2023 Tax Leadership Program Speaker Bios

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Choose Speaker:

 

Sandeep Bhattacharya (he/him)

Headshot of Sandeep Bhattacharya, a man with glasses and a green shirt posed against a white backdropSandeep Bhattacharya is Senior Public Management Specialist (Tax), Public Sector Management and Governance Sector Office, Sectors Group with the Asian Development Bank. Sandeep has more than 28 years of experience in tax policy and administration, consulting, and academia. Prior to joining ADB, he taught courses in taxation, public economics, statistics, and econometrics, as well as supervised student research at Duke University. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Georgia State University and has degrees from Duke University (Master of Public Policy), Delhi School of Economics (MA in Economics), and St. Stephen's College, Delhi University (B.A. Honors in Economics).

 

Mouhamad Bigwanto (he/him)

Headshot of Mouhamad Bigwanto, a smiling man with dark hair, eyeglasses and a black shirt posed against a white backdropMouhamad Bigwanto is an Assistant Professor Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Muhammadiyah Prof. DR. HAMKA (UHAMKA). Bigwanto is an experienced tobacco control researcher and advocates in Indonesia. Since 2015 he has been a partner for SEATCA in tobacco control advocacy efforts, especially in efforts to denormalize the tobacco industry in Indonesia. Bigwanto is currently the author of Indonesia's Tobacco Industry Interference Index report and several scientific articles related to tobacco control. His research interest is the tobacco industry interference and e-cigarette use in Indonesia.

 

Annette David (she/her)

Headshot of Annette David, a smiling woman with dark hair, eyeglasses and a black shirt, wearing a stethoscope and posed in an office with certificates hanging on the wallAnnette M. David, MD, MPH, FACOEM, FPCP is an internist and Occupational and Environmental Medicine specialist who completed her Doctor of Medicine at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, Masters in Public Health at Columbia University (NY), Internal Medicine residency training at the State University of New York at Stonybrook, and post-graduate fellowship at Yale University. Dr. David was Technical Officer, and eventually Regional Adviser, for the Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI) at the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, before moving to the US Territory of Guam.

She serves as the Guam Department of Public Health’s Tobacco Control Consultant and chairs the State Epidemiological Workgroup for the Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness Center. She is adjunct faculty at the University of Guam’s Cancer Research Center, the University of Hawaii Cancer Research Center and guest faculty for the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health’s Institute for Global Tobacco Control.

Dr. David sits on the Board of the American Cancer Society Hawai’i Pacific, the Guam Board of Medical Examiners, the Asia-Pacific Regional Advisory Board of the British Medical Journal, and several Expert Advisory Groups for the World Health Organization. She is a founding member of the Guam NCD Consortium, the Guam Comprehensive Cancer Control Coalition, and the Guam Tobacco Control Action Team, which was a 2019 WNTD awardee for the WHO Western Pacific Region. She is founder and Senior partner at Health Partners, LLC, in Guam.

 

Jeff Drope (he/him)

Headshot of Jeffrey Drope, a smiling man with brown hair, a moustache and goutee, wearing a pink collared shirt posed against a dark backdropJeff Drope is Research Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois Chicago where he leads the Tobacconomics team, which focuses on the nexus of public health and economic policies, especially taxation, trade and investment. One of the team’s major current projects is called, Accelerating Progress on Tobacco Taxation in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, building research and technical capacity on fiscal policies for health in more than 20 low- and middle-income countries. He is the author/editor of three books, including the Tobacco Atlas monograph, and more than 150 publications on the political economy of non-communicable diseases.

 

Mark Goodchild (he/him)

Headshot of Mark Goodchild, a smiling man with grey hair and a beard, wearing a collared shirt and black jacket, posed against a striped backdropMark Goodchild is an Economist in the Fiscal Policies for Health team of WHO’s Geneva office. Originally from New Zealand, Mark has been with WHO for over 15 years, including being stationed in the Country Office for India and the Southeast Asia Regional Office. In his current position, Mark’s main responsibility is to help countries to implement and increase health taxes, especially on tobacco products. This has involved working closely with Ministry of Finance and Health colleagues across many countries throughout the world, and publishing research on a wide set of themes on the economics of tobacco control and taxation.

 

Kritika Khanijo (she/her)

Headshot of Kritika Khanijo, a smiling woman with long, dark hair, wearing a grey suit, and posed against a white backdropKritika Khanijo is a Technical Officer (Legal) in the Public Health Law and Policies team in the Health Promotion Department at WHO’s Headquarters. In this role, she extends technical assistance to more than 25/30 Member States located across diverse regions annually. Her primary focus lies in matters pertaining to tobacco control, including but not limited to plain packaging, the regulation of emerging nicotine and tobacco products, as well as issues concerning investment law.

Prior to joining WHO, Kritika worked as a legal consultant with the Investment Policy Reviews team of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Kritika holds a LLM in International Economic Law from the Graduate Institute of Geneva. 

Kritika has contributed to publications covering a range of subjects such as tobacco control, international trade law, and utilizing legal frameworks to combat non-communicable diseases. Kritika is passionate about the utilization of legal frameworks to advance tobacco control and public health. 

 

Hiromasa Okayasu (he/him)

Headshot of Dr. Hiromasa Okayasu, a man with dark hair, eyeglasses, wearing a light blue collared shirt and posed against an off-white backdropHiromasa (Hiro) Okayasu is the Director, Healthy Environments and Population at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Manila, Philippines, where he leads the Division to support Member States in the Western Pacific Region to create healthier environments and populations. Before joining the WHO, he worked at McKinsey & Company as a management consultant. He holds an MBA from Stanford University, USA and an MD from Keio University, Japan.

