Elijah W. Riddle, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of General
Surgery at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, where he also serves as the Director of Emergency General Surgery and Assistant Clerkship Director. He graduated from the Georgia Institute of
Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and a minor in Spanish. He
completed his Doctor of Medicine degree at the Washington University in St. Louis School of
Medicine. During his residency training in General Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, he
spent two years as the Minimally Invasive Surgery Design Fellow at the Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia, where his work focused on surgical education and surgical technology. Dr. Riddle is
board-certified by the American Board of Surgery. He began his position at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in January 2023. Dr. Riddle's clinical practice is in general surgery, with a focus on
emergency general surgery and complex abdominal conditions. His academic interests include surgical education, global surgery, and surgical technology.

Dr. Riddle’s interest in global surgery dates back to his undergraduate days, when he spent summers in Tijuana, Mexico working with physicians and surgeons. As a resident, he further developed that interest through short term surgical trips to Guatemala and a dedicated global surgery rotation in Botswana. After residency, he served as the founding Program Director of the General Surgery Residency Program at VinUniversity in Hanoi, Vietnam. He has been engaged with AAGS and the Accreditation Committee since 2020.

Professor at Department of Surgery, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India.
He did his Global Surgery Course 2024 from University of Oxford. He is a member of the G4 Alliance Working Group for India/South East Asia, the GBD Collaborator Network, the WHO Global Patient Safety Network, Innovations in Global Surgery and the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Surgical Research (Indian Hub). He also serves as a Faculty Member at the NIHR GSU Faculty and is a Content Reviewer for SURGHub - Global Surgery Foundation.
He holds editorial roles as an Editorial Board Member and Editor for several journals, including BMC Surgery, BMC Medical Education, European Journal of Medical Research, Journal of Medical Case Reports (BioMed Central, part of Springer Nature), PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science), Frontiers in Surgery (Visceral Surgery), Frontiers in Medicine (Gastroenterology), Clinical Case Reports (Wiley Online Library), Clinical Medicine Insights: Case Reports (Sage Journal), and Journal of Global Surgery. Passionate about safety and quality improvement in surgery, he is committed to fostering research collaborations, advancing surgical care delivery, and developing evidence-based guidelines. As an advocate for global surgery, he strives for accessible, safe, and affordable surgical care worldwide. He is the Guest Editor for BMC Surgery: Achieving Equity in Global Surgery and Frontiers in Surgery & Frontiers in Public Health: Transforming Surgical Care in the Global South: Enhancing Quality and Accessibility.

Dr. Tanaz Vaghaiwalla is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Miami in the Division of Endocrine Surgery. She serves as the Associate Program Director for the Comprehensive Fellowship in Endocrine Surgery. Dr. Vaghaiwalla completed general surgery residency at the University of Miami and completed her endocrine surgery fellowship at the University of Chicago. Her surgical practice includes the treatment of patients with endocrine disorders of the thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal glands, and neuroendocrine tumors. Her academic interests include research in clinical outcomes, global surgery, and surgical education.

Adam Gyedu is a Professor of Surgery at the School of Medical Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana. He is a practising General Surgeon, trainer and researcher with interests in Global Surgery, Injury, and Health Systems Strengthening. He is passionate about quality surgical care provided at a cost affordable to individuals and communities. He is a fellow of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, West African College of Surgeons and the International College of Surgeons. He holds active memberships with SAGES, IATSIC and the International Surgical Society.
He is a member of the Kumasi Injury Research Group with interest in improving research capacity to reduce the burden and consequences of injuries in Ghana and West Africa. He is a reviewer for several journals and serves as an Associate Editor for World Journal of Surgery.

Dr. Justina O. Seyi-Olajide is a Paediatric Surgeon at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria. She is dedicated to advancing global health and surgery, with a focus on equitable access to surgical care in low- and middle-income countries, especially for children. A commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health, she played a pivotal role in developing Nigeria’s National Surgical, Obstetrics, Anaesthesia, and Nursing Plan and leads its ongoing revision.
Dr. Seyi-Olajide is a widely published scholar and associate editor of Pediatric Surgery: A Comprehensive Textbook for Africa. She serves as Assistant Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the West African College of Surgeons and is deeply involved in international initiatives, including the Africa Surgical Initiative 2030, Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery and the Pan African Surgical Healthcare Forum. A passionate advocate for children's surgery and health equity, she bridges policy, research, and practice to strengthen surgical systems globally.

Dr. Rachel Koch is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco where she works clinically as a Trauma and Acute Care Surgeon and Surgical Critical Care Intensivist. She completed General Surgery residency at Vanderbilt and Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Fellowship at the University of Utah. Dr. Koch has extensive experience working primarily in sub-Saharan Africa to improve access and care for surgical patients through surgical education, outcomes research and quality improvement. Current collaborations in Ethiopia and Uganda aim to build capacity of existing trauma systems and workforce by expanding trauma education, implementing trauma registries and quality improvement training. She is passionate about building diverse, strong, and equitable partnerships with surgical colleagues globally and serves as a mentor to many trainees both in the US and internationally.

Dr. Seno Ivan Saruni, MBBS, FCS(ECSA), FACS, is a consultant general and transplant surgeon and Program Director in the Department of Surgery at Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi. A dedicated educator and surgical leader, Dr. Saruni brings extensive experience in training and assessment through his roles with the College of Surgeons of East, Central, and Southern Africa (COSECSA), where he serves as head of the Fellowship in General Surgery exam panel and an educator for trainer-of-trainers initiatives. He also serves as an ATLS Course Director and has been instrumental in advancing surgical simulation and international educational exchange. As Chair of the AAGS Education Committee, Dr. Saruni leads efforts to build inclusive, equitable, and high-impact surgical education initiatives worldwide.

