Welcome to the February newsletter!
Veuillez contacter info@ammnet.org si vous souhaitez contribuer à la rédaction du bulletin du mois prochain!
Contenu:
- Annonces spéciales
- Emplois, ateliers, conférences et opportunités
- Annonces des groupes de travail
- Annonces du conseil d'administration et des comités
- Récapitulation du séminaire mensuel
- Annonces spéciales
AMMnet Symposium on Approaching Elimination with Modeling and Serological Tools
AMMnet invites you to join us for a series of short talks from Michael White, Chris Drakeley, Jessie Khaki, and Isaac Quaye on quantitative and serological approaches to achieving elimination for malaria and other diseases. Talks will cover novel diagnostics and their use at population level as well as the use of geospatial and mathematical models to assess risk and evaluate intervention packages.
- Michael White, Institut Pasteur, France: Novel Diagnostics for Serological Surveillance and Treatment of Malaria
- Chris Drakeley, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK: Case scenarios for malaria serology
- Jessie Khaki, Lancaster University, UK: Model-based geostatistics for disease mapping and its application to Soil-Transmitted Helminths control in sub-Saharan Africa
- Isaac Quaye, Pan African Vivax and Ovale Network, Regent University College of Science and Technology, Dansoman, Accra, Ghana: Use of modelling to define and refine interventional packages at the local and national levels towards malaria elimination
On 28 February 2023 15:30 GMT / UTC, join the symposium by selecting this link.
Organized by Isaac Quaye and Nuno Sepulveda.
Join us on March 7 for a special 2-hour panel discussion on running effective hands-on modeling workshops.
This will be our first AMMnet event with live interpretation in French.
Panelists will share their experiences, advice, and best practices around running workshops: What worked well? What didn’t? What can we learn from each other to improve for next time? Our panelists have organized a variety of technical workshops on malaria modeling, ecological modeling, or geospatial modeling.
Panelists:
- Justice Aheto, University of Ghana
- Punam Amratia, Malaria Atlas Project
- Cara Brook, University of Chicago
- Jaline Gerardin, Northwestern University
- Sam Kiware, Ifakara Health Institute and PAMCA
- Peter Macharia, KEMRI
- Sheetal Silal, University of Cape Town
- Hannah Slater, PATH
- Hillary Topazian, Imperial CollegeModerated by Ghislaine Ouédraogo-Ametchie, Northwestern University and PAMCA
If you have participated in a workshop, have run your own workshop, hope to do either one in the coming year, or are interested in effective training methods, you are especially welcome to bring your experiences, comments, and questions to this event.
We hope to see you there!
To join the meeting on March 7, 14:00 GMT-UTC, select the Zoom link ici.
First AMMnet awardee to host a local in-person AMMnet event!
Congratulations to AMMnet member Getachew Teshome Tilahun, Haramaya University, Ethiopia, who is planning to host a National Consultative Workshop on Malaria on behalf of AMMnet.
This funding opportunity remains open. We are thrilled to announce the first open funding opportunity for AMMnet members. 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.
Rejoignez l'espace de travail Slack d'AMMnet
If you haven’t joined the AMMnet slack workspace, join ici! 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!
- Emplois, ateliers, conférences et opportunités
Emplois
MaModAfrica fully funded PhD program established at AIMS through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
MaModAfrica Consortium, will offer eight fully funded PhD positions in this prestigious new doctoral program. Most of the recruited students will be based in our three focus countries (Rwanda, Benin, and Mozambique) in partnership with universities and research institutions across Africa and globally. The program aims to train future African modelers, who will have an impact across academia, industry, education, and government.
Application Deadline: 17th March 2023
Program start: October 2023
Find more information and apply ici.
Infectious Disease Modeler open position at Swiss TPH
The position consists in developing and applying models to provide support to National Malaria Control Programs in African countries and more. The team focuses on developing and applying analytical solutions to support evidence-based decision making processes in malaria endemic countries. Country-specific analyses of malaria data and simulations of malaria dynamics and intervention impact are used to understand and represent malaria situations in countries in order to provide evidence required by the National Malaria Control Programs. This is an exciting opportunity for those who want to combine their analytical skills, leadership and country experience, while making a direct impact.
