Local organising committee

General Practitioner for the National Health System, Turin, Italy, since 1990. Technical adviser for the Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, World Health Organization (1996-2016), and member of Expert Panel on General Parasitology for WHO, Geneva (2014-2018). Lecturer of Parasitology at the Faculty of Science, University of Turin (2008-2018). Associate Professor in the Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore (2000 -2010).

Board member of the Italian Society of Tropical Medicine and International Health (SIMET) and since 2017 delegate to the Federation of European Societies for Tropical Medicine and International Health (FESTMIH) of which has been elected President in November 2023.

Expertise in epidemiology and control of helminthic infections such as intestinal helminthiasis, schistosomiasis and filariasis. Extensive work experience on neglected tropical diseases both in the public health setting and in the parasitological domain. Experience in managing public health laboratories and health staff in developing countries, as well as advising Ministries of Health in control strategies for controlling helminthic infections. Extensive field work experience in Tanzania (Pemba Island), Madagascar, Nepal, Senegal. Principal investigator in numerous randomised trials on parasite epidemiology and anthelminthic drug efficacy.

Saskia Dede Davi completed her MD thesis in 2023 on HIV-associated co-infections during pregnancy in rural Gabon. Since March, she has been pursuing a PhD focusing on optimizing the clinical management of Loiasis. Her research has taken her to Gabon multiple times, enriching her understanding of tropical diseases.

Her current research interests include Loa loa, schistosomiasis, and maternal-child health. She has been part of the Clinical Research Group at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM) since 2018 and began her internal medicine residency in 2022.

Bernhard Fleischer M.D. was full professor of Tropical Medicine at the Medical Faculty, University of Hamburg (1993-2016), and presently works as a Senior Scientist at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM) in Hamburg.

He is Secretary and Treasurer of the German Society for Tropical Medicine, Travel Medicine and Global Health (DTG) and coordinator of the fellowship program of the European Foundations Initiative for NTDs (EFINTD) for African scientists.

From 1996 to 2007 he was director of the BNITM, from 2008 to 2016 member of the board of directors of the BNITM, in addition, he held the Chair in Immunology at the University of Hamburg and was director of the Institute of Immunology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (2002-2016).

Daniela Fusco is a molecular biotechnologist with a PhD in Virology and an MSc in International Health. Since 2018, she is working at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine where she leads the research group ‘Control of Poverty Related and Neglected Tropical Diseases’. All projects lead are implemented in close collaboration with local stakeholders and aim at finding sustainable solutions for the control of NTDs through research and capacity strengthening initiatives.

Her professional background is at the intersect of research, health program implementation, and humanitarian response. She has worked in more than ten countries in limited resource settings, from TB programs in the prisons in Ukraine to clinical trials following the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

Robin Kobbe is a pediatric infectious disease specialist with an additional qualification in tropical medicine. He studied medicine in Hamburg and earned his PhD in the field of malaria chemoprevention in children. Later, he completed a postgraduate diploma course in pediatric infectiology and immunology at the University of Oxford (UK) with distinction. For years Robin Kobbe has been the head of the pediatric outpatient department for primary immunodeficiency and children and adolescents with HIV/AIDS at the University Medical Center (UKE) in Hamburg.

Currently, he is working as a clinician scientist and designs, conducts and evaluates clinical studies on children and adolescents in Germany and abroad. Robin Kobbe is coordinating an academic clinical partnership project of the GIZ on neonatal sepsis together with the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) at the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

 Robin Kobbe is the chairman of the German Society for Tropical Pediatrics and International Health (GTP) and also an active member of the organizational team of the anual ESPID-funded TropPaedCourse. He is also on the board of the German Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases (DGPI) and involved in the Commission for Global Child Health of the German Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (DGKJ).

Carsten Köhler earned his Ph.D. at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen. From 2000 to 2008 he implemented and managed the International Relations Office at the Medical Faculty of the University of Tübingen.

Since 2006 he is employed at the Institute for Tropical Medicine, Travel Medicine and Human Parasitology at the University of Tübingen and became Head of the Centre of Excellence of Tropical Medicine for Baden-Württemberg, Germany in 2009. He is a full member of the German Society for Tropical Medicine, Travel Medicine and Global Health (DTG) and the Austrian Society for Tropical Medicine, Parasitology and Migration Medicine (ÖGTPM), as well as an appointed member of the German Institute for Medical Mission (DIFÄM) and the Deutsche Afrika Stiftung.

Since autumn 2016 he has been appointed president of the DTG e.V. He is also a founding member and member of the Board of the German Network against Neglected Tropical Diseases (DNTDs) e.V.

Since spring 2020, he has also been a member of the steering committee of the newly founded German Alliance for Global Health Research, which was initiated and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). In 2017 together with Professor Dr. Peter G. Kremsner, he was awarded the Memento Research Prize for Neglected Diseases, for his commitment to improving therapy in cases of severe malaria disease. He has been Congress President at the 15th (virtual) and 16th (Leipzig) Congress for Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine (KIT).

Lars Korn studied psychology at the university of Jena and Erfurt and his main focus of research are psychological drivers of vaccine acceptance and the prudent use of antibiotics. In this context, he uses behavioural-economical approaches which models vaccine and antibiotics decisions as social dilemmas to observe and change people’s behaviour. He is especially interested in social processes and contextual aspects that influence decision-making.

Since his job transfer from the University of Erfurt to the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Lars Korn has also been involved in research on vaccine decisions in diverse cultural contexts. Of particular interest in this regard is the insight for health psychology in general. Many studies in this area examine individuals from WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic). However, study findings may not necessarily be generalized and applied to other cultural contexts. He will be conducting psychological studies, experiments and replication projects to fill this gap to better understand health decision-making and to identify avenues for behaviour change interventions.

Manuela Mirow completed her M.Sc in Molecular Life Sciences, an interdisciplinary program, in Hamburg and Lübeck in 2019. She developed a keen interest in infection research early on, conducting research on malaria during her bachelor’s studies.

After completing her master’s, she joined the executive board of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), where she gained valuable experience in organizing scientific events and recognized the importance of interdisciplinary networking in research. Since 2023, Manuela has been working at the BNITM, supporting the executive board as the personal assistant to the chair.

Sophie Schneitler studied human medicine in Düsseldorf, Germany. This was followed by further training as an internist with a specialisation in infectiology at the Universities of Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Her expertise lays in tuberculosis, community health, mycobacteria, clinical research, tropical medicine and travel medicine.

She currently works as an infectious diseases’ specialist and clinical microbiologist specialising in tropical medicine at Saarland University and also acts as secretariat/project coordinator at FESTMIH. She is a member of the Board of the German Society for Tropical Medicine and Global Health (DTG), committee chairwoman of the DTG's Working Group for the promotion of young scientists and a Board member of the Network of Young Infectious Diseases Specialist (jUNITE). She has worked in Peru, Thailand and numerous countries in Africa. She has experience in organising national and international congresses.

Hellen Temme is a PhD student at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM) and the University of Erfurt, where she is a member of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB). She earned her master’s degree in Epidemiology and subsequently joined the implementation research group at the BNITM, focusing on health communication.

Her main interests revolve around addressing the climate crisis by leveraging critical social and behavioral sciences insights. Hellen is particularly dedicated to identifying key starting points for intervention design and effective climate change communication. Following the Planetary Health approach, her research emphasizes that effectively addressing the climate crisis requires not only a focus on individual behavioral change but also on political measures, including systemic shifts through policy acceptance and active political participation by the population.