About UCHAI
UCHAI represents an initiative to build capacity for climate-proofing of the human health sector in India. Towards this end it endeavors to bring academicians, researchers, practitioners and students from diverse fields including climate science, environment, public health, public policy, social development and urban planning through a resource network and community of practice. UCHAI is involved in this process through training, policy relevant research, vulnerability and adaptation assessment, climate friendly health interventions and communication to different stakeholders. UCHAI is a moderated open platform enhanced by social media and instant messaging.
The initiative is being carried out in partnership with the Indian Meteorological Society (IMS) and is being guided by the UCHAI Advisory Group which consists of experts from leading institutions in India such as All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), National Health System Resource Centre (NHSRC), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA). The initiative is hosted by TERI and is being supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, United States.
UCHAI Advisory Committee
Chair, Advisory Committee, UCHAI
Dr. Anand Krishnan , Dr. Anand Krishnan, Chair, Advisory Committee, UCHAI; and Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS, New Delhi. He also heads WHO Collaborating Centre for Capacity Development and Research in Community-based NCD prevention and control. He is recipient of several prestigious awards including the BC Srivastava Award for Best Young Scientist in Community Medicine in 2000; MK Seshari Award for Research in Community Medicine by the Indian Council of Medical Research in 2008, PN Raju Oration Award by ICMR 2014; and more recently the Harcharan Singh Oration Award of the Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM) in 2015. He is a member of the National Steering Committee on Monitoring of National Program for Cancer, Diabetes, Cardio Vascular Diseases and Stroke. He has authored more than 280 publications. He is also a Fellow of National Academy of Medical Sciences, IAPSM, and Indian Public Health Association.
Members, Advisory Committee, UCHAI
Dr. Sanjiv Kumar, Professor, Leadership, Global Health and Strategic Management at INCLEN Institute of Global Health, Chair of Indian Alliance of Patients Group, Indian Academy of Public Health, Chair Institutional Ethics Committee of Gautam Budh University and member Governing Board of NIHFW. He has 43 years of experience in public health across 33 countries. He worked in UNICEF for 22 years in India in Iraq, Kenya, Uganda and Somalia and as Regional Advisor for 22 countries in Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Baltic States. As Executive Director at National Health Systems Resource Centre he provided technical support to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and all states and UTs governments in India. He worked as Director, International Institute of Health Management and Research in New Delhi and turned it around from a loss making intuition. Dr Sanjiv Kumar has published more than 100 papers in scientific and popular magazines and chapters in books. His current focus is on leadership in health, academics and health research. He has developed and published three domain model for leadership capacity building and conducted more than 20 courses and facilitated sessions at another about 20 courses. The model includes self-domain (self-awareness, vision, emotional competencies, work life balance, listening skills, living in the present moment, first things first i.e. time management, technical competencies etc), Team & Organizational domain (coaching, mentoring, delegating, translating vision into results, dealing with difficult behavior etc.) and Awareness of Environment in own and other sectors (anticipating & managing change, emerging trends in own and other sectors, networking, contributing to the society etc.). He has been conferred four international and national fellowships and eight Awards for his professional contribution. He was among 13 renowned leaders Alumni of Centre of Community Medicines at 60 years’ celebration of AIIMS, New Delhi. He was founder Chairperson of UCHAI till 2019 and currently a member.
Dr. Dushmanta Pattanaik has worked in climate variability and climate prediction for 18 years. He currently works in the Numerical Weather Prediction Division of IMD, New Delhi, specializing in extended range forecasting. He has contributed a chapter on Indian climatology in the context of human health in a book published by TERI in 2012 titled ‘Climate Change and Disease Dynamics in India’. He is also the author of the publication ‘Heat Index Outlook’ over the Indian region with its potential application to the health sector.
