Speakers

Professor Emiola Oluwabunmi Olapade-Olaopa is a Past President of the Association of Medical Schools in Africa (AMSA) and former (11th) Provost of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan. An alumnus of the University of Ibadan, his career spans urological surgery (with expertise in critical care and oncology), molecular biology, medical education, and health systems research and development. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters, served on international educational committees, and advised several African countries as well as the Governments of Finland and the United States on health-professionals training and health systems development. He directed the development of the University of Ibadan's 2010 undergraduate competency-based medical and dental curricula, described as the first homegrown curriculum of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa and later adopted as a national template in Nigeria. He continues to champion competency-based health professions education globally and served as a WHO consultant on the Africa Prototype Competency-based Curricula.

Professor Janusz Janczukowicz MD, PhD is the Head of the Centre for Medical Education and Vice Dean for the Development of Education at the Faculty of Medicine of the Medical University of Lodz. He is President-Elect of the International Association for Health Professions Education AMEE, taking on the President's role in August. He is active in numerous international organizations involved in health workforce education, including serving as an advisor to the Association of Medical Schools in Europe (ASME). He served as an Education Consultant in the Office of the Regional Director for Europe of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Copenhagen and for two terms was also Chair of the Quality Committee of the WHO Academy. He is also an expert to the Board of Directors of the European Institute of Women's Health, where he focuses on educational issues, and serves as an external expert for multiple national accreditation commissions. He was the Deputy Editor of Medical Teacher and now is building the Medical Teacher Advisory Board. He coordinates and contributes to numerous educational projects and is the author and co-author of numerous publications in the field of medical education.

Harm Peters is Director of the Dieter Scheffner Centre for Medical Education and Educational Research at Charite. For more than two decades he has led educational reform as a teacher and curriculum developer. He is President of the Association of Medical Schools in Europe (AMSE), a member of the Executive Council of the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME), and Co-Chair of the ASPIRE panel for curriculum development excellence.

Michael McQuaide joined Oxford College of Emory University in 1979 after earning a PhD in sociology from Penn State University and later became Full Professor. He developed courses that placed students in unfamiliar, real-world social contexts, including social problems, healthcare in society abroad, and social change in developing societies. His expertise focused on sociology of medicine and cross-cultural views of well-being in medical systems. He retired from Emory University in 2018.

Gordon G. Churchward, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Emory University School of Medicine, where he served on the faculty from 1985 until 2025. He was also Assistant Dean of Medical Education and Student Affairs. His academic career combined sustained leadership in medical and graduate education with an international focus on curriculum development and exchange programs, including long-standing partnerships with institutions in Georgia, notably Tbilisi State Medical University and medical institutions in China. He has directed and co-directed multiple medical and graduate programs at Emory, chaired key curriculum committees, and led initiatives to broaden participation in biomedical research training. His earlier research career was in fundamental aspects of microbial molecular biology, and transmission of antibiotic resistance. His scholarly work and educational leadership reflect a commitment to integrating basic science, global engagement, and inclusive training in medical education.

