SIGHT, under auspices of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, has now appointed eleven researchers as SIGHT Fellows to its career development programme in global health for the years 2021–2023, funded by the Board for International Development Cooperation, Sida. Through its two-year program, SIGHT wants to contribute to strengthening interdisciplinary research and develop collaborations between universities to contribute to the implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda goals.
Global health and climate change that affect human and planetary health require the ability to innovate, initiate and pool research and experience from various scientific disciplines and sectors, nationally as well as globally. Empowering researchers with diverse scientific backgrounds and experience of interdisciplinary collaboration is therefore an important task for SIGHT.
During the spring, Swedish universities and colleges have nominated well-qualified candidates. In fierce competition, eleven researchers have now been selected, representing seven Swedish universities. They are at different stages of their careers and research representing several disciplines and research fields.
“With the great challenges we face in developing innovative solutions to strengthen human and planetary health, people who are deeply rooted in science and have the capacity to collaborate interdisciplinary are sorely needed. The universities have nominated fantastic candidates for the SIGHT Fellows Programme, and we are proud to announce that eleven researchers have now been appointed”, says Professor Peter Friberg, director of SIGHT.
The SIGHT Fellows Programme will help researchers explore and develop an interdisciplinary approach to selected themes in global health, such as child and adolescent health, peace and conflict as well as climate and environment. The programme will support individual career development and includes mentorship by leading global health experts, lectures and participation in SIGHT’s many activities and networks. The programme is led by professor Göran Tomson, SIGHT / Karolinska Institutet.
The researchers accepted as SIGHT Fellows are:
Kristi Sidney Annerstedt, Assistant Professor at the Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet
Damon Barrett, Assistant Senior Lecturer at the School of public health and community medicine, University of Gothenburg
Ferdinand Xiankeng Choong, Assistant Professor at AIMES, The Center for the Advancement of Integrated Medical and Engineering Sciences, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.
Meena Daivadanam, Associate Professor & Senior Lecturer in Global Health, Dept. of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University
Paul A. Egan, Associate Professor and Researcher at the Department of Plant Protection Biology, SLU
Johan Friberg, Assistant Senior Lecturer at the Department of Physics, Lund University
Karin Hugelius, Senior Lecturer at School of Health Sciences, Örebro University
Ashish KC, Associate Professor at the Department for Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University
Ebba Malmqvist, Associate professor, Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Lund University
Aida Bargués Tobella, Postdoc at the Department of Forest Ecology and Management, SLU
Masoud Vaezghasemi, Senior Research Assistant at the Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University.
For further information, please contact Cecilia Emilsson, Coordinator of the SIGHT Fellows program, cecilia.emilsson@kva.se.
SIGHT was formed in January 2017 at The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Its purpose is to promote Swedish research and education based on an interdisciplinary approach, and to offer a scientific basis for policy work in the field of global health, especially concerning women and children.
