News about the SIGHT Fellows Programme
New change agents in interdisciplinary global health research
SIGHT fellow to the European Academies Science Advisory Council
SIGHT Fellows 2017–2018
SIGHT’s first cohort, for 2017–2018, includes eight fellows from a spectrum of disciplines and institutions in Sweden:
Tobias Alfvén
Tobias Alfvén is an Associate Professor in global health at the Department of Public Health Sciences at Karolinska Institutet and works as a pediatrician at Sachs’ children and youth hospital in Stockholm, where he leads the research network in global health and infectious diseases. He is a Medical Doctor in Epidemiology and has for the last 15 years combined research, teaching, clinical medicine in pediatrics and work for the UN both in the field and at HQ. Tobias is the Chair of the Swedish Society of Medicine’s Committee of global health and is a Board member of the Section for Global Health, Swedish Paediatric Society.
Beatrice Crona
Beatrice Crona is an Associate Professor in Transdisciplinary environmental science, active at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, where she is one of the leaders of the ‘Patterns of the Anthropocene’ research stream. Beatrice is also the Executive Director of the research program Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. She has a background in marine ecology and marine ecotoxicology but since her PhD Beatrice has worked to integrate different social science theories and methods with ecology to improve understanding of complex social-eco- logical dynamics. Most recently she has been involved in the EAT-Lancet commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems.
Helena Nordenstedt
Helena Nordenstedt is an internal medicine physician and holds a position as Assistant Professor of global health at Karolinska Institutet, where she has developed a passion to teach global health as well as starting up a research project focused on NCDs in Uganda. In 2015–16 Helena worked closely with Professor Hans Rosling launching a massive open online course in global health. She is also involved in the internationalisation process at Karolinska Institutet, with the aim of introducing global health in all undergraduate and graduate programs. She is currently a board member of the Gapminder Foundation and has previously worked for Médecins Sans Frontières in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Max Petzold
Max Petzold is a Professor in biostatistics at the University of Gothenburg where he built up the unit of Health Metrics gathering biostatisticians and health economists. He is also the director of the national infrastructure Swedish National Data Service for storing and dissemination of Swedish research data. These two units serves as a solid basis for quantitative health policy evaluation, which is a core interest for him. Max utilizes statistical and health economics expertise combined with rich access to data, enabling him to see what polices that do have an impact locally and globally, which in turn may guide stakeholders in the right direction.
Martina Björkman
Martina Björkman Nyqvist is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics since 2011. Before that she was at the Department of Economics at Bocconi University in Milan. Her work focuses on health and education in low income countries. In particular, Martina’s research is mainly related to health interventions aimed to improve child and maternal health as well as the provision and impact of public services to poor populations in Sub Saharan Africa. She is currently conducting research projects related to child and maternal health in Uganda, Lesotho, and Nigeria. Martina is an affiliate Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).
Andreas Mårtensson
Andreas Mårtensson is a Professor and the head of research of international child health and nutrition at International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH), Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University. He has a special interest in international pediatric infectious diseases and tropical medicine, particularly in resource limited settings. His research activities have over time involved both clinical, epidemiological, experimental and qualitative studies within the field of international child health, with a clear focus on a leading cause of child morbidity and mortality globally, namely malaria. Andreas’ scientific strength is the diversity of his work, as he has combined different methodologies and actively participated in various research-networks/consortia.
Maria Nilsson
Associate Professor Maria Nilsson is a researcher at the unit of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University. Her main interest is adaptation research and policy development in ”Climate change and global health”, leading projects in low to high income countries. Maria was one of the main editors for the Lancet Commission – Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health and co-leads the working group on adaptation and resilience in the Lancet Countdown 2030. One of her other interests is tobacco control and prevention and she leads a research project evaluating a program to prevent youth smoking. She is an editor of the open access journal Global Health Action.
Vasna Ramasar
Vasna Ramasar is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) in Sweden. Vasna has 20 years of research, consulting, NGO work and teaching experience across southern and eastern Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Her work has focused on sustainability, the interlinkages between health and the environment, environmental assessment and policy, and development. She has an academic background in sustainability studies, political ecology and development. Being a generalist at heart, she is interested in trying to understand the big picture of how people and planetary dynamics come together and the complexity of these interactions.
