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The Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance (APLMA) Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Sarthak Das as Chief Executive Officer effective 1 May 2020.
Dr. Das brings twenty-five years of experience as a public health scientist, development practitioner, and global health policy advisor. Beginning in 1994 with HIV related work among children of commercial sex workers in Mumbai, his experience is informed by living and working among vulnerable communities and populations in both rural and urban settings. A majority of his research and implementation experience has focused on infectious diseases, with an emphasis on community-based interventions, public sector strengthening, and integrated health systems design from global and national to local, regional networks of care. This work has spanned diverse Asia-Pacific settings, in countries such as Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Papua New Guinea, as well as in West Africa.
Dr. Das served as Country Director and then Regional Director for Southeast Asia-Pacific for the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) from 2006 to 2014. He lived for seven years in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea leading a collaborative effort to decentralize HIV treatment while strengthening health systems that serve some of the world’s most remote communities. Then from 2014 to 2017, Dr. Das worked as Chief of Policy & Public Sector Partnerships for Partners in Health (PIH), where he led efforts to forge public sector alliances with bilateral and multilateral institutions such as the DFID, Global Fund, GAVI, and USAID while supporting country leadership engagement with the host ministry of health. At PIH, Dr. Das was also engaged in the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014-2015, supporting front line response efforts in Sierra Leone and Liberia while providing strategic guidance on global policy and advocacy.
“Sarthak will bring exceptional leadership and vast experience, much of it in Asia and the Pacific, at this crucial point when countries need APLMA’s support to accelerate malaria elimination efforts towards the quickly-approaching 2030 goal” said Ruby Shang, Chair of APLMA Board of Directors.
Sarthak joins APLMA from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where he holds appointments as Research Scientist in the Dean’s Office & Department of Health Policy and Management, and as Senior Advisor for Research Translation & Global Health Policy at the Harvard Global Health Institute. His writing has appeared in peer reviewed journals including the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of AIDS.
He graduated from Harvard College with a joint A.B. in Social Anthropology and Sanskrit/Indian Studies, holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Yale University’s School of Medicine, and a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
As CEO, Dr. Das will look to strengthen regional collaboration and cooperation with stakeholders, a key component to supporting the Leaders’ commitments to ending malaria by 2030.
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