Group Members

Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Abu-Raddad is a Professor of Population Health Sciences and Director of the Biostatistics and Biomathematics Research Core at WCM-Q. He focuses on studying the epidemiological factors and population processes shaping infectious disease spread in human and animal populations. He joined WCM-Q in 2008 while serving as an Assistant Professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, USA. He held positions as Research Scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington; as Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London, United Kingdom and as NSF-JSPS Postdoctoral Research Associate at Osaka University, Japan. He completed his Ph.D. study in Computational and Mathematical Physics at Florida State University. He serves as a consultant or advisory member for a number of key public health projects for organizations such as the World Bank, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and World Health Organization.

Dr. Abu-Raddad's research interests are multidisciplinary with emphasis on studying the epidemiology and ecology of infectious diseases using analytical and computational approaches in addition to conventional epidemiologic study designs. He was the lead author or co-investigator of several high impact studies in recent years such as in relation to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis C virus and SARS. His current main research interests include studying the spread of sexually transmitted infections such as HIV/AIDS, HSV-2 and HPV; investigating the role of biological cofactors in HIV epidemiology; assessment of the impact of different HIV interventions such as vaccines and male circumcision; studying the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in the Arab and Muslim Worlds; studying tuberculosis epidemiology and assessing the impact of novel TB diagnostics, drug regimens and vaccines; studying the epidemiology of hepatitis C virus in the Middle East and North Africa; simulation of community randomized controlled trials and studying the ecology of multiple-strain infectious diseases.

Curriculum Vitae

Hiam Chemaitelly is an Assistant Professor of Research in Population Health Sciences at the Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q). Her research has been focused on promoting an in-depth understanding of the epidemiology of infectious diseases using epidemiological research methods, advanced statistical techniques, and mathematical modeling, with a primary focus on COVID-19, viral hepatitis, HIV, and sexually transmitted infections. Her research work has been key in informing infectious disease epidemiology and policy programming and resource allocation in the Middle East and North Africa and internationally. Her research work has concentrated recently on building an in-depth understanding of COVID-19 epidemiology and informing the Qatar National COVID-19 Response.

Dr. Chemaitelly is an accomplished scientist with a distinguished publication record including close to 100 publications, several of which appeared in leading high impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Lancet Global Health, Lancet HIV, PLOS Medicine, Clinical Infectious Diseases, BMC Medicine, and Emerging infectious Diseases. Her research work has been covered widely in international press and media such as at the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN. She is a reviewer for different prominent scientific journals and a member of the World Health Organization Strategic Information and Analysis Advisory Group.

Dr. Chemaitelly holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and Population Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK.

Curriculum Vitae 

Adona Canlas holds the position of Research Group Administrator at IDEG at the Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. She provides administrative support to the group’s research activities for several research projects. She is also involved in the maintenance of procedures as they relate to grants, contracts, and other administrative tasks.

Prior to joining IDEG, Adona worked as an Executive Secretary and Document Controller at SPK Construction in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. She also held the position of Mathematics Instructor at the University of the Philippines and Roosevelt Science High School in Rizal, Philippines. Adona earned her B.Sc. degree in Mathematics from the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, Philippines.

Curriculum Vitae 

Manale Harfouche is an Epidemiologist currently holding the position of Research Specialist at IDEG at the Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar (WCM-Q). She is involved in characterizing the epidemiology of different infectious diseases. Manale’s current research focuses on systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-regressions, as well as other data syntheses, for sexually transmitted infections and viral hepatitis.

Prior to joining WCM-Q, Manale was affiliated with the American University of Beirut Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (AUB GRADE) center in Lebanon. Her earlier research activities focused on the adaptation of the 2015 American College of Rheumatology guidelines for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis to the Middle East and North Africa region. Manale earned her MPH degree specializing in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

Curriculum Vitae

Monia Makhoul is a Mathematical Modeler and is currently holding the position of Postdoctoral Associate at the Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Group (IDEG) at the Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q). Her research mainly focuses on mathematical modelling in relation to infectious disease epidemiology. Monia is currently working on modelling the transmission dynamics of different infectious diseases.

