Danielle Parsons – APMG Regional Coordinator North America

• Danielle has worked in the fields of HIV research and programming at home in her native Boston (Massachusetts, USA), as well as in East Africa and Central Asia.
• From managing patient recruitment and ethical requirements in new ARV trials, to helping build research capacity to assess HIV programming and interventions, to managing large-scale donor-driven interventions focusing on key affected populations, Danielle has perspective on a broad range of HIV-related actors and efforts. Internationally, she has worked for a variety of USAID contractors on large scale implementation, and served as a technical consultant for UNAIDS and UNICEF.
• With a deep commitment to public health and social justice underpinning her work, Danielle specializes in programming related to at-risk populations including people who inject drugs, sex workers, and men who have sex with men. She has a special interest in leveraging health system strengthening to increase and mainstream access to care for these populations.
• Danielle holds a Masters Degree of Public Health from Boston University, with a focus on international health, and a BS in biology from her undergraduate days. She has lived in Uganda, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, and worked regularly in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. She is currently based in Washington, DC.

Sam Avrett

• Sam is based in New York and has worked with APMG to support the All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH in developing capacity for national monitoring and evaluation, and to support the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) in organisational development.
• Sam has also been working with Katerina Jiresova to prepare and APMG training curriculum on Sex Worker Program Management.
• Sam’s other work includes support for a global MSM Initiative of the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and a US-focused Syringe Access Fund administered by Tides Foundation. Sam was a founding Board member of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) and has been a consultant to the Alliance for Microbicide Development.

Meaghan Thumath

• Meaghan Thumath has been involved in HIV and Harm Reduction since 1994 with an expertise in gender, harm reduction and public health. She is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia where she teaches courses on HIV treatment, care and prevention.
• Passionate about sharing and learning from the global public health community, Meaghan has worked as an HIV consultant in Haiti, Uruguay, Thailand, Ukraine, Macedonia and Tunisia for organisations such as APMG, WHO-Euro, UNAIDS, the World Bank and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.
• Her experience has included facilitation and resource development; proposal development and monitoring and evaluation for various national Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grants; and the development of national HIV and Harm Reduction strategic plans.
• Meaghan has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a Masters of Science in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
• In 2008 Meaghan was promoted to Clinical Practice Leader for HIV and Harm Reduction for the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) region in 2008. In this current role she supports clinical practice improvements at numerous primary care and mental health and addiction sites. She is currently working as VCH’s clinical lead on a large $48 million treatment as prevention project: Seek and Treat to Optimally Prevent HIV.
• Meaghan also maintains an active clinical practice as a street outreach nurse for the BC Centre for Disease Control’s Division of STI/HIV Prevention and Control where she continues to see marginalized patients for HIV and STI testing and care.

Pierre de Vasson

• Pierre is a French national living in Vancouver, Canada, with specific experience of applying the latest Procurement and Supply Management (PSM) and Monitoring and Evaluation (M+E) processes to harm reduction.
• Recently Pierre has provided Supply Chain and Change Management assistance to the Procurement and Supply Management (PSM) department of the Global Fund
• In 2007 and 2008, he worked with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control on streamlining finance, forecasting, purchasing, and supply management for that province’s harm reduction, STD/STI, TB and vaccine programs.
• Prior to this, he worked in finance and organizational management with a wide range of corporate clients in Europe and North America including Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System on PSM and M+E.
• Pierre joined APMG in 2010 and has performed PSM and M+E jobs for Russia, Tunisia, Mauritius, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan amongst others. He brings special tools with a PSM Monitoring & Analysis Tool for Product Distribution Programs (link), and the package Aligning Law Enforcement and National Harm Reduction Program Targeting Vulnerable Groups (link).