Anyone interested should have a look at the job description and apply online ici if further interested. The position will be open until 2nd March 2023.
Have a look at the SwissTPH website ici if you’d like to explore other open positions.
Postdoc positions open with Northwestern University modeling group
We are seeking up to 2 postdocs to work on projects related to:
1) within-host model development and
2) malaria epidemiology and intervention policy
If interested, please send cover letter and CV to malariamodeling@northwestern.edu
Workshops and Conferences
Don’t miss the MIDAS Webinar Series this Friday.
Topic: Identified vaccine efficacy for binary post-infection outcomes under misclassification without monotonicity
Friday, February 24, 17:00 GMT/UTC
Speaker: Rob Trangucci
Select the link ici for more information and to register.
The Institute for Disease Modeling (IDM) Symposium
Please save the date for the IDM Annual Symposium, which will be held May 22-24, 2023 at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Conference Center in Seattle, Washington.
IDM is now accepting abstract submissions for oral and poster presentations. Interested presenters are encouraged to submit abstracts on the following theme: Frontiers in Modeling & Data Science for Global Health.
To submit your abstract, please click ici. Abstract submission deadline: March 24, 2023, 11:59 PM (PST).
AMMnet attendees and local AMMnet members are invited to an informal social event on the evening of May 24. Details to come!
Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute Conferences
Blood Stage Malaria Symposium: Staving Off the Firestorm
Poster abstract deadline: 24 March 2023
Event date: 25 April 2023
For more information, check the event website ici.
2023 Baltimore Vector Encounter: Save the date
June 15th and June 16th, 2023
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
For more information, check the event website ici.
AMMnet Repository for Modeling Workshops
AMMnet is planning to host a repository of past modeling workshops. If you would like more information or you have materials to contribute (such as syllabi or other materials), please reach out to info@ammnet.org.
Save the date! May 10 AMMnet webinar on modeling interventions in the context of subnational tailoring. Co-organized with the monitoring and evaluation subgroup of the SMC Alliance. More information to come.
Cours
Summer School 2023 on Common pool resources in a globalised world
The IGS North-South Summer School is an intercultural learning event and exchange platform for an interdisciplinary group of PhD candidates and senior researchers/instructors from the global South and North. The course, held annually, involves conceptual, thematic, and methodological sessions, as well as field excursions and communication courses (scientific writing and communication with the public).
3 – 13 July 2023 in Kenya
Registration is open until 26 February 2023. Find more information ici.
Fellowship Opportunity
Global Computational & Data Science Fellowship for Master’s/PhD students
Eligibility:
- Either currently enrolled in a graduate program or accepted to begin in one no later than October 15
- Pursuing a graduate degree – Master’s, PhD, or equivalent – in computational or data science (although the formal name of the program may be somewhat different)
- Completed less than half of her/his planned program of study (with preference given to students who are still early in their studies)
- A woman and/or a member of a racial/ethnic group that is currently underrepresented in the computing field in the country where the student will earn the degree
Benefits:
- Annual stipend of $15,000 USD for remainder of degree (up to 4 years – award amount adjusted using national price level ratio if outside US)
- Paid travel to annual Supercomputing conference (“SC”)
Application (nomination from research advisor, CV, candidate statement, and 1 brief recommendation letter) due April 30th. Find more information ici.
Grant Opportunities
ASTMH 2023 Annual Meeting Travel Award Deadline is March 22!
Find more information and guidelines ici. Apply ici.
Regional AMMnet Event Grant
We are thrilled to announce the first open funding opportunity for AMMnet members. 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.
Other Opportunities
The World Health Organization’s open-access learning platform OpenWHO.org is issuing a call for abstracts to identify how our learning content is used in local, national and regional contexts, and adapted for use outside the platform.
