About us

Karol Rojas is a researcher and professor at the University of Costa Rica School of Public Health. Karol has experience in the areas of research on Health Systems and Services, Social Protection Systems, Health and Migration, Management and Evaluation of policies and programs in Health, and Global Health. She is currently coordinator of the Joint Initiative on Health and Migration INCOSAMI.

Sociologist, Doctor in Social Sciences with a Master’s Degree in Public Health and specialization in Management and High Public Administration. Graduated from the program in Senior Public Administration at INCAE in Costa Rica, from the Senior Management Program at the Instituto de Empresa (IE) in Madrid and from the Program on Business and Sustainability at the University of Cambridge. He was professor and main researcher at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in the period 1994-2018, where he was Head of Department, Director of Research and Coordinator of the Doctorate, and since 2018 is professor and researcher of the School of Government of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and Saint Ignatius of Loyola University. He has been a senior advisor and consultant to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the German Cooperation (GIZ), as well as in Peru, Vice Minister of Public Health and Chief of Staff of the Ministerial Office of the Ministry of Health in times of pandemic. He is currently coordinator of the Andean Health and Migration Network SAMI.

Carolina Batista is a global health leader with 2 decades of experience in the field. As a physician she has worked on the frontlines of some of the most complex and neglected health challenges in the world, tackling infectious diseases in conflict settings, among refugees and other humanitarian contexts.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has also been involved in the global response in various capacities, including leading Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Navajo Nation response in the USA, supporting local responses among indigenous and migrant communities in her home country Brazil, as well as joining the COVID-19 Lancet Commission. She has published various papers on the impact of the pandemic in vulnerable communities, equal access to medical tools and healthcare and bringing a valuable perspective on health equity based on her hands-on experience with underserved populations.
Growing up with a mother from the Amazon Forest has instilled in her deep respect and appreciation for the power of traditional practices.
As the head of global health at Baraka Impact Finance, she supports social entrepreneurs who are developing and scaling up innovative solutions to address health-seeking behavior, health education, and enhancing healthcare delivery to populations in LMICs, which are crucial to improve health outcomes among underserved communities.
As the first Latin American elected as a member of the MSF international board, Dr. Batista has worked alongside MSF’s leaders to guide the organization and uphold its mission of providing medical humanitarian aid.
She has held leadership positions with MSF, DNDi and serves at various boards and advisory panels of global organizations including: Health in Harmony, the International Society of Neglected Tropical Diseases and others.

Health doctor with specialization in international health. With more than 25 years of experience in public health at the national level in Peru and internationally in the Americas. For more than 13 years Carlos has been working in the Pan American Health Organization / World Health Organization. He currently works as an advisor in the PAHO / WHO Subregional Program for South America based in Lima, Peru

Dr. Lescano has a PhD in Global Epidemiology and Disease Control and Masters’ degrees in Biostatistics and Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins University. He is an Associate Professor at Cayetano University in Peru, and has adjunct appointments at the Tulane, Johns Hopkins, Wake Forest and Texas Medical Branch universities. He leads Emerge, the Emerging Infections and Climate Change Unit, a Masters’ and Doctorate in Epidemiological Research, and is the Director of Clima, the Latin American Center of Excellence for Climate Change and Health. Dr. Lescano studies emerging diseases epidemiology and climate change, and has trained hundreds of epidemiologists under major capacity building efforts.

Full Professor and researcher at the Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile. Psychologist, Master in Public Health and Doctor in Clinical and Health Psychology. He has presented multiple conferences nationally and on several continents and published over 200 articles in WoS and Scopus journals. Member of editorial and/or scientific committees of Journals in several countries. Past President of the Interamerican Society of Psychology [SIP], has been part of the board of the Latin American Association of Health Psychology [ALAPSA], the Chilean Society of Scientific Psychology, the Chilean Society of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, the Chilean Society of Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine.  He is currently the director of the Doctoral Program in Psychology.  Among other distinctions, has been distinguished with the award for current contribution to psychological research by the Scientific Society of Psychology of Chile and 2021, 2022 and 2023 for being in the top 2% of most cited researchers in the world in his specialty in SCOPUS.  Since 2013 he is the principal investigator, with funding from the government of Chile through FONDECYT, currently on health and migration issues.

Social epidemiologist whose research focuses on understanding how global health challenges can disproportionally affect people from racial, ethnic and socioeconomic minorities, including migrants. I have a special interest in applying robust methods to understand causal associations and conduct high-quality evaluations of social policies that can be used to reduce health inequalities and advocate for changes in society.

Internationalist with a Bachelor’s degree from Sorbonne University of Paris, a one-year exchange program at the University of Manchester and a Master’s Degree in International Relations, Diplomacy and International Organizations from the University of Milan. She is specialized in Latin American studies, women’s rights and climate change and she focused her Master’s thesis on “Indigenous Women and Climate Change in Latin America”. She has working experience as an Accredited parliamentary assistant intern at the European Parliament in Brussels, and in the diplomatic field at the Consulate of Argentina in Milan. Currently, she is an intern for the Subregional Program for South America of the Pan American Health Organization. Her research interests includes a panoply of areas related to international development cooperation, human rights, diplomacy, and public policy with a particular focus on migration, climate change, women’s and indigenous rights.

Global health researcher and Master’s candidate at Georgetown University, where she is also working towards completion of a certificate in Refugees, Migration, and Humanitarian Crises. She previously worked refugee and immigrant youth based in Pennsylvania, United States. Currently, she is an international consultant contracted at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and provides technical support needed to monitor and evaluate regional progress towards universal health coverage and universal access to health. Her research interests include global health, migration, refugee and migrant health, climate change, and participatory research methods.