Dr. Harshal Salve currently works as faculty of Community Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He is a medical doctor, with a specialization in community medicine/public health from AIIMS, New Delhi. His areas of interests are mental health, non-communicable diseases, climate change, HIV/AIDS and health systems. He has 20 publications in national and international journal to his credit. Currently, he is also the editor of IDD Newsletter IQ Plus Jagriti and an editorial board member of the International Journal of Preventive and Public Health Sciences. He is also a member of IAPSM and IPHA. He has worked in health programs at the national and state levels. Currently, he also serves as guide/mentor to post-graduate students of Community Medicine at AIIMS, New Delhi.
Dr. John M. Balbus is the Senior Advisor for Public Health to the Director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. He serves as the Department of Health and Human Services Principal to the U.S. Global Change Research Program and co-chairs working groups on Climate Change and Human Health for the US Global Change Research Program and for the National Institutes of Health. He was a lead author on health for the US National Climate Assessment and a Review Editor on Urban Areas for the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is currently leading an initiative on Sustainable and Climate Resilient Health Care Facilities as part of the US President’s Climate Action Plan. Dr. Balbus received his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, his MPH degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University.
Manu Prakash a thought-action leader in the development space, has more than 20 years of rich experience within urban and rural sectors with range of international and national, institutions like World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP, CARE, ILO, and Govt. of India. With Master’s degree from Delhi School of Economics, he has contributed extensively to the development sector through designing and implementing large scale development programs including policy analysis in the form of various research reports and papers, and advocacy initiatives. Within climate space, he is engaged in strengthening the initiatives on climate and health in India through a network ‘Understanding Climate and Health Association in India’ where he is co-chairing the network. He has also documented a roadmap for Heatwave Management in India and led various advocacy initiatives around it including setting up e-network on heat resilience. Presently, he is the CEO at Taru Leading Edge, a development advisory and think tank which works in India and overseas.
Ms. Meena Sehgal did her Master’s in Public Health from Emory University, Atlanta, USA. She has 22 years of work experience in data analysis, processing and interpretation. Her contributions have been largely in the form of data analysis, processing and statistical interpretation of findings for various health studies. She is proficient in epidemiological planning of studies and in using statistical techniques like regression, correlation, stratified data analysis, multivariate and univariate analysis, and using software packages, including SAS, SUDAAN and Epi-Info. She has also served as Epidemiologist, Australian International Health Institute (AIHI), New Delhi, India, and Data Analyst, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA.
Dr. Pawan Kumar Taneja, is a policy analyst specialized in health system research and health financing working as Sr. Faculty (Finance & Operations Research) at Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, a policy research think tank of Government of India. He holds Ph. D. in Financing & Operations Research, MBA in Finance & Operations, M. Com in Finance & Quantitative Methods, and PGDStat in Statistics and Data Analytics. He has also done Diploma Course on Leadership Development from MEASURE Evaluation, msh (Management Science for Health) funded by USAID and Certificate Course in Global Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has more than 16 years of rich varied experience in teaching, research and industry. Prior to joining IIPA he has worked with prestigious institutes such as Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), New Delhi. He has coordinated more than 15 operational research projects in the areas of healthcare financing, urban health, maternal and child health, health seeking behavior, climate change and healthcare, and Disaster Management supported by UNICEF, WHO, HLFPPT, Plan International, Government of India etc.
Dr. Ramesh C Dhiman is a Senior Consultant, Former Scientist ‘G’ (Director Grade) at the ICMR- National Institute of Malaria Research, Delhi. He has 34 years of research experience in the field of vector biology and control, epidemiology of malaria, dengue and visceral leishmaniasis, climate change and vector- borne diseases. His field of research is climate change impacts on health, with an emphasis on vector-borne diseases, and early warning of malaria outbreaks using meteorological data and satellite remote sensing. Dr. Dhiman has served as reviewer of IPCC 2007 and IPCC 2014, also as an expert in “Expert meeting on Using climate and weather information for predicting and preparing for cholera and vector- borne diseases” at WHO Geneva (2019). He has contributed to the Prime Minister’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008), and two generic protocols for assessment of impacts of climate change on vector-borne diseases for SEARO, World Health Organization. He is expert member of the advisory committee on climate change with the MoEF&CC and one of the National Coordinators for DST Climate Change Network. He has also contributed to the set- up of DST- ICMR Centre of Excellence for Climate Change and Vector- Borne Diseases at ICMR- NIMR Delhi “(2017). Dr. Dhiman has around 120 publications in various peer reviewed journals, books and proceedings.
