Impact Fellowship in Global Health Systems and Policy

The programme enables Fellows from low and middle-income countries (LMICs) to contribute to research and learning projects at UCL and to benefit from mentorship and engagement with the Health Systems and Policy research cluster. Impact Fellows contribute to the cluster’s collaborations with global health policy organisations, with a focus on learning health systems and improving evidence use in policy. 

The Impact Fellowships address the urgent need for a greater role and opportunities for individuals with credible prior experience in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) to work in global health. It creates a three-pronged value chain:

• A career pathway for individuals with health systems and health policy experience in low and middle-income countries to work in global health
• Benefits for global health organisations where the fellows will be linked or placed, by way of access to their experience and talent, and the committed support of UCL mentors
• Benefits for national health systems and health policy institutions through access to a talent pipeline of trained and networked global health professionals

Impact fellows are selected for a period of one year through a competitive selection process. The programme is led by Professor Kabir Sheikh and Dr Meike Schleiff. 

Impact Fellows 2025-26

Catherine Etseoghena Khanoba recently completed an MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics and Political Science, where her dissertation examined Thailand’s immunisation financing architecture as a positive deviant case to inform sustainability strategies in low- and middle-income countries. Her professional and academic interests focus on sustainable health financing, vaccine policy, and the political economy of donor transition. Catherine has worked with research teams and networks in Sub-Saharan Africa, contributing to projects on immunisation systems, universal health coverage, and health system resilience. She also has experience in fundraising, stakeholder engagement, and research dissemination in global health. She is passionate about generating context-relevant insights to strengthen health systems, improve equity, and support countries in building more sustainable and resilient health policies and institutions.

Hintsa G. Gebremariam is a medical doctor and a recent MSc Global Health Policy graduate from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His master’s dissertation examined the barriers to implementation and equity implications of health system reforms, with a particular focus on Value-Based Healthcare in public health systems and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Hintsa began his career as a General Practitioner in a primary health facility in rural Ethiopia before transitioning to humanitarian work with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) where he served as a Medical Doctor and Medical Activity Manager for nearly 2 years, leading outbreak responses, medical service delivery, and capacity building initiatives. He also worked as an Emergency Mobile Health and Nutrition Coordinator with the Tigray Regional Health Bureau, where he oversaw mobile teams delivering essential health and nutrition services in war-affected regions of Ethiopia. His interests include health systems strengthening, primary health care, universal health coverage (UHC), access to medicines, evidence-to-policy translation, and Value-Based Healthcare.

External Collaboration

The Impact Fellows are contributing to a collaboration between UCL GBSH and the Science Division of the World Health Organization on strengthening the use of evidence in policy and advancing learning health systems.

Funding Acknowledgement

This project is part of the EDCTP2 Programme supported by the European Union.