Leadership and Management

Lara Kufoof is the Director of the Project Management Office (PMO) at GHD|EMPHNET, where she leads a diverse portfolio of multi-country public health programs across stable and emergency settings. A certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) with a master’s degree in International Health Management from Imperial College London, Lara brings over a decade of experience in project leadership, strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, and organizational performance management. She has successfully overseen major donor-funded initiatives with partners. Lara is also a skilled mentor and contributor to institutional growth through her roles in proposal development, policy design, and health workforce capacity building.

A professor in Health Management and Policy, Faculty of Medicine/Jordan University of Science and Technology. He has a PhD in healthcare management from The University of York, England. His research interests include Health policy, NCDs, health systems evaluation, program and project management, and Health informatics. Professor Alyahya served as a Secretary-General at Jordan Center for Disease Control (JCDC) from July 2022 until February 2024. Professor Alyahya has been involved in numerous research projects that span a wide range of healthcare topics including Mental Health, Impact of Covid-19 on Jordanian Health System, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child health (RNMCH) services, Health Promoting Schools, Psychosocial Support for Children and Adolescents, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) and its intersection with water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), Type 2 Diabetes, Perinatal Deaths, Surveillance Systems, and Digital Health Solutions. He has published several articles in international scientific journals on how to integrate the principles of Evidence Based Medicine and Evidence Based Public Health, Isomorphism change, clinical decision support systems (CDSS), coding systems, type 2 diabetes, cancer among children, Healthcare quality, Covid-19, and maternal and neonatal health services in Jordan.

Dr. Rana Khatib is a health and education expert with a focus on system building, strategy and policy development. With over 30 years of overall professional experience working on health, public health, and developmental strategic leadership, she has been setting directions, policies, budgets, and human resources development of leading academic, research, and community-based institutions in addition to working with public, private and civil society sectors. She was conducting, participating in, and supervising several multicounty research teams locally, regionally, and internationally.

She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Policy and Management from the Robert Gordon University, Scotland-UK, an MSc in Medical and Pharmaceutical Research from the Vrije Universiteit of Brussels (VUB)–Belgium, and a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from Jordan University, Amman- Jordan.

Dr. Khatib is an Associate Professor, who held the position of Researcher for 13 years and Director of Birzeit University Institute of Community and Public Health for 8 years. She was the Head of the Masters in Public Health program and was heavily involved in teaching Public Health, developmental research on health in its broader context, focusing on policy development, human resources, pharmaceuticals and health information system. She worked on various multicounty health projects; she is currently a member of the Palestine Health Alliance (PHA) Steering Committee; a member of the International Advisory Board for the multicounty Research for Health in Conflict project, and a Palestinian Health Policy forum member.

Dr. Khatib is a well-established trainer locally and regionally in evidence-based public policies, communicating evidence to policymakers, health planning and management, and rational use of medicines. Dr. Khatib was a member of the Palestine Higher National Council for Research, a member of the BZU Research Committee, a reviewer for the World Health Organization of proposals submitted regionally, a member in the academic network for the EMRO-WHO, an evaluator for the Ministry of Higher Education for new academic health programs, a member in the National Scholarships Committee, and a member in the Ministerial Committee for Licensing new pharmacists. She was a member of the Accreditation Committee for health programs. She is also a reviewer for some international scientific and specialized journals.

She has several scientific publications in refereed journals in the area of system building and pharmaceuticals. She has participated in many local and international conferences representing Palestine on health issues and various developmental issues.

Dr. Khatib held several positions at the Welfare Association (Taawon) for 10 years. She started as the Director of Research and Planning and became Country Director - Palestine. She was heavily involved in research, M&E, developing strategic and operational plans and new programmatic interventions, focusing on SDGs2030 and philanthropy targeting health and education. Dr Khatib was also the Executive Director of the MENA health Policy Forum in Egypt. Currently, she is the Vice President of Birzeit university for Planning and Development in Palestine.