Dr Swati Deshpande is a General and Laparoscopic academic surgeon currently working as Associate Professor in General Surgery at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JNMC) and Acharya Vinoba Bhave Rural Hospital (AVBRH)

Dr. Roser is the Delos Hill Chair of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Professor of Surgery and the residency program director in the Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Department of Surgery at the Emory School of Medicine. He is also Chief of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Service at Grady Memorial Hospital. In 2019 he stepped away from the role of Chief of the Division and became the residency program director for Emory Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery training program which has twenty-one residents enrolled in four year and six-year OMS/MD training tracks. He is currently the Chair of the Department of Surgery Global Surgery Committee at Emory, a lead for the Emory Global Perioperative Health Alliance and on the Advisory Board for the School of Medicine’s Office of Global Health and Equity. In addition to his interest in education, starting in 1991, Dr. Roser has organized international surgical outreach programs performing surgical repair of cleft lip/palate deformities primarily in Latin America. He is currently the Chair of the Committee on Global Surgery for the International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, on the Permanent Council for the G4 Alliance and is on the Education Subcommittee for ACS/H.O.P.E.

Dr Laura Withers is an Attending Surgeon in Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine. She is also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery at Tufts UniversitySchool of Medicine. She completed her general surgery training at the St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals in New York and Surgical Critical Care and Trauma fellowship at Orlando Regional Medical Center. She has worked ina variety of global surgery contexts since 2001 including in Disaster and Violence context with Doctors Without Borders, Surgical Education with Health Volunteers Overseas and Developement with Surgeons for cambodia. She is delighted to be working to bring together those in academic global surgery through AAGS.

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Ava Yap, MD, MHS was born in Canada and spent her upbringing in Hong Kong before moving to the US for college. She is finishing her general surgery at UCSF and will be starting her pediatric surgery fellowship at the University of Texas Houston in 2025. She previously worked in a range of healthcare systems in Canada, Peru, Ecuador, Uganda, and Malaysia, all of which fostered a dedicated interest in addressing the global health inequity witnessed during her travels.

She is mentored by the Director of the UCSF Center of Health Equity in Surgery and Anesthesia (CHESA) Dr. Doruk Ozgediz. She also collaborates with the pediatric surgical team at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and the Scottish charity KidsOR to work towards alleviating the tremendous deficit in pediatric surgical capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa. She completed her Master’s in Health Sciences and conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) that demonstrated that the implementation of a pediatric operating room in Uganda was very cost-effective. These results strengthened international partnerships with involved sites in low-middle income countries (LMICs), expanded operating room facilities in 21+ LMICs, and mobilized stakeholders to take notice of the investment of pediatric surgical infrastructure worldwide.

Dr Ramitha Eshan Ruwanpathirana is a medical graduate from Sri Lanka with a strong commitment to advancing global surgery research and policy. He currently serves as the Global Surgery Policy and Advocacy Fellow at Baylor College of Medicine and Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. He is a Junior International Fellow at the International College of Surgeons US Section and a Resident Member of the American College of Surgeons and the Resident and Associate Society (RAS-ACS).

Dr. Ruwanpathirana holds leadership roles in global surgery advocacy, serving as Co-Chair for the Global Surgery Working Group within the Junior Doctors Network of the World medical Association. Additionally, he is an active member of the Global Surgery and EAST4ALL Committees of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST). Currently, he is engaged in an international research initiative focused on developing best practice guidelines for ethical and equitable collaborations in global surgery research.

Isabella M. de F. Faria, MD, is a Brazilian physician and General Surgery resident at the University of Texas Medical Branch. She is a former Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Transplant Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She also serves as a Research Scholar at the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab dedicated advocate for health equity in surgery and transplantation, Dr. Faria bridges clinical research, global surgery, and health systems innovation. As Co-Chair of the Gender Equity Initiative in Global Surgery (GEIGS) and Chair for the Associate Committee of the Association for Academic Global Surgery (AAGS), she has led global collaborations focused on advancing gender equity, capacity-building, and mentorship, directly supporting over 60 early-career surgeons and residents worldwide.

Her global surgery work spans from leading gender equity research on surgical workforce representation in the U.S. and Latin America, to co-developing low-cost innovations for surgical training. At the Harvard Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, she contributed to national studies on pediatric trauma care and blood availability in low- and middle-income countries, including Guatemala and India.
Through her work at the Harvard Health Systems Innovation Lab, Dr. Faria has advanced research on oncology surgery access and health systems financing in Brazil, and organized a hackathon for over 740 participants from 37 countries to design digital solutions for strengthening healthcare systems in Latin America. A strong advocate for integrating health systems thinking into surgical equity, she has combined her expertise in global surgery and transplant surgery to analyze systemic inequities in research authorship and patient access, particularly for women and underrepresented communities.

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Dr. Adham Abdelrahman is a Junior Urology surgeon and an advocate passionate about global surgery, research, and health policy. Graduating from medical school with notable accomplishments, Adham has honed his skills in leadership and collaboration through roles such as Vice President of External Affairs at InciSioN and as a representative on the WHO Youth Council. His strong network and proven ability to balance multifaceted commitments ensure he makes immediate and impactful contributions to every endeavor. Adham remains focused on driving meaningful change, leveraging his experience and determination to achieve milestones that advance both his field and global health outcomes.

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