Dear AMMnet,

Welcome to the July newsletter! This month we have a shorter newsletter with a few important announcements.

Please contact info@ammnet.org if you would like to contribute any items to next month’s newsletter!

Contents:

1. Special announcements
2. Jobs and grant opportunities 
3. Workshops and conferences 

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1. Special announcements

AMMnet Special Event: SMC M&E Webinar July 25
Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention Monitoring & Evaluation Webinar: Modeling SMC in the context of national malaria strategic planning and Global Fund applications
Co-hosted by the SMC Alliance Monitoring & Evaluation subgroup and the Applied Malaria Modeling Network (AMMnet)

• Date: July 25
• Time: 14:00 UTC
• Registration: Register at this link

Includes live interpretation in French

This webinar will discuss how national malaria control programs (NMCPs) approach SMC during their subnational intervention planning process, national malaria strategic plan development, and resource mobilization plans from the Global Fund and others. Mathematical modeling is increasingly being used to inform these discussions, including providing impact estimates of adding cycles, expanding the eligible age range, and expanding to new districts.

Invitation to AMMnet Pre-ASTMH Modelers Meeting October 17
You should have received an email from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Events Team inviting each member of the AMMnet community to attend the 2023 AMMnet Meeting on October 17, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. If you did not receive your invitation, please contact info@ammnet.org and we will ensure you get one.

Welcome to the AMMnet Board, Susan Rumisha and Antonio Christophe!
We are thrilled to announce our two new AMMnet Board members.

With their strong expertise and leadership experience in malaria we are very happy to have them join driving AMMnets strategic vision and mission forward! Thank you to all the members who voted in the recent election and to all the members who ran for the Board. If you were not elected this time, we encourage you to run again in the future!

• Dr. Susan Rumisha is a Senior Research Officer with the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) at Telethon Kids Institute, Perth, WA, Australia and is affiliated with the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), Tanzania. Her expertise is in the development and deployment of advanced geospatial analytical frameworks for malaria indicators including the performance of malaria-health systems at various levels. Susan is deeply passionate about utilizing data-driven approaches in malaria control. 
• Dr. Antonio Nkondjio Christophe is a medical entomologist with expertise in vector bionomic and vector control from different sub-regional research and training organizations in central Africa (OCEAC and CIESPAC). He brings with him over 10 years of experience as a board member of the Pan African Mosquito Control Association (PAMCA). Since 2018 he is acting president of the PAMCA Cameroon Chapter and is one of the founding fathers of the AMMNet Cameroon Regional chapters. 

Career Development and Best Practices Committees are Looking for New Members
The Career Development and Best Practices Committees have opportunities for AMMnet members to be more involved in shaping malaria modeling and building our AMMnet community.

Career Development Committee 

• Purpose:
  • AMMnet’s Career Development Committee provides and shares opportunities for AMMnet members to grow in technical, communication, collaboration, and leadership skills toward the sustainable development of modeling, promotion of modellers and the better use of modeling by decision-makers.
• Committee Members:
  • The committee will have around 8 members. New members will be selected by the existing committee members. The goal is to provide balanced representation among members. There will be additional opportunities to engage with this committee’s work through task forces initiated by the committee, which will carry out the career development activities.
• Member Roles & Responsibilities
  • To attend all committee meetings.
  • To contribute to the strategic direction and ongoing evolution of career development activities within AMMnet.
  • To identify and drive new initiatives that support the committee objectives.
  • To assist in establishing and overseeing effective task forces to work on committee initiatives.
  • To lead or participate in at least 1 task force to support delivery and execution of committee initiatives.
• Contact and How to Join
  • Anyone interested in participating in this committee should email  Dr. Luc S. DJOGBENOU, Committee Chair, at info@AMMnet.org. Please include a brief paragraph introducing yourself and describing your interest in the Career Development Committee.

Best Practices Committee

• Purpose:
  • AMMnet’s Best Practices Committee seeks to define, assess, evaluate, and disseminate best practices in both technical approaches and engagement processes for AMMnet members and the wider community to use as resources.
  • For that purpose, the committee may initiate task forces to perform specific tasks that lead to useful resources, such as the values & guidance document on the AMMnet website as one example on engagement processes. 
• Committee Members:
  • The committee will have around 8 members. New members will be selected by the existing committee members. The goal is to provide balanced representation among AMMnet members. There will be additional opportunities to engage with this committee’s work through task forces initiated by the committee. 
• Member Roles & Responsibilities
  • To attend monthly committee meetings.
  • To contribute to the strategic direction and ongoing evolution of best practices in engagement among stakeholders involved in malaria modeling and related activities and in technical aspects of data analysis and modeling. 
  • To identify and drive new initiatives that support the committee objectives.
  • To assist in establishing and overseeing effective task forces to work on committee initiatives.
  • To lead or participate in at least 1 task force to support delivery and execution of committee initiatives.
• Contact and How to Join
  • If you would like to become a member of the committee, please contact Manuela Runge, Committee Chair, at info@AMMnet.org and include a brief statement of motivation and short bio by July 31st, 2023.

