Who we are
The Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD) is a collaboration between the Amsterdam University Medical Centers, the Faculties of Medicine and of Social and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Amsterdam, and the School of Business and Economics of VU University, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
It brings together researchers and educators from these institutions to work on interdisciplinary research, education and policy in the field of global health and human development.
The team
Frank Cobelens
Coordinator PreFIT project
Frank Cobelens is Professor of Global Health at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers. Trained as a physician he worked in infectious disease control and tropical and travel medicine before starting as an international research consultant with KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation, a globally operating NGO, of which he later was scientific director. He holds an MSc Communicable Disease Epidemiology (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and a PhD in epidemiology of infectious diseases (University of Amsterdam).
His scientific interest is in multidisciplinary approaches to problems at the interface of biomedical aspects of infectious diseases, their socioeconomic context and control policy, combining epidemiology with operational research and cost-effectiveness modeling. Recent work focuses on tuberculosis and includes TB/HIV coinfection, TB diagnostics and evaluation of novel interventions for TB control.
Frank Cobelens works with research groups around the world and has supervised numerous junior researchers and doctoral students at home and abroad. He has served on several global expert panels and advisory bodies for TB and is one of the initiators and scientific co-chairs of The Union’s TB Science conference. He also chairs the Executive Board of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development, a collaborative institute for interdisciplinary research and education in global health.
Contact: f.cobelens@aighd.org
Mark van Knegsel
Project Manager, AIGHD
Mark van Knegsel studied (MSc) Biomedical Engineering at the Eindhoven Technical University, the Netherlands.
As a consultant at PNO Consultants he developed and managed multiple projects for all kinds of research in the field of Life Sciences and Health. Since January 2021 Mark is working for the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD) as Project Manager.
Contact: m.vanknegsel@aighd.org