IGHS’s Malaria Elimination Initiative: Highlights of our current work and where we're headed

Established in 2007, the Malaria Elimination Initiative (MEI) helped put the global goal of elimination on the map. Since then, we continue to work alongside malaria endemic countries and regions to advance malaria policy and practice through research, advocacy, and technical assistance. The MEI has ongoing activities in more than 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. In this Grand Rounds, we provide an overview of our current work and where we’re headed. Allison Tatarsky is the Director of the Malaria Elimination Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco. Allison has more than twelve years of experience working alongside and in service of ministries of health on malaria elimination strategy, policy, program implementation, and operational research. During her tenure with the MEI, Allison established the MEI’s vector control and surveillance portfolio of work, including research on innovative vector control tools and entomological surveillance strengthening through technical assistance, capacity building, and decision-tool development. As a member of the MEI’s leadership team, Allison has worked to expand partnerships and shape the MEI’s strategy, including the MEI’s approach to targeting and tailoring of malaria elimination approaches, supporting subnational-level problem-solving and impact. Michelle Hsiang is a pediatric infectious diseases physician and malaria epidemiologist. She serves as the Director of Research for the Malaria Elimination Initiative at the Institute for Global Health Sciences at UCSF. She is Associate Professor in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Epidemiology, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, as well as a Chan-Zuckerburg Biohub Investigator. She studied Human Biology as an undergraduate at Stanford University and attended medical school at Baylor College of Medicine. She trained in Pediatrics and Pediatric Infectious Diseases at UCSF, and obtained a Masters in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. From 2012-2021, she was Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical School where she was also a Horchow Family Endowed Scholar in Pediatrics. Laic Beugre, current IGHS master's student, moderates Q&A following presentation.