They are particularly interested in capturing how materials have been used in workforce training and emergencies, as well as in capacity-building contexts, to prepare for or respond to disease outbreaks or health events. Abstracts that are accepted will be invited to be made into posters to be delivered at an online exhibition in July 2023.
All submissions are due by 15 March 2023. Click ici to learn more and submit your 150-250 word abstract.
- Annonces des groupes de travail
The Chemoprevention working group will kick off in the next few months! Please join the #chemoprevention channel on the AMMnet slack to participate. All with interest in chemoprevention are welcome!
- Annonces du conseil d'administration et des comités
Tableau AMMnet
The board met on February 21.
February 21 meeting notes:
Present: Emmanuel Bakare, Caitlin Bever, Luc Djogbenou, Jaline Gerardin, Justin Millar, Emilie Pothin, Manuela Runge, Hannah Slater, Shannon Stanfill
Absent: Ousmane Diallo, Cherlynn Dumbura
Agenda:
- Terms of reference (ToR) timeline
- 2/21 Governance Committee deadline for draft and present to Board for review
- 3/21 Comments from the Board due: additional comments from Governance Committee welcome
- 3/21-4/14 Governance Committee to revise with comments
- 4/18 Board vote on final draft ToR
- 5/2 Present ToR to membership for “all member vote”: if yes from membership, implement (translated into Portuguese and French)
- 6/6 Backup date for presenting ToR to membership
- Rescheduled March board meeting for March 28th
- Possibly revise our Valeurs at March meeting?
- In December, we revised our Mission and Vision but didn’t get to Values. These may be out of date since they were initially written.
- Current values:
- Nous créons une communauté respectueuse, collaborative et non compétitive.
- Nous enseignons et apprenons les uns des autres sur un pied d'égalité.
- Nous nous efforçons de comprendre en profondeur les données, le contexte et les besoins des pays.
- Nous encourageons les progrès des modélisateurs dans les pays où le paludisme est endémique.
- Nous produisons des analyses fiables, de haute qualité et pertinentes pour les parties prenantes de nos pays.
- Revised last Value to “We encourage trusted, high-quality, and relevant analysis for our country stakeholders.”
- No longer revising at March meeting
- Francophone support
- Translation services update: ready to go for March 7 panel
- Luc, Ousmane, and Jaline discussed how to better support the needs of francophone AMMnet members. Of the >300 AMMnet members, ~100 or so are in the francophone subgroup; yet of the 45-50 people who were at February seminar, only 2 were from the francophone group.
- Francophone committee has previously met and made a list of things they’d like to do, for example:
- Include more young francophones
- translate the AMMnet website into French
- transcribe the English AMMnet seminars into French and translate all available documents and materials into French
- have the newsletter in French
- invite seminar speakers in French
- plan a seminar series oriented toward career development of francophone researchers
- carry out a survey to assess the needs of francophone NMCPs and present results
- This is just a preliminary brainstorm as the group has been quiet in the last months due to holidays etc. What they would like to do now is have some administrative support to schedule meetings, take minutes, go to Board and other committee meetings and report back, etc.
- The Secretariat has started implementing some of these items such as translating the website and arranging for live translation at the seminars. but to properly support the francophone group, Luc has proposed hiring a bilingual administrator to sit with him in Benin and 1) facilitate administration in french; 2) be a visible contact person and resource for francophone members; 3) better bridge our English content to our francophone members; 4) better communicate francophone needs to Board and committees.
- This administrator would be part of the Secretariat. we estimate their salary would be around $570/month; they would be ~50% AMMnet so we would cover 50% of their salary (remainder of effort would be covered by Luc for other projects).
