, Central or South America

Rondi M. Kauffmann, MD, MPH is associate professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology and Endocrine Surgery and serves as the Surgical Director of Vanderbilt's Center for Experiential Learning and Assessment and Associate Program Director for the general surgery residency program. She is the inaugural Vice Chair for Global Surgery. 

Rondi graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in physiological Sciences and a minor in cultural anthropology from UCLA and completed her MD/MPH degrees at the University of Minnesota, where she pursued her MPH thesis research in Paris, France and Dakar, Senegal. 

At VUMC, her global health leadership roles include Director of the Vanderbilt Global Health Equity and Access Leadership in Surgery (Global HEALS) program, co-director of the Kijabe-Vanderbilt Research Methodologies for Healthcare Providers Course, co-director of the Vanderbilt Collaborative for Global Health Equity, and directs Vanderbilt International Surgery's (VIA) collaborative efforts with AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya. She is an elected member of the Association for Academic Surgery's Global Affairs Committee. She chairs the Affiliate Committee of the Association for Academic Global Surgery and the Global Surgery Taskforce through the Association for Program Directors in Surgery. Her research focuses on global surgery and capacity building through global surgical education. 

She is board certified in General Surgery (residency: Vanderbilt University Medical Center) and Complex Surgical Oncology (fellowship: City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center). Her clinical expertise is in the care of patients with melanoma, soft tissue malignancies, and breast cancer.