Dr. Sagnik Dey received his M.Sc. degree in Applied Geosciences from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, in 2000 and his M. Tech. degree from IIT Kanpur in 2002. Subsequently, he joined the Ph.D. program in the same institute and submitted his doctoral thesis on ‘Aerosol Radiative Effects over Kanpur region in the Indo-Gangetic Basin, Northern India’ in July 2007. Dr. Dey worked for three years (August 2007 to July 2010) as Post-doctoral Scientist at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He joined the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, as Assistant Professor in July 2010. His research interests are to understand and quantify aerosol-cloud interaction and their impacts on climate change, and health impacts of aerosols using remote sensing and in-situ observations and models. He has published more than 50 research papers with an h-index of 19 (source: SCOPUS). He received the INSA Young Scientist Medal for 2008 and NASI-SCOPUS Young Scientist Award in Earth Sciences in January 2012. He is also the recipient of the Dr. Sudhansu Kumar Banerji MoES outstanding young faculty fellowship for the period 2011-2013.
Dr. Shyamala Mani, Sr. Advisor, WASH and Waste Management, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) has a Ph.D in Environmental Science from JNU and an MPH from School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, USA. A national science talent scholar, a recipient of ICAR Fellowship in Agri. Microbiology and Fogarty International fellowship in Environmental Health, she has presented in several conferences and seminars in India and abroad. She received the UNCHS Global 100 award for waste management and sanitation in Bangalore in 1998, Plasticon India award for Plastics Reuse and Recycling in 2005 and recognition from UNU-IAS, Japan for Regional Centre of Expertise on waste management in pilgrimage places in 2007.
Dr. Mani joined NIUA in December 2012 after working at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) for 25 years, as Programme Director (Waste and Resources Management). She now consults for NIUA under Swachh Bharat Mission and Public Health Foundation of India, Gurugram under various projects for the Centre for Environmental Health. A member of several professional organizations, she has published in reputed books and journals. She helped formulate the Biomedical Waste Management Rules 1998 and 2016, Municipal Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2000 and 2016, Plastics Waste Rules 2011 and 2016 promulgated by Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Dr. Mani is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Understanding Climate and Health Associations in India (UCHAI) network, and a member of the Expert Advisory Committee for selecting SWM projects for Department of Science and Technology (DST), Chairperson of TIFAC committee for Technical Needs Assessment for Waste sector for UNFCCC under Ministry of Science and Technology and a member of Integrated Solid Liquid Waste Management under Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. Along with several academic researchers in Asia, Africa and South America, she has completed the book Municipal Solid Waste Energy Conversion in Developing Countries: Technologies, Best Practices, Challenges and Policy published by Elsevier in December 2019, in which she is the Regional Editor for Asia.
Ms. Suruchi Bhadwal, Senior Fellow, Centre for Global Environment Research,TERI. The focus of her research includes studying the impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change.She is currently a Lead Author in the Special Report on Land of the IPCC. She was part of the Working Group on Climate Change and Environment for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017). She has contributed as a Lead Author for the IPCC AR4 WG II Report and has been a Review Editor for the IPCC AR5 WG II Report and the IPCC Special Report on Extreme Events.
Dr. Nitish Dogra, is a physician, physiologist and public health specialist by training, with a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the Johns Hopkins University, United States. Based in New Delhi, he has over a decade’s experience in environmental health, with a strong focus on studying the health impacts of climate change. He was awarded the Fulbright-Nehru Environmental Leadership Program Fellowship by the US State Department and the Government of India for work related to climate change-attributable burden of disease in India. Dr. Dogra has worked extensively with the World Health Organization (WHO). In August 2014, he delivered, on request, an invited commentary at the Conference on Health and Climate organized by WHO Headquarters, Geneva, the first such global-level ministerial meet in this area.
