The board of the Norwegian Forum for Global Health Research 2025-2027
According to the statutes, The Board of the Forum is responsible for all activities of the Forum and is accountable to the General Assembly. It consists of nine members and two substitute members, recruited among members of the Forum with a view of securing continuity, spread, geographically as well as according to institutions and scientific fields. It is an ambition to have gender balance in the election of board members.
Board members
Camilla Grøver Aukrust, OUS
Mats Blakstad, SINTEF
Kjersti Mørkrid Blom-Bakke, FHI
Hans Hadders, NTNU
Melf-Jakob Kühl, UiB
Kåre Moen, UiO
Berit Mortensen, OsloMet
Davina Kaur Patel, UiO
Thorkild Tylleskär, UiB
Substitute members
1. Maria Lisa Odland, NTNU
2. Tove Giske, VID
3. Ingvild Hersoug Nedberg, UiT
4. Ana Lorena Ruano, UiB
5. Konstantinos Antypas, SINTEF
Election committee 2025-2027
Members:
Graziella Van den Bergh, HVL
Heidi Fjeld, UiO
Simon Nygaard Øverland, UiB
Substitute members:
Elodie Anne Suzanne Besnier, NTNU
Jacinta Victoria Syombua Muinde, UiO
Michael Sarfo, University of Huddersfield
Thorkild Tylleskär
Thorkild Tylleskär (MD, PhD, MA) is a Danish-born, Swedish-raised, Norwegian-resident paediatrician and professor in International Health since 2001, trained at Uppsala University and Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden. . He has a French Master in African Linguistics from Sorbonne University after field work in present-day Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire). His research focus is on child health, birth care, neonatal care, HIV, nutrition and clinical trials in low-income countries, mainly Africa. He has supervised over 30 PhD candidates, the majority of them from Africa. Main collaborating countries are Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo Kinshasa), Zambia and South Africa. He is the leader of the Norwegian Research School in Global Health for Sustainable Futures.
Kjersti Mørkrid Blom-Bakke
Kjersti Mørkrid Blom-Bakke is a senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Global Health Department, heading the Global NCD team. Her research focuses mainly on hyperglycemia in pregnancy, the integration of NCD prevention and control in maternal and child health services, and how to close the “know-do” gap between research discovery and program delivery for health systems strengthening. She has research/work experience from Palestine, Bangladesh, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, and Uganda, and is currently involved in several research projects in Nepal, including as the principal investigator.
Camilla Grøver Aukrust
Camilla G. Aukrust is an intensive care nurse at the Neurosurgical Department, Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet. She holds a PhD from the University of Oslo, with research on pediatric hydrocephalus across Africa, particularly focusing on Malawi. In 2022, Camilla was a visiting student researcher at the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard Medical School, an experience that deepened her engagement in global surgery. Camilla is a strong advocate for interdisciplinarity and is particularly interested in the integration of medical anthropology, global public health, and surgical care to improve health outcomes worldwide. In collaboration with the Department of Global Health at Oslo University Hospital, she has been actively involved in the Blantyre–Oslo Surgery Project for many years, contributing both clinically and academically.
Mats Blakstad
Hans Hadders
Hans Hadders is associate professor at Department of Public Health and Nursing, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at NTNU. He has a background in nursing and his PhD is in social anthropology. He has done research on the mortuary rituals performed by the Jadopatias in the Santal villages of Bengal and Jharkhand, India. Besides his focus on mortuary rituals and standardisation of death in Norwegian health care and South Asia, his field of specialisation is medical anthropology. Hadders is involved in the collaboration with Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences; Dhulikhel Hospital and Kathmandu Medical College; Sinamangal Hospital in Nepal.
Berit Mortensen
Berit Mortensen, midwife and associate professor in Midwifery at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). She is the PI and manager of the NORHEDII project Midwifery Research and Education Development (MIDRED), a six-year (2021 -2026) collaboration between OsloMet, University of Ghana, Legon and Birzeit University, Palestine, funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Norad. Mortensen has managed various public funded humanitarian health projects in the Middle East, mainly in Palestine and Lebanon since 1987. Since 2006 she conducted implementation research while introducing a midwife-led continuity model of care within the Palestinian public health system. She holds a master's degree from 2011 and a Phd from 2020.
Melf-Jakob Kühl
Melf-Jakob Kühl is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, and leads HELTER – the Research Group on Health Economics and Implementation Research in Global Health. His research focuses on the evaluation of malaria prevention interventions and policies in children and the link between evidence and health policy decision-making. He is active in several international research projects, with equitable partnership and sustainable capacity development as core interests across Africa and Europe.
Kåre Moen
Kåre Moen is an Associate Professor of Global Health and Head of Postgraduate Studies at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. He is a medical doctor with training in public health and social anthropology. Much of his work has focused on health, gender, and sexuality in East and Southern Africa, particularly HIV and sexual minority health, with long-term collaboration and field experience from Tanzania. He co-leads the Africa–Europe Cluster of Research Excellence on Health, Gender and Sexualities, which includes eight universities (five in Africa and three in Europe), and works to strengthen doctoral education and equitable research partnerships through North–South–South collaboration. His interests include ethical and inclusive approaches to global health research, capacity strengthening, and building supportive academic communities for early-career researchers.
Davina Kaur Patel
Davina Kaur Patel is a doctoral candidate in medical anthropology and lecturer at the Department of Community Medicine and Global Health, University of Oslo. Davina is a medical doctor trained at University College London and holds an MPhil in International Community Health (University of Oslo), and the Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene from the Royal College of Physicians (UK). She has worked in internal medicine, infectious diseases and emergency medicine in the UK and Norway. Davina is also a volunteer doctor at the Health Centre for Undocumented Migrants, Oslo. Davina is passionate about teaching community medicine and global health, and is committed to interdisciplinary research, working herself at the intersection of medical anthropology, social medicine, public health and science and technology studies. Her current research focuses on agrarian ecologies and planetary health in northern India, where she was also a visiting scholar at Ashoka University during 2024/5. Davina is deeply concerned with the impacts of racism and discrimination on health and co-founded the Working Group Against Racism and Discrimination in Health at the University of Oslo.