Simmie Nyanfor is a dynamic development professional with six years of extensive experience in program planning, management, and evaluation.
As a young person who has always been determined to pursue higher education, Simmie earned a joint master's degree in Public Health and health management with honors from the Xiangya School of Medicine and a Master of Global Health from the University of Sydney, Australia, coupled with several certificates in global health and health systems strengthening from the University of Melbourne and John Hopkins, Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The personality of the week has served in management positions in both the public and private health sectors, nationally and internationally, and is very knowledgeable about the Liberian health system.
Currently, he is the Health Innovation Coordinator at a new USAID-funded BRIDGE-U project in Liberia where he develops programming for the growth of healthcare innovators (care delivery, financing, training, technology, and systems) and supports the utilization of research findings for commercialization.
Prior to BRIDGE U, he served as USAID Liberia's Private Health Technical Advisor, where he led and managed the health office's private sector portfolio.
Before joining USAID, he worked at the Hunan Chest Hospital/Hunan Tuberculosis Research Institute, a Chinese Provincial Center, as a Scientific Officer.
He has this to say: "Here, I helped accelerate the investigation of latent infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the general population of Hunan, identify individuals who are at risk, and analyze the impact of interventions such as drug and vaccination programs; advised the government and private sector on policy recommendations based on project results to increase the quality of TB care in the private sector; and worked with the private health sector to support and develop activities testing incentives and enablers for increasing private sector diagnosis, successful treatment, and notification of TB."
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In addition to his professional work, he also served as InsightSTEM West Africa Mission Director and managed a portfolio for four West African countries; A position that exposed him to the country's governments, donor agencies, and private sector players for increased participation in STEM to lift West Africa out of poverty.
He is the co-founder of ALIVE Health Systems, a health policy think-tank that provides evidence that when applied, can make healthcare affordable, safe, effective, equitable, accessible, and patient-centered. ALIVE helped set the standard for health systems and clinics looking to integrate programs that create better health as well as build partnerships and redesign systems so every person, in every community, can live with health, well-being, and dignity.
His key vision is to see people living in healthy communities with equitable access to affordable, high-quality health care, protected from disease and threats through groundbreaking research and collaborative public health solutions, thus shielding the poor and the underserved from poverty, illness, and death.
Based on these, we developed a keen interest in Simmie Nyanfor as our personality of the week.
