Project Leadership

Steve Ollis (JSI) is the CHISU Program Director. Mr. Ollis has over 24 years of professional experience in program management, digital health, public health, information technology, financial analysis, and business process reengineering. He is a gifted program manager, a successful leader of diverse teams, and a globally recognized digital health leader with a focus on program and system quality. Prior to CHISU, Mr. Ollis was JSI’s Team Lead for USAID’s MEASURE Evaluation and PMI Measure Malaria and Senior Digital Health Advisor for USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival Program. Before joining JSI, he served as COO of D-tree International, developing digital health solutions to improve the quality of care provided by frontline health workers. Mr. Ollis has extensive experience managing HIS strengthening and data use projects, leading geographically dispersed teams, and advising host governments in making effective program decisions about information technology tool selection and sustainability. He holds certifications as a Project Management Professional and a Six Sigma Green Belt and is in the WHO’s roster of Digital Health Experts.

Dr. Stephanie Watson-Grant (JSI) is the CHISU Program Deputy Director. Dr. Watson-Grant has over 17 years’ experience in the fields of international health and development and ten years in a management role on MEASURE Evaluation. She brings expertise in community development, research and planning, strategic leadership, and program management, including roles with USAID and UNAIDS. Dr. Watson-Grant has experience in routine monitoring with mHealth resources, outcome monitoring, outcome evaluation, evaluation capacity building, and causal loop mapping to assess risks to task shifting from facilities to communities. Dr. Watson-Grant’s publications focus on measurement of country ownership, monitoring and evaluation, and routine health information systems in global health. She is an adjunct professor with the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Derek Kunaka (JSI) is the CHISU Senior Health Information Systems Director. Mr. Kunaka is an information systems specialist with over 22 years of experience in designing and implementing management information systems (MIS) projects in the private and public sectors. Prior to CHISU, Mr. Kunaka was the Senior HIS Advisor for USAID’s MEASURE Evaluation project, where he provided technical advisory services in M&E and HIS to government ministries of health, and social development and strategic planning support from the national to the facility level in several countries in Francophone and Anglophone Africa. He has been an Activity Manager for USAID at a country mission and a Project Director for consecutive bilateral projects on health information systems strengthening at the country and regional level. Mr. Kunaka is exceptionally skilled at stakeholder management, project design and evaluation, strategy development, implementation, capacity building, financial management, and performance management. He is a guest lecturer on HIS at the University of Pretoria’s School of Public Health and the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Joni Bowling (JSI) is the CHISU Finance and Operations Director. Ms. Bowling has expertise in the financial, management, and operational aspects of large, complex international awards. She brings financial and administrative management experience combined with more than 15 years of operational experience in centrally funded USAID global health and education projects. Ms. Bowling has managed awards of more than $850 million in federal funding in over 45 countries and many regions. She has experience in project, donor, and partner management; human resources; finances; audit; contracting; data reporting and analysis; cost sharing; and financial transactions from start-up to closeout. She develops and maintains transparent working relationships with donor and project teams, as well as collaborating agencies.

Taylor Williamson (RTI) is a Senior Manager, Health Policy at RTI International. He is responsible for programming, strategies, and research to strengthen health systems, with a focus on public management, decentralization, policy, and human rights. Mr. Williamson has 15 years of experience designing and implementing health systems programs, with attention to how health system reforms affect family planning, maternal health, and HIV services. As a project manager and health governance technical lead for three centrally-funded USAID health system strengthening projects (Health Systems 20/20, the Health Policy Project, and the Health Policy Plus Project), he provided technical direction and leadership for health systems challenges, including programs to improve service barriers for people living with HIV and key populations, strengthen health sector decentralization, strengthen civil society capacity, and assess health systems, including workforce and supply chain challenges. He has also published several manuscripts and working papers on HIV, evidence use, civil society, decentralization, and human rights.

Richard Delaney (Vital Strategies) is the Vital Strategies Team Lead for CHISU. Mr. Delaney has extensive experience working with government agencies, universities, nongovernmental organizations, and consulting firms. He implements innovative approaches for collecting and analyzing underutilized data to yield policy insights, designs processes and systems to make data more accessible, enhances policy-makers’ capacity for data-driven decision-making, and incorporates data into communications materials to build support for policy proposals. At Vital Strategies, Mr. Delaney’s work includes the Data Impact program, a multi-year effort to encourage best practices in data use in public health ministries.

Ashley Schmidt (Macro-Eyes) is the Macro-Eyes Team Lead for CHISU. As a Senior Deployment Manager, Ms. Schmidt leads teams of machine-learning scientists and software engineers in the application of machine learning to global health projects. Prior to joining CHISU she was the lead POC for Macro-Eyes' AI portfolio funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With over a decade of experience working internationally with Ministries of Health, government agencies, foundations and nonprofits she brings a unique perspective to the nexus of global health and innovative technologies. She is a seasoned professional adapting innovative technologies to varying political and social environments to ensure that health services are high quality, efficient, effective, and accepted. She holds a Masters of Science in Public Health from Tulane's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and kick-started her global health career as an intern at the World Health Organization.

Dr. George Ochieng Otieno (GEMNet Health) is the GEMNet Team Lead for CHISU. Dr. Otieno is a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health and Applied Human Sciences, Kenyatta University. Dr. Otieno is the coordinator of IMPACT Project – a capacity building program in collaboration with Ministry of Health (K) and CDC, Atlanta. Otieno teaches and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students in health informatics, monitoring and evaluation, research methods, biostatistics and health systems’ management. Dr. Otieno has published widely in the area of health informatics and has a great interest in quality improvement initiatives through development of informatics tools to improve healthcare delivery and patient safety. His research interest also revolves around monitoring and evaluation of healthcare interventions, and health systems strengthening through use of technology. Dr. Otieno holds PhD in health informatics from the International University of Health and Welfare, Japan.

Dr. Chris Seebregts (Jembi) is the Jembi Team Lead for CHISU. The founder and Chief Executive of Jembi Health Systems, Dr. Seebregts is a digital health professional with expertise in biomedical research, computer science, and information systems. He established the Biomedical Informatics Research Division at the South African Medical Research Council (MRC). In 2005, he spun off Jembi as a separate organization. Dr. Seebregts leads the MRC-Jembi Collaborating Centre for Digital Health Innovation. He holds a Ph.D. in medical biochemistry from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and is an Honorary Research Associate in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town.