Scientific Advisory Committee Prof Aryeh D. Stein (Chair) | Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University Prof Stein has a joint appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at Emory University in the USA. He is a member of the faculty of the Nutrition and Health Sciences program of the Laney Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In his research, he identifies critical periods of susceptibility to nutritional deficits and surfeits using intervention trials and natural experiments such as war-induced famine to study the role of prenatal and childhood nutrition on the development of adult chronic disease and cognitive achievement. He obtained his B.Sc. in nutrition from the University of London, and his MPH and PhD degrees, both in epidemiology, from Columbia University in New York City. Prof Zané Lombard | Associate Professor in Human Genetics, University of the Witwatersrand Zané obtained her PhD in Human Genetics and Bioinformatics in 2008, under the supervision of Prof Michele Ramsay in the Division of Human Genetics (Wits University & NHLS). Her PhD research focused on a bioinformatics approach to disease-gene discovery. She is currently a Principal medical scientist and associate professor in the Division of Human Genetics, where she heads the Research laboratory and the Research & Development team in the Department. Before this she worked as a Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics in the School of Molecular & Cell Biology, also at Wits. Zané is passionate about promoting science in Africa, and therefore participates in several academic service domains at University, national and international level, like the SA Society for Human Genetics and the H3Africa Consortium. She currently is the PI of the H3Africa NIH-funded project called Deciphering Developmental Disorders in Africa, which was started in 2017. The aim of the study is to evaluate how new sequencing technologies can be used effectively in the diagnosis of rare genetic diseases to enhance the service we can offer to patients in the public healthcare sector. Prof Kofi Marfo | Director of the Institute for Human Development at the Aga Khan University in Nairobi Prof Marfo was previously Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, USA, where he founded the Center for Research on Children’s Development and Learning. He also served as Director of the Doctoral Program in Special Education. Prior to that, he taught at Kent State University, Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada), and the University of Cape Coast (Ghana). He currently serves on the Institute of Medicine’s Forum on Investing in Young Children Globally. Dr Marfo holds a BEd (Hons) from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and an MEd and PhD from the University of Alberta, Canada.
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