- Board VOTE: yes or no on hiring a bilingual administrator to sit in Benin, supervised by Luc, 50% time working on AMMnet Secretariat team
- Voted Yes
- Lusophone support
- Baltazar Ca is gathering lusophones interested in modeling, will organize a call to discuss what AMMnet can do
- translation of signup sheet and website to Portuguese is ongoing
- March meeting scheduled for updates
- Will consider translating seminars later when there are more lusophone members
- Emilie to reach out to Mozambique contacts to gather interest in a Lusophone AMMnet group and provide to either Jaline and Shannon or Baltazar directly
- March 2: Presentation to funder
- Draft slides reviewed
- Discussion of upcoming short-term and long-term goals
- Regional AMMnet events
- 4 applications received: 1 funded (Getachew Teshome from Ethiopia), 3 asked to revise and resubmit
- If there is a COI on review committee, notify committee and recuse; if more than one reviewer recuses, then ask another on the Board to review.
- AMMnet Africa meeting 2023 updates
- tentative date is Sept 5-7 in Kigali
- BMGF will handle logistics but not the travel or accommodations
- Will have call for abstracts
- Emilie will notify secretariat when to send the save the date
- Emilie will ask the board for travel awards, and the Finance committee to review.
- Hannah to arrange Finance committee meeting.
- Pre-ASTMH modeling meeting updates
- First task force meeting held: 3 task force members + Jaline and Shannon
- Will probably request funds for travel awards, Finance committee to review
- Will look at ideas from February seminar breakout rooms when planning agenda
- October 17 on NU campus in Chicago
- Will send a save the date
- SMC webinar
- co-organized with M&E subgroup of SMC Alliance
- One NMCP talk on experience with modeling SMC is planned
- EMOD, OpenMalaria, and Imperial models of SMC to be presented
- possibly first part of a webinar series on modeling interventions in the context of SNT
- Global Fund and PMI interest in seeing this
- Emilie will put together a brief call with SNT modeling groups
- Committee updates
- Membership: Over 300 members to date
- Seminars:
- Upcoming:
- March: Panel on running workshops
- April: Anna Bershteyn from NYU
- May: AMMnet general assembly on ToR
- Charles Wondji enthusiastic, likely June seminar
- Can invite French speakers; interpreters are available
- Interest from committee to have NMCP speaker
- Could have French seminar with Guinea NMCP coordinator, either on his own or co-presented with Guinea SNT modeling
- Interest in inviting 5 Gates-funded consortia to present and showcase what they are doing
- Seminar back-up plan
- Upcoming:
- Workshops-Special Events:
- Elimination symposium scheduled for February 28
- Geospatial symposium: targeting late March or April
- Social:
- Update on Tatiana transition: who is new chair?
- No candidates from Emilie’s team
- Next Steps:
- Emilie may approach new person
- Hold social committee meeting, see if anyone is able to step in as an interim chair
- Shannon will provide Luc with committee description, who is handling what, and he may help identify an interim candidate
- Training:
- No activity this month
- Values:
- Committee members are collecting and revising action items/outputs for 2023
- Data:
- Get task force started for activities
- Francophone: see above
- Any other order(s) of business
- What can we do more proactively to include 5 consortia
- Shannon will share task force spreadsheet with Board members in Slack
- Board meeting in March: add implementing new structure to agenda
- Récapitulation du séminaire mensuel
In our February seminar meeting, Dolapo Oniyelu gave a short talk on “Nigeria’s country profile in relation to malaria,” where she described some of the factors that influence malaria burden across the country and highlighted the importance of considering the local socioeconomic situation and at-risk populations when designing a National Strategic Plan.
After Dolapo’s talk, participants in the seminar split into smaller groups to discuss member preferences for how AMMnet may host in-person events. During these groups, AMMnet members were asked what type of content they would like to see at these events, topics that may be conducive to panel discussions, activities that may support networking and connecting, and the types of training that could be included in the context of in-person meetings. The groups preferred event elements like poster presentations, research and project presentations, small group discussions, training on different malaria models, key stakeholder talks, opportunities to share skills and techniques, and mentor-mentee facilitating activities. They preferred panel discussions around technical modeling questions and interacting with key stakeholders. Potential training ranged from the technical to soft skills, like how to communicate with National Malaria Control Programs, manuscript and grant writing. This valuable input will be considered as we proceed with planning for events such as AMMnet Africa and the pre-ASTMH modelers meeting. Thank you to all who participated and provided input!