Dr Swaroop N is Thematic Lead – Comprehensive Primary Health Care, and Maternal Neonatal and Child Health, and Deputy Director – Quality Improvement at KHPT. Dr Swaroop earned his MD degree in Community Health from St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore. He has also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in 2019 as a part of the International Infectious Disease and Global Health Training Program conducted by University of Manitoba, Canada.
He has 9 years of experience in designing, implementing and disseminating a wide range of public health projects covering HIV, non-communicable diseases, maternal, neonatal and child health. Currently, he has taken a lead in conceptualizing and implementing projects on non-communicable diseases in Mysore. The aim of the projects is to identify the gaps in diagnosis, care and treatment of diabetes and hypertension and develop a model to promote early screening, early enrolment to care and support mechanism, regular follow-up and adherence to medications. He has also taken a lead in developing a model for implementing Comprehensive Primary Health Care in an urban setting. He has several publications in peer-reviewed, indexed international/ national journals and also presented scientific papers in many international/national conferences.
Agnita is an experienced nutrition and public health specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the social development sector and nutrition research with 10 years of experience. She has her first Masters in food science and nutrition and recently completed a second Masters in global health and infectious diseases from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She also obtained a certificate of advanced studies in public governance and administration from ETH, Zurich. She participated in the 2018 Global health Academy, the University of Edinburgh with a focus on the One Health approach. She is also a certified diabetes educator by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
She is currently the Strategic Lead for the Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health thematic area and has been associated with KHPT for 6 years. She has worked closely with the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSA) of multiple states in the country to promote and strengthen the fortification of staples through advocacy with Government departments and building the capacity of food business operators on fortification. Earlier she was involved in providing technical expertise for a nutrition pilot project focusing on alleviating nutrition in the most backward blocks of the state of Karnataka. She supports nutrition interventions in the organization in terms of planning and execution of both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions based on evidence.
Earlier she was a senior research fellow at St. John’s Research Institute, Bangalore involved in advanced research in the maternal and child nutrition area using, or developing, the appropriate research methods. Her interests are in global health, food systems, governance, and administration. She looks forward to working towards strengthening the food systems aimed at alleviating the nutritional landscape in the country.
Prathibha Rai, currently is a Manager-Community Interventions at KHPT, with more than 17 years of experience in the social development sector.
Her key areas of work at KHPT are in community mobilization, program development and program management in the areas of Maternal Neonatal and Child Health (MNCH) & Non-Communicable Disease. Her work focusses on strengthening community systems (Community health workers, community structures like VHSNC & ARS) through the development of training modules, job aids and capacity building. In the MNCH area, she majorly contributed to the development of ASHA diary and led the pilot of ASHA diary.
In her initial assignment, she managed and mentored a team of counsellors in the HIV/AIDS Care and support centre. At FICCI & PSI, she led the implementation of a workplace intervention program on HIV/AIDS & TB in the industries.
She holds Masters in Social Work and M.Phil in Sociology. She is a counsellor by passion. Currently, she is also a member of POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment in the workplace) committee at KHPT.
With an M.Phil degree in Biostatistics & Demography, Mani Deep has over five years of experience in implementing and analyzing large-scale surveys. He specializes in designing and implementing Monitoring and Evaluation plans for MNCH projects.
Prior to his current position, Mani Deep worked on the “National Family Health Survey round Five (NFHS-5)” project at the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS). He also served as a Data Analyst for the “National Research Study on Human Trafficking in India” project at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). Additionally, he worked as a Bio-Statistician at YAGNA, where he analyzed various health-related data sets, including HIV Sentinel Surveillance and National Integrated Biological & Behavioural Surveillance, NFHS(Round III & IV), and District Level Household Survey Round IV.
Mani Deep’s contributions have been recognized through publications, awards and presentations. He received the Dr. C. Chandrasekharan Young Scientist Award for his research on handling missing data in large-scale health surveys. He also received the PROF. S N SINGH Best Poster Award for his work on the prevalence of hypertension in the southern Indian population.
Outside of work, Mani Deep actively participates in co-curricular activities and sports. He has been a member of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) and has achieved high grades. He has also pursued karate and has reached an advanced level. In addition, he enjoys playing football, skating, and swimming.
With over five years in the development and public health sector, Mihika Wakhloo has experience in capacity building, community engagement, program and knowledge management, psycho-social support, monitoring and evaluation.
She has worked as an integral part of the National Project Management Unit in USAID_LON ALLIES Project, REACH, where she provided support to the state teams in implementing a Community-based Accountability Framework (CAF) to improve the quality of care and quality of services in community-based TB Care, conducted research and analysis, and supported 15 Media Fellows across India. She also presented an abstract at the Union World Conference on Lung Health 2022 at the Youth4Lungs event.
Mihika holds a Master’s degree in Social Work and Human Resource Management from the Department of Social Work at Jamia Millia Islamia University.