Uganda Course Guest Speakers
We are grateful to the guest speakers who contribute their voices to our discussions and explorations of social medicine.
Since the first annual course, guest speakers have included local human rights advocates, anthropologists, policymakers,
public sector employees, and NGO workers. The individuals below have recently shared their lectures with our class:
Ron Atkinson, Ph.D.
Ron Atkinson is a Senior Research Associate of the Walker Institute of International and Area Studies at the University of South Carolina, USA. Based in Gulu, he has written extensively on both the early and more contemporary history of the Acholi, and is currently working with Human Rights Focus on a project funded by the UN Peacekeeping Programme to track and map land disputes in Acholi. He has previously lived and worked in Ghana and South Africa, and was a long-term member of the Department of History at the University of South Carolina, where he directed the African Studies Program and won nearly every teaching award in the university.
Adam Branch, Ph.D.
Adam Branch joined the San Diego State University Political Science department in 2008, after earning a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2007 and a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University in 1998. His work has examined the politics of human rights intervention -- broadly conceived to include relief aid, peacebuilding, international law enforcement, and military intervention -- into episodes of political violence, with a regional focus on Africa, especially Uganda. His researched culminated in his book Displacing Human Rights: War and Intervention in Northern Uganda (Oxford University Press, 2011). Dr. Branch is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala, Uganda, where he will be working during Spring 2012.
Mona Haidar, MD, MPH
Mona Haidar is a fulltime faculty member at the school of Medicine at the Lebanese American University (LAU) and the coordinator of the program of social medicine and global health there. She is also a physician at UMC-RH (University Medical Center-Rizk Hospital) and practices as internist with focus on adult primary care. She received her Medical Doctor degree from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and her Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is active with the People’s Health Movement and has worked with Partners in Health in Lesotho.
John Bosco Komakech
John Bosco Komakech is an Acholi language instructor who teaches an introduction to Acholi during the first week of the course. Komakech's dynamic style and thorough handouts are a great asset to students, many of whom master Acholi phrases and practice with community members during field visits and trips into town.
Francis Odongyoo
Francis Odongyoo serves as the Executive Director of Human Rights Focus (HURIFO), a non-governmental, non-profit organization devoted to "the promotion of human rights and good governance through evidence based advocacy."
Sam Okuonzi, MD, Ph.D.
Dr. Okuonzi has supported the SocMed Uganda course since its inception through his riveting lectures on neo-liberalism and the health sector. His article "Dying for economic growth? Evidence of a flawed economic policy in Uganda" was published in the Lancet.
