Gautam N. Yadama
Gautam N. Yadama is Professor and the Dean of Boston College School of Social Work. His research is focused on understanding poverty and environment dynamics, and interventions to address the attendant social, economic, environment, and health outcomes. He has implemented a randomized control trial to study the sustainability of new and efficient energy technologies in rural India to reduce household air pollution and improve health and wellbeing of women and children. His book, Fires, Fuel & the Fate of 3 Billion: State of the Energy Impoverished (Oxford University Press), outlines an argument for transdisciplinary research to tackle complex problems such as household air pollution that reside at the intersections of poverty, environment, and health. He is using social network analysis and community based system dynamics to study how interventions to reduce pollution are adopted and sustained by the poor in rural India. He is a member of the Implementation Science Network on Clean Cooking at the Fogarty Institute of the National Institutes of Health, USA.
Ali Salifu
Ali Salifu is currently an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Boston College. Previously, he was an Assistant Research Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Ali obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Surrey, England, in Materials Engineering in 2015. His research focuses on developing sustainable and/or cost-effective technologies for renewable energy production and water filtration to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely: SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) and SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy). Ali’s current research on turning bamboo into biofuel has been featured in various media outlets, including The Denver Channel (Newsy), Biofuels Digest, Advanced Biofuels USA, and Sustainable News. He has also been collaborating with the Math and Science for Sub-Saharan Africa (MS4SSA) program and the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) of The Gambia to implement his low-cost ceramic water filters for household water purification in rural areas of The Gambia.
David Moinina Sengeh
David Moinina Sengeh is Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education and Chief Innovation Officer in the Government of Sierra Leone. In addition, he serves as the chair of the Advisory Board of UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report, as board member of the Global Partnership for Education and member of the High-Level Steering Committee for Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education, which is the highest body in the UN related to SDG 4.
He is a TED Fellow, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Obama Foundation Africa Leader and National Geographic Explorer. Prior to joining the Sierra Leonean Government in 2018, Dr. Sengeh was a Research Manager at IBM Africa.
Dr. Sengeh received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Biomedical/Medical engineering and his bachelor’s degree in Engineering Sciences from Harvard College. Prior to that he attended the Red Cross Nordic United World College in Flekke, Norway and the Prince of Wales Secondary School in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
His first book Radical Inclusion will be published by Macmillan in 2023. Outside of his work duties, Dr. Sengeh is a father of two, afrobeat rapper, clothing designer and sports enthusiast.
Mike H. M. Teodorescu
Mike H. M. Teodorescu is the Founder and CEO of SurgiBox, the 'Operating Room in a Backpack' startup founded at Harvard and winner of Harvard President's Challenge and MassChallenge. Assistant Professor at Boston College and Data Scientist with multiple publications in machine learning and economics of innovation. Entrepreneur with multiple patents. Doctor in Business Administration from Harvard Business School and Computer Science Bachelors cum laude from Harvard College. Former Engineer at Microsoft. Experienced Researcher with a demonstrated history of working in the computer industry and government. Skilled in C, C#, Python, R, strategic management, R&D management, entrepreneurship.