Join the AMMnet Slack workspace
If you haven’t joined the AMMnet slack workspace, join here! Many announcements, including job opportunities and upcoming events, are posted first on the Slack. This is also a great place to connect directly with other modelers!

2. Jobs and grant opportunities

Epidemiologist position at Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI)
A senior research associate position based in Laos (or other countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region) The individual will be responsible for managing a small team of junior epidemiologists and driving the agenda for malaria elimination in the region. More information can be found here.

MAP Perth has two open postdoctoral positions! 
We are soliciting expressions of interest for 2 postdoctoral positions shortly to be advertised by the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP), based in Perth, Western Australia at Telethon Kids Institute. These roles will be focussed on developing new modelling approaches – both statistical and mathematical – to better understand geographic variations in malaria risk and intervention impacts.  You will be working on a dedicated geospatial modelling research team led by Dr Tasmin Symons (tasmin.symons@telethonkids.org.au), extending MAP’s existing modelling frameworks to answer urgent questions in malaria control (e.g. around the optimal use of interventions), as well as designing new approaches addressing long-standing open questions (e.g. what is the role of the changing human environment in Africa in observed trends in malaria?). 

You should apply if 

• You have (or are about to receive) a PhD in mathematics or statistics, or another similarly quantitative field 

• You have demonstrable skills in (at least one) field relevant to mathematical and/or statistical disease modelling – spatial statistics, Gaussian processes, ODEs/PDEs, time-series analysis, and/or related topics 

• You have programming skills in at least one of R or Python (or similar) 

• You’d like to live in Australia’s sunniest city (we can discuss visa sponsorship – MAP is a very diverse group, and most of the team is from overseas) 

You may find more information at the link here. 

Postdoctoral Research Fellowships at York University, Toronto, Canada: Three open Postdoctoral Research Fellowship positions that can begin as early as June 1, 2023 
Looking for applicants with strong research skills and experience in one of the three thematic areas: 

• Artificial Intelligence for Infectious Disease Prediction, Geospatial Analysis and Risk map assessment, GIS AI
• The STI impacts of one-health mathematical modelling approach to Mpox and (re)emerging zoonotic threats
• Clinical public health infectious epidemiology and modelling

This research is chaired by Woldegebriel Assefa Woldegerima and is sponsored by a research grant from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR). The successful candidates will have the opportunity to be co-supervised by Sarah Flicker, Ali Asgary, Jianhong Wu, Jude Kong, James Orbinski and Nicola Bragazzi.

For more information and to apply, visit the link here. 

Regional AMMnet Event Grant: Only 2 more left!
AMMnet would like to encourage the growth of regional AMMnet chapters and is looking to support small regional in-person AMMnet events such as meetings, conferences, or workshops. AMMnet will fund up to 10 regional events annually, each with a budget range of $500 to $3,000. 

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and in English, French, or Portuguese. More information and application instructions are available here: English, French, Portuguese.

3. Workshops, webinars and conferences

African Genetic Biocontrol Consortium: 1st Global Congress On Emerging Genetic Biocontrol Technologies
The African Genetic Biocontrol Consortium is delighted to announce the 1st Global Congress on New and Emerging Genetic Biocontrol Technologies. 

Location: Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya
Dates: August 28-Sept 02, 2023 

Includes:

• Three full days of intensive Pre-Conference Workshops/Symposia/Courses
• Three full days of the state-of-the-art keynotes, papers, and panel discussions
• Exhibits on genetic biocontrol products and services.
• Invaluable networking

You may find more information on the website here and here.

US-Africa Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine
The US-Africa Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine will hold its second meeting in Rabat, Morocco, January 16-18, 2024. The call for applications is now open for emerging leaders in those fields to submit an application via the online application platform before the deadline of July 31. Attendees are typically within 15 years of their last degree. If you are past that career stage, please pass this along to others. 

For more information, click here.
Questions? USAfricaSTEM@nas.edu

US-RSE Conference 2023: Software Enabled Discovery and Beyond
This conference is for those who regularly use expertise in programming to advance research.This includes researchers who spend a significant amount of time programming, full-time software engineers writing code to solve research problems, and those somewhere in-between. We aspire to apply the skills and practices of software development to research to create more robust, manageable, and sustainable research software. 

Conference Date: October 16-18, 2023, Chicago, IL

You may find out more information about the conference here.