Mentors
UCHAI brings together experts from various sectors to mentor the younger generations. If you are interested in learning from UCHAI mentors, then please email us your CV and name of the preferred mentor at [email protected].
Dr. John M. Balbus is the Senior Advisor for Public Health to the Director of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. He serves as the Department of Health and Human Services Principal to the U.S. Global Change Research Program and co-chairs working groups on Climate Change and Human Health for the US Global Change Research Program and for the National Institutes of Health. He was a lead author on health for the US National Climate Assessment and a Review Editor on Urban Areas for the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is currently leading an initiative on Sustainable and Climate Resilient Health Care Facilities as part of the US President’s Climate Action Plan. Dr. Balbus received his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, his MPH degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University.
Dr. Nitish Dogra, Member Secretary UCHAI Advisory committee and convener. He is a physician, physiologist and public health specialist by training with a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the Johns Hopkins University, United States. Based out of New Delhi, he has over a decade’s experience related to environmental health with a strong focus on studying the health impacts of climate change. He was awarded the Fulbright-Nehru Environmental Leadership Program Fellowship by the US State Department and the Government of India for work related to climate change attributable burden of disease in India. Dr. Dogra has worked extensively with the World Health Organization (WHO). In August, 2014 he delivered, on request, an invited commentary at the Conference on Health and Climate organized by WHO Headquarters, Geneva; the first such global-level ministerial meet in this area.
Dr. Pawan Kumar Taneja is Faculty (Operations Research, Finance and Public Health) at Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. Prior, he was faculty at IIHMR Delhi and IIMT Gurgaon. He has 15 years of rich experience in conducting research on climate change, sanitation, heath and quality. Dr. Taneja has 3 books and many publications to his credit in national and international journals.
Team
Currently UCHAI is being hosted by TERI. The team administering the UCHAI activities at TERI comprises of:
Ms. Meena Sehgal did her Master’s in Public Health from Emory University, Atlanta, USA. She has 22 years of work experience in data analysis, processing and interpretation. Her contributions have been largely in the form of data analysis, processing and statistical interpretation of findings for various health studies. She is proficient in epidemiological planning of studies and in using statistical techniques like regression, correlation, stratified data analysis, multivariate and univariate analysis, and using software packages, including SAS, SUDAAN and Epi-Info. She has also served as Epidemiologist, Australian International Health Institute (AIHI), New Delhi, India, and Data Analyst, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA.
Ms. Vidhu Gupta did her Master’s in Food and Nutrition from Lady Irwin College, Delhi University, India. She is presently working on “Understanding climate and health associations” project. She has work experience in nutrition- related research work including dietary intake patterns, food composition analysis and nutritional biomarkers analysis. She has previously worked with Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Gurgaon.
Mr Varun Prakash Pandey has been working with TERI as a Technical Team Lead & Area Convenor. He has acquired 13 years of experience in requirement study, system architecture, designing, development, training, implementation and troubleshooting of mobile applications, websites and web-based applications. Has developed number of websites, web based knowledge sharing platforms, thematic portals and mobile apps. Rich experience in conceptualization of web portals and websites, and mapping the user requirement with the core features of open source tools like Content Management Systems (CMS), Learning Management Systems (LMS), E-commerce tools etc. Involved in various kinds of projects for system analysis, database designing, development & web system implementation.
Md Nasim Akhtar is working as Library Assistant at TERI in the Knowledge Resource Centre. He has a master’s degree in Library and Information Sciences from Annamalai University. At TERI, Nasim is associated with the Understanding Climate Health Associations in India (UCHAI) project for website development and updates.
Mahima Uttreja is currently working as a Research Associate at TERI in the Environment and Waste Management Division. She holds a Master’s degree in Environment Management from Indraprastha (IP) University, Delhi. At TERI, she is currently working on projects dealing with environment and health linked with crop burning and particle pollution across different ecological settings. She has experience in environmental research based on air pollution including emission inventorisation, source apportionment and air dispersion modelling.
