Yanis Ben Amor is an Assistant Professor of Global Health and Microbiological Sciences and Executive Director of the Center for Sustainable Development (CSD). Prof. Ben Amor is a former member of the Secretariat of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. He is a molecular biologist and technical advisor responsible for developing effective infectious diseases control programs and designing and implementing Digital Health and Digital Education tools.
Prof. Ben Amor has over 20 years of research experience in infectious diseases, mainly tuberculosis, HIV and now COVID-19. He was involved in many projects all over the world, particularly in low and middle-income countries, conducting research on new diagnostic tests for tuberculosis, HIV and Ebola, as well as improving quality of care and access to tuberculosis and HIV treatment for patients in developing countries. He has previously worked for several organizations such as the Pasteur Institute (Paris, France). Prof. Ben Amor has also created several Digital Health tools, particularly for tuberculosis patients to facilitate their adherence, for HIV positive mothers to help them prevent vertical transmission of the virus, for malaria control programs to monitor use of resources for an effective control strategy, and more recently, for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to provide health information and healthcare access.
At the intersection of Health and Education, Prof. Ben Amor has launched the Eminyeeto program (“youth”) in Uganda and Yuva Nestham program (“friends of Youth”) in India to develop and allow access to Social and Emotional Learning curricula to children and adolescents. He has created Health programs (such as mental health and sexual education) for school children in low-resource settings . Dr. Ben Amor has also created several Digital Education tools, particularly to monitor children’s absenteeism in schools in India using fingerprint technology.
Prof. Ben Amor has a PhD in Molecular Biology. He has published widely in infectious diseases, global health, and prevention. He is also regularly a speaker on behalf of Columbia University and the Climate School/Earth Institute at various conferences worldwide.