Bryan F. McNally, MD, MPH, is Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. His areas of expertise include emergency medicine, pre-hospital care, and disaster medicine. He is the Executive Director of the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES), a CDC-funded quality improvement program aimed at improving survival outcomes in the United States. He consults for the Pan Asian Resuscitation Outcomes Study (PAROS) and the board of the Asian EMS Council. He has been a visiting Professor at Duke National University of Singapore and Bach Mai Hospital/115 Emergency Ambulance Service in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Dr. Elliott K. Gozansky was introduced to Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy in a qualitative chemistry course at Oxford College of Emory University, leading him to receive a joint BS/MS in chemistry from Emory University. He went on to study structural biology by NMR, receiving his PhD in Chemistry from Purdue University, where he studied diffusion-based NMR techniques and modified nucleic acid structure determination, among other topics. While continuing his structural biology studies as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Elliott was introduced to clinical research in the early days of Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging. After completing the required prerequisite studies, Elliott matriculated at the University of Michigan Medical School. That was followed by Radiology residency at the University of Maryland Medical Center and subsequent cardiothoracic fellowship at the same institution. After fellowship, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he became the Cardiothoracic Fellowship Director. Several years later, Elliott accepted a faculty position at New York University Langone Health, where he became the Director of Cardiothoracic Radiology for Bellevue Hospital. Last year, Elliott accepted a position as a Full Professor of Radiology and the Cardiopulmonary Section Chief at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Bhavin Adhyaru, MD, FACP, SFHM, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Emory University and an attending physician at Grady Memorial Hospital. He teaches learners at all levels and has focused his career on Evidence Based Medicine and Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, lecturing on these topics at the institutional, regional, and national level and serving as Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) at Grady. His teaching philosophy centers on developing reflective, evidence-based, and systems-aware physicians prepared to lead in dynamic healthcare environments. He is also the CQI director for LCME accreditation efforts for Emory SOM. Dr. Adhyaru has been consistently recognized as an outstanding educator. He has received the highest residency program teaching award two times, the Kokko Teaching Award. At the medical school level, he was one of only six recipients of the annual SOM Dean's Teaching Award in 2014, was elected to the SOM Academy of Medical Educators, and has held the position of Society Advisor in the SOM since 2019. Dr. Adhyaru recently won the national ACP Herbert Waxman Award for Outstanding Medical Education Teaching and has won several teaching and mentoring awards at the regional level for Georgia ACP.

Board certified in medical oncology, Dr. Mary Jo Lechowicz has clinical and research interests in hematologic malignancies. She joined Emory from the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, where she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in oncology in 2003. Dr. Lechowicz has been a principal investigator and co-principal investigator on a number of national and international clinical trials involving the treatment of patients with virally related cancers, particularly T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Castleman's disease. She is a professor and Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology as well as the inaugural holder of the Margaret H. Rollins Chair in Oncology. She also received one of the highest teaching awards bestowed to any Emory University faculty, the Exemplary Teacher of the Year Award for Emory University in 2019. Dr. Lechowicz earned her medical degree from SUNY-Syracuse in Syracuse, New York. She completed her internship and residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, New York, where she was also a Chief Resident. She then completed a fellowship at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

David W. Markham, MD, MSc, FACC, is a Clinical Cardiologist at the Piedmont Heart Institute and the Samsky Advanced Heart Failure Center in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He previously served as Medical Director of the Heart Failure, Assist Device, and Transplant Program at Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital. With a distinguished career spanning academic, administrative, and clinical leadership, he previously served as an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Emory University and Director of the Clinical Cardiology Research Database (CCRD). Dr. Markham earned his MD from Emory University School of Medicine and has more than 20 years of experience in advanced heart failure, mechanical circulatory support, and cardiac transplantation. His research focuses on the physiology of non-pulsatile circulation in patients with ventricular assist devices, exercise and long-term management of patients with mechanical support devices, immunotherapy in transplantation, and humoral rejection. His clinical interests broadly encompass heart failure management with medical and device therapy, assist device physiology, and transplantation. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and has been actively involved in national and international clinical research and professional societies.

Paul Horrocks leads the pre-clinical MBChB teaching teams and the scientific foundations curriculum across healthcare programs at Keele University. He has extensive national and international experience building medical education partnerships, including current work on the Keele University Greece project in Athens. He is a member of the UK Medical Schools Council Scientific Foundations Leads group and Visiting Professor at Ken Walker International University in Tbilisi, Georgia.

With more than 25 years of leadership and management experience in global mobility and partnerships, Alejandra is Director of her own consultancy agency, where she advises and trains universities, particularly in the global south, on international education strategy. She holds a Bachelor degree in English Literature from the University of Chile and a Master degree in International Development from Northumbria University, UK. Her research focuses on the impact and value of internationalising higher education. She also gives back through volunteer leadership as a mentor and Chair of the Student and Staff Mobility Committee for EAIE, and serves as a Trustee for Scouts England.