Prior to joining IDEG, Monia completed her PhD in Mechanics at the University of Avignon et de Pays de Vaucluse. Her doctoral dissertation was focused on the modelling of particles transport in a Stokes flow with ratchet effect. She earned her Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Modelling at the Picardie Jules Verne University and another Master’s degree in Fundamental Mathematics at the Lebanese University.

Curriculum Vitae

Aisha Osman is a Research Specialist at Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group (IDEG) at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q). She is currently conducting epidemiological research on sexually transmitted infections utilizing methodologies such as systematic reviews, meta-analysis, and meta-regressions.

Aisha obtained her MSc in Pharmacy with distinction from the College of Pharmacy, Qatar University in 2019. She studied the impact of endoplasmic reticulum stress on microparticle shedding from endothelial cells and biological messages carried out by the generated vesicles. She worked as a Graduate Assistant in the same college from 2016 to 2018 where she was involved in analyzing pharmaceutical research data, writing, and publishing research papers in international journals. She obtained her BSc from the same college in 2016 after winning the highly competitive H.H. the Amir of Qatar's Scholarship for Academic Excellence.

Curriculum Vitae

Rayane El-Khoury is an pidemiologist currently holding the position of research specialist at the Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Group (IDEG) at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q). She is involved in conducting research characterizing the epidemiology of infectious diseases. She is also conducting other statistical and epidemiological analyses.

Prior to joining WCM-Q, she worked at the clinical research institute (CRI) at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) in clinical and translational research. Her research projects mainly focused on systematic reviews, and guideline methodology. She also contributed in the COVID-19 living map of recommendations and gateway to contextualization (RecMap), which is an international multi-institutional project led by McMaster University. The team successfully published on the COVID-19 pandemic and designed a tailored living evidence map of recommendations. Rayane earned her master’s degree in public health, concentrating in epidemiology and biostatistics, from the American University of Beirut (AUB).

Curriculum Vitae

Rwedah Ageeb is an epidemiologist and currently holds the position of research specialist at the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group (IDEG) at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. She conducts research to characterize the epidemiology of various infectious diseases using methods such as systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-regressions. Her expertise also extends to other statistical and epidemiological methodologies.

Rwedah holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) with a concentration in epidemiology from Qatar University, where she graduated with distinction. Her master’s research focused on the association between prior antibiotic exposure and resistance to urinary tract infections, reflecting her ongoing interest in this field. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Qatar University’s pharmacy program.

Cuccirulum Vitae

Layan Sukik is a research specialist at the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group (IDEG) at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. She conducts epidemiological research using various study designs, with a primary focus on infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2. Her work involves designing and implementing epidemiologic studies and performing statistical analyses.

Before joining WCM-Q, Layan contributed to research projects in public health, nutritional epidemiology, and dietary patterns related to non-communicable diseases. Her work has been published in esteemed international journals. She holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) with a concentration in epidemiology from Qatar University, where she graduated with high distinction and was awarded the GSRA competitive grant by QNRF for academic and research excellence. She also earned her bachelor's degree in human nutrition from the same university, receiving the Order of Excellence Award and the Outstanding Performance Scholarship.

Curriculum Vitae

Hassan Hachem is a postdoctoral associate in Population Health Sciences at the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group (IDEG) at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q). His research primarily focuses on mathematical modeling for infectious disease epidemiology.

Prior to joining WCM-Q, Hassan served as a postdoctoral researcher in applied mathematics at "Mathématiques et Informatiques Appliquées" - Paris Saclay. There, he concentrated on modeling a probabilistic modular approach that integrates processes from production to digestion into a single exposure assessment model, considering different scenarios for sector development and various monitoring tools.

He completed his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at the University of Technology of Troyes, where he focused on predicting the Remaining Useful Lifetime (RUL) of systems by accounting for sensor degradation. Hassan proposed joint stochastic degradation models for both system and sensor degradations, using probabilistic approaches. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and his Master's degree in Statistics from the Lebanese University