Patricia Mengech has over three decades of experience in public health. She has worked for USAID since 2004, most recently as the Director of the Health Office for USAID/Nepal. She also worked for USAID in Uganda as the Deputy Health Office Director and PEPFAR and TB Team Lead; in Southern Africa as Health Program/Public-Private Partnership Advisor; and in Ethiopia as Health Systems Strengthening Lead and Senior Private Sector Advisor. Prior to that, Patricia worked for six years in USAID/Washington’s Global Health Bureau.

Before joining USAID, Patricia worked in the United States for Deloitte Emerging Markets on the USAID funded Commercial Market Strategies project, and for Population Services International. She also worked in Nairobi, Kenya for Planned Parenthood Federation of America International’s Africa Regional Office and for the African Medical and Research Foundation.

SM Shaikat is a seasoned advocate for SRHR, gender equality, and youth empowerment, bringing over a decade of experience across the Asia-Pacific region. As the Executive Director of SERAC-Bangladesh, a prominent youth-focused rights and development organization, and Secretary General of the Bangladesh National Youth Conference of Family Planning 2024, he leads initiatives to enhance youth and adolescent-friendly family planning and health services in partnership with government agencies. Mr. Shaikat's leadership includes serving as a Women Deliver Young Leader, founding chair of the RHSC Youth Caucus, and country coordinator for IYAFP. His influence also extends globally as a member of organizing committees for the PMNCH Partners Forum 2018 and World Urban Forum. Honored with awards such as ICFP 2022 Youth Trailblazer, Bayer Scholar, 120 Under 40 Youth Leader, and recognition through the US Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program and the Swedish Institute's Leadership program, Mr. Shaikat continues to champion youth-led policy and action for equitable health and rights.

Dr. Mohammad Mainul Islam is Professor  & Former Chairman of the Department of Population Sciences of the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He had held the position of elected Member of the Syndicate –the highest decision-making body of the University of Dhaka for two consecutive terms between 2010 and 2014.

Professor Dr. Mohammad Mainul Islam received his PhD in Demography from the Institute of Population Research at Peking University, China, specializing in Population Health in 2009. He got his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Sociology from the University of Dhaka. Dr. Islam completed a Global Health Research Capacity Strengthening Program (GHR-CAPS) Postdoctoral Fellowship at McGill University, Canada, between 2013 and 2014. He also got training at the Johns Hopkins Fall Institute at Barcelona, Stanford University, Brown University, and the University of Bergen.

He was awarded the First Prize of Academic Excellence Award 2018 of Peking University, China and later he was named as the Nick Simons Scholar of the New Investigator in Global Health (NIGH) program of the Global Health Council (GHC), Washington, DC, USA in 2010. He is a two-time winner of the 10 best abstracts of the New Voices in Global Health (NVGH) program, receiving these accolades in 2014 and 2016 at the World Health Summit (WHS) in Berlin, Germany. His work broadly focuses on population and development, reproductive health, child health, urban health, health communication, global health and social demography.

Professor Islam has attended and presented his research at more than 82 international meetings and academic conferences around the world. He was the Keynote plenary speaker and invited plenary speakers of various international and national scientific meetings. He was the Chair of the Organizing Committee of the 1^st and 2^nd National Conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) at Workplace, 2018 and 2019, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Dr. Islam has contributed to over 40 peer-reviewed publications, including publications of research findings as first author in The Lancet, Journal of Global Health, PloS ONE, BMC Women’s Health and others. He has also authored and co-authored conference papers and other publications. He contributes to the widely circulated national daily newspapers on population, health and other educational issues. On various occasions he was interviewed by many international and national broadcast/electronic and print media. Dr. Mohammad Mainul Islam has authored a book (2016) entitled on Communication and Change in Health Behavior in Bangladesh: Realities at the grassroots. He is a reviewer for reputed international scholarly journals including Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Journal, Journal of Population Research, Asian Population Studies, Population Review, PloS ONE, BMC Public Health, BMC Women’s Health, BMC Pregnancy and Child Birth and Journal of Urban Health.  Professor Islam is Demography and Population Studies Advisory Board Member of the Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK. He was a Member of the Editorial Board (2017-2019) of the Social Science Review, Dhaka University Studies. Professor Dr. Islam is a Contributor and one of Editors of the Report on Bangladesh Population Situation Analysis (PSA) -2019 under UNFPA 9^th Country Programme.

Professor Dr. Islam is a ‘Member’ of the Population Expert Group/Committee (PEC) of the General Economic Division’s Planning Commission within the Ministry of Planning of the Government of Bangladesh since November 2017. He worked as a member of the Task Team of Action Report on Population and Development of Bangladesh and attended the Midterm Review of the Asian and Pacific Ministerial Declaration on Population and Development, ESCAP, Bangkok, November 26-28, 2018 as a Member of Delegation of the Government of Bangladesh. He has the professional involvements in various associations including the International Union of Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), the International Sociological Association (ISA), the Asian Population Association (APA), the American Population Association (PAA), the Canadian Coalition of Global Health Research (CCGHR), the Center for Health Trends and Forecasts (CHTF) affiliate network of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. 

Chief of Party with USAID’s Adolescent Health Activity with over two decades of experience in advocating and delivering high impact, cost-effective strategic partnerships in Public Health. He has proven skills and policy dialogues in leading advocacy engagement with senior Government officials and staff of international /bilateral agencies, in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar, India and Kyrgyzstan. Conceptualized and managed mora than 10 international grants as Project Lead with teams from multicultural and multi-country settings. Innovative thinker with core competencies around leading complex programs across difficult and poor resource settings. Education credentials includes Master’s in Public Health from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), University of London and Postgraduate in Rural Management from Xavier’s Institute of Social Services (XISS) and PhD from VU University, Amsterdam. He has more than 20 international peer-reviewed publications in the domain of Public Health and Scientific reviewer of some of the leading international journals. Registered Principal Investigator (PI) at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland. Prestigious Welcome Trust Fellow for 2010 & 2013.

Dr Quamrun Nahar is the Head of Research, Maternal and Child Health Division at icddr,b and has over 30 years of experience in public health research in Bangladesh. Dr Nahar is a Social Scientist worked extensively in sexual and reproductive health, especially on adolescent health, family planning, maternal health and cervical cancer. Dr Nahar was one of the key investigators of the national adolescent health and wellbeing survey in Bangladesh. Her other major works related to adolescent health include assessment of Advancing Adolescent Health Program of Plan Bangladesh; assessment of youth friendly health services funded by the Global Fund; national survey on child marriage and developing and testing several strategies to improve the health status of adolescents in Bangladesh. Dr Nahar is an Associate Professor at the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health (JPGSPH), BRAC University. Dr Nahar served in different national level committees on adolescent health. She is a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Exemplars Project.