Faculty
Team
Trustees
Organisational Partners
Faculty
Sheila Adoe Addison
Critical care nurse, Accra, Ghana
Dr Santosh Bhandari
Surgeon, Kathmandu, Nepal
Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah
Surgeon, Director
Reconstructive Plastic Surgery. Accra, Ghana
Blessings Jamuteni
Physiotherapist, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Blantyre, Malawi
Dr Shobha Chamaniya
Interburns co-founder; Director, ITC Choithram Hospital, India
Dr Ramnandan Chaudhary
Consultant burn and paediatric surgeon, Kathmandu, Nepal
Taweni Chiumia
Nursing officer, Malawi
Nadia Depetris
Intensivist, Italy
RuthAnn Fanstone
Physiotherapist, UK
Andrea Frestadius
Nurse, Uppsala, Sweden
Dr James Gallagher
Surgeon, New York, USA
Dr Abiye Gebre Ab
Plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Ethiopia
Deborah Pierce
Physiotherapist, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Mohammed Hamadna
Nurse, Rafidia, West Bank, OPT.
Dr Karim Khan (Papon)
Assistant Professor, Bangladesh
Charlie Leach
Nurse, Wales, UK
Professor Ishwar Lohani
Surgeon, Kathmandu, Nepal
Dr Sandesh Maskey
Lecturer, Kathmandu, Nepal
Danni Mehrez
Nurse, Swansea, UK
Dr Kiran Nakarmi
Director, ITC, Kirtipur Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal
Gaelle Smith
Phsyiotherapist, Scotland
Dr Anthony Olekwu
Surgeon, Nigeria
Poonam Pandey
Physiotherapist, Kathmandu, Nepal
Elizabeth Yeboah
Psychologist, Accra, Ghana
Francis Tegete
Surgeon, Mwanza, Tanzania
Kamal Phuyal
M + E Consultant, Kathmandu, Nepal
Dr Habib-ur-Rahman Qasib
Paediatric surgeon, Kabul, Afghanistan
Dr Shankar Rai
Surgeon, Kathmandu, Nepal
Mark Fisher
Plastic Surgeon, Maryland, US
Hiba Sharawi
Nurse, Hebron, West Bank, OPT
Anant Sharma
Occupational therapist, ITC, Indore, India
Dr Bhupendra Prasad Sharma
Surgeon, Assam, India
Pratibha Sharma
Nutritionist, ITC, Indore, India
Amr Moghazi
Plastic Surgeon, Egypt
Ziphilly Sichinga
Nursing officer, Blantyre, Malawi
Dr Stuart Watson
Consultant plastic surgeon, Glasgow, Scotland
Al Sebin Shamsudin
Nurse, Abu Dhabi, UAE,
Mercy Agtuahene
Physiotherapist, Accra, Ghana
Renate Pfann
Occupational Therapist, Zurich, Switzerland.
Eleanor Curtis
Surgeon, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Mohammad Ziara
Surgeon, Gaza, OPT
Team
Tina Bajec, CEO
Tina joined Interburns as a trustee in 2019 and became CEO in early 2022. A daughter of health professionals, she spent most of her childhood travelling between countries impacted by conflict, which contributed to her keen interest in humanitarian work. An MA in International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS reinforced this interest. Tina is a fundraiser by heart but loves leading teams and developing organisations. She has worked for agencies including UNICEF, the British Heart Foundation and Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
Lucy Kynge
Head of Content Development
Lucy has a background in international development and lived in Asia - Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Malaysia and China - for nearly 20 years, developing and managing programmes for the European Commission and the UN Development Programme. Since returning to the UK in 2008 she has focussed on developing online content and platforms for NGO’s (Oxfam, Medicine Africa, Medical Aid for Palestinians), to increase access to resources for healthcare workers in low resource settings. She works across all Interburns programmes.
Sian Falder
Surgical Lead
Sian has been Consultant in burns and plastic surgery at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital since 2008. She is Lead Clinician Burns and former Director of Clinical Effectiveness & Transformation. Sian is a member of the British Burn Association (BBA) research group and has published a large number of academic papers. She is Health Partnership Lead for Alder Hey’s Department of International Child Health. Sian has been involved with Interburns since 2010. She is the surgical lead across all Interburns programmes and has worked especially with Nepal, Bangladesh, occupied Palestinian territories, Tanzania and Mongolia.
Dominique Potokar
Nursing Lead
Dominique is a specialist burn nurse and has worked in Europe and many low resource settings for Interburns and Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF). Dominique has led the development and delivery of Advance Burn Care (Nursing) in Bangladesh, Ghana, Nepal and Ethiopia and regularly contributes to training programmes as lead nurse, most recently for the Essential Burn Care (EBC) in Mwanza, Tanzania. She was lead supervisor for a nurse mentorship programme for quality improvement through sustainable projects by nurses, physiotherapists and dieticians in 2021.
Alberta Rockson
Rehabilitation Lead
Alberta has a BSc in Physiotherapy and an MSc in Disability, Rehabilitation and Development with 14 years of clinical practice. She was Head of the Physiotherapy Department, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana (2014-2015) and is Team Lead and Clinical Instructor at the Plastic Surgery and Burns Centre where she is Deputy Chief Physiotherapist. Alberta is Chairperson of the National Council and General Secretary of World Physiotherapy Africa Region (2020-2024). She has participated as a key member of faculty in programmes in Asia and Africa and supported victims and healthcare staff following the mass fire disaster in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Andy Ferguson
Programme Development Lead
Andy has a background lies in family medicine, public health and tropical medicine. Having worked in the Middle East and the Balkans, he spent 17 years as a health advisor to NGOs working in Asia and the Middle East alongside clinical commitments as a GP and trainer in the UK. Andy worked as Director of Programmes for Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) until 2022, leading the strategic development of health programmes in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. He is CEO for the Foundation for Family Medicine in Palestine (FFMP) and is Co-chair of the charity, IDEALS, supporting projects in the Balkans, Middle East and south-east Asia.