 

 

Jeremias N. Paul, Jr. (he/him)

Headshot of Jeremias N. Paul, Jr., a smiling man with dark hair, wearing a white collared shirt, red necktie, and black jacket, posed against a white backdropJeremias N. Paul, Jr. is currently Head of the Fiscal Policies for Health Unit in the Health Promotion Department at the World Health Organization (WHO) Headquarters in Geneva where he leads a team that provides strategic leadership, capacity building and specialized technical assistance in the field of fiscal measures for health, particularly on excise taxation on tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverage (SSBs) products. The Fiscal Policies for Health Unit also leads on the development of tools that provide guidance on how to use fiscal measures, in particular taxation of tobacco, alcohol and SSBs to reduce health care costs and generate a revenue stream for development. 

Prior to joining WHO, he was Undersecretary (Vice Minister level) of the Domestic Finance Group of the Department of Finance (DOF) in the Philippines, where he spearheaded government initiatives to reform the country’s fiscal and tax systems. He steered efforts to restructure the Philippine excise tax system for tobacco and alcohol products, eventually leading to the passage of the “Sin Tax Reform” law. During its first three years of implementation under his watch, the reform generated US$3.9 billion in incremental revenues, the bulk of which was used to finance the government’s Universal Health Care (UHC) program. He also served as Alternate Executive Director of the World Bank Group in Washington DC in 2005-2006. 

He holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs (Major in Economic Policy Management) from Columbia University in New York and a Master of Science in Industrial Economics and Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering degrees from top universities in the Philippines.

 

Gumilang Aryo Sahadewo (he/him)

Headshot of Gumilang Aryo Sahadewo, a smiling man with dark hair, eyeglasses, wearing a white shirt and posed against a dark backdropGumilang is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics Universitas Gadjah Mada. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. His research interests are the economics of education, human capital, and the economics of tobacco control. His current projects investigate the livelihood of current and former tobacco farmers in Indonesia, the effect of an information campaign on child marriage, the effect of a home-based growth chart on stunting, and the effect of tobacco consumption on stunting. His previous projects include an assessment of home learning during the Covid-19 pandemic, an investigation on the effects of a deposit insurance scheme on moral hazard behaviors among banks (with Indonesian Deposit Insurance Corporation), the effects of religious messages on the choice of Islamic financing (NYU Abu Dhabi research grant), the relationship between school resources and labor market earnings, the impact of the Dell Scholarship Program on various college outcomes, household’s preferences regarding the fuel subsidy elimination in Indonesia (with EEPSEA and IDRC Canada), and tobacco control economics (with the World Bank, American Cancer Society, and Tobacconomics at the University of Illinois at Chicago). He has published articles in the Journal of Human Resources, the Journal of Development Studies, the Journal of Applied Economics, and Tobacco Control.

 

Steve Tamplin (he/him)

Headshot of Steve Tamplin, a smiling man with grey hair, a moustache, wearing a tan collared shirt with patterned necktie, posed against a dark backdropStephen Tamplin is an Associate Scientist in BSPH’s Institute for Global Tobacco Control, focusing on projects related to tobacco control policy/program development and implementation in low- and middle-income countries with an emphasis on leadership and research capacity building. He has broad-based public health and environment experience in the United States and in the Asia-Pacific region (including 18 years in WHO’s Western Pacific Region as Regional Adviser for Environmental Health and Regional Focal Point for Tobacco Control) across a range of technical disciplines, including tobacco control, air and water pollution control, chemical safety and hazardous waste management, and health promotion.

 

Kevin Welding (he/him)

Headshot of Kevin Welding, a smiling man with brown hair, wearing a light blue collared shirt, posed against an outdoor backdropKevin Welding is an Associate Scientist in the Department of Health, Behavior & Society and the Associate Director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control. He received his PhD in Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara. Prior to joining the faculty in the Department of Health, Behavior & Society, Welding worked as a Senior Biostatistician at IGTC where he led the analysis of the Tobacco Pack Surveillance System (TPackSS) to study the pricing and marketing strategies of the tobacco industry in low- and middle-income countries. Welding's research broadly focuses on the surveillance and compliance of governments and corporations to international treaties and country-specific policies, respectively. His research includes investigations into the tobacco industry's use of packaging for marketing purposes, the strategic pricing of illicit and legal products, and the estimation of the size of illicit markets. Recently, he has evaluated how the emerging market of e-cigarettes has influenced consumer behavior and industry actions.

 

Xi Yin (she/her)

Headshot of Xi Yin, a smiling woman with short dark hair, wearing silver earrings, a black blouse and white jacket, posed against a white backdropXi Yin serves as the Coordinator of Non-communicable Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Western Pacific Regional Office of World Health Organization and as acting Team Lead for the Tobacco Free Initiative. She coordinates the region’s efforts aimed at preventing NCDs and injuries, including addressing behavioral risk factors such as unhealthy diet, tobacco and alcohol use. Before her current post, she served as the acting lead of the non-communicable disease team of the China Representative Office of WHO, promoting evidence-based interventions and strategies to address NCDs and their risk factors, with tobacco use being the focus.

Prior to joining the World Health Organization in 2019, Ms. Yin worked at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Global Health Advocacy Incubator, a global public health and tobacco control advocacy organization.  During her 12-year tenure, she led efforts in formulating and implementing advocacy strategies and programs to promote public health policies in East Asia and the Pacific.  In China, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries, Ms. Yin and her colleagues had worked closely with local governments, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions to promote the adoption and implementation of tobacco control measures. She has organized health policy advocacy workshops and provided technical support for government and non-governmental organizations in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Kenya, Zambia, among others. Ms. Yin has carried out dozens of journalist trainings in countries to improve media capacity in covering health policy issues.