Amy Hughes MBE
EU Training Lead
Amy is a Clinical Academic Lecturer in Emergency Response at the University of Manchester. She is developing the UK International Emergency Trauma and Medical Registers and completing a PhD on the role of foreign medical teams in sudden onset disasters. Her particular interest lies in improving the training and knowledge for health care professionals wishing to work in complex humanitarian environments. For Interburns, Amy leads the consortium to develop EU Burn Assessment Teams (BAT) and consults on an ad hoc basis.
Rojina Shilpakar
S.E. Asia Regional Clinical Lead
Rojina is a general surgeon and Deputy Medical Director of Sushma Koirala Memorial Hospital (SKMH), Kathmandu, Nepal. She has worked in burns for 11 years in hospital and through surgical camps in rural areas. She was a participant in EBC ToT and ABC (Surgery) in Nepal. and faculty in EBC Tanzania in 2022. She is involved in preparing guidelines and training of health professionals at peripheral health care facilities of Nepal supported by National Health Training Centre.
Andy Roberts
Operations Manager
Andy joined Interburns in March 2018 from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he was Project Coordinator on a Commonwealth-wide eye health project. Prior to that, Andy worked in international development in Angola and Botswana. Andy is responsible for all aspects of finance and manages complex logistical arrangements especially surrounding the delivery of Interburns face to face training programmes.
Anil Dhital
Regional Operations Manager, Nepal
Anil has an MA in Sustainable Development and has worked in international development since 2011. He is responsible for project management and regularly trains others, advocating for local participation and decision making to encourage sustainability. Anil is involved in burn prevention work with various stakeholders and plays a key role in supporting the dissemination of Interburns approach across the region.
Trustees
Professor Patricia Price, Chair of Trustees
Founder
Patricia was until recently, Professor of Applied Burns Research at the CGBIPR. She is a Chartered Health Psychologist and has been Director of the Wound Healing Research Unit, Head of School of Healthcare Studies and Pro Vice Chancellor at Cardiff University. Her interests include the implementation of evidence-based interventions for those with burns and non-healing wounds. She has developed many high level courses and published more than 190 papers.
Professor Tom Potokar OBE
Founder
Tom is Chief Surgeon, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Previously he was Professor of Global Burn Injury, the Centre for Global Burn Injury Policy & Research (CGBIPR) at Swansea University and honorary consultant at the Welsh Centre for Burns and Plastic Surgery. He has worked in the international field since 1990, with MSF in Cambodia, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Rwanda. He was Co- Chair of the WHO-EMT Technical Working Group on Burns. Tom led the development of Interburns’ comprehensive integrated approach to quality improvement in burn care and has led programmes in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Uganda, Ghana, Malawi, Ethiopia, Tanzania and the West Bank.
Dr Richard Ebere Nnabuko
Richard is a plastic surgeon practicing in Nigeria. He has trained burn surgeons and nurses in the West African subregion since 1992, and has been President of the Nigerian Association of Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgeons, the Nigerian Burn Society and the Pan African Burn Society. As ISBI Regional Representative for Africa and Program Chair he helped to develop ISBI Practice Guidelines in 2016 and 2018. He has been a member of Interburns faculty since 2010.
Dr Dilshad Jaff
Dilshad is the Gillings Humanitarian Fellow and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health. With over 20 years' experience working in complex humanitarian crises in conflict zones in the Middle East and Africa, largely with the ICRC, Dilshad has experience designing, implementing, supervising, and monitoring health projects during and after complex humanitarian emergencies. As well as formal studies in medicine and public health, he has studied medical microbiology and has trained in conflict resolution.
Hayley Harris, Treasurer
Hayley has a background in chartered accountancy and finance which she uses for problem solving and project management. She is a senior lecturer in the School of Medicine at Swansea University and likes road cycling, travelling and any activity outdoors. Hayley has been on the Board of Interburns since 2019.
Dr Ramana Rajkarnikar
Ramana is a senior consultant paediatric surgeon in Kanti Children’s Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal. She has extensive experience in burns and plastic surgery and has trained surgeons, nurses, physiotherapists, and other health professionals across Nepal since 2012. She is joint secretary of the Nepalese Association of Paediatric Surgeons (NAPS) and Treasurer of the Nepal Burn Society. She has been involved in burns prevention, treatment, and care for the past 13 years and was a key member in the development of the Burn Protocols at Kanti Children’s Hospital and is committed to helping to reduce burn injuries in Asia.
Professor Folke Sjöberg
Folke is professor of burn surgery and critical care at Linköping University, Sweden and Medical Director of the burn center, Linköping University Hospital. He is President for the International Society for Burn Injuries (ISBI). From 2007-2009 he was President of the European Burns Association and from 2009 – 2013, the Director Research and Development of the Swedish Intensive Care Registry. He has been a member of the "Verification Committee" American Burns Association, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Linköping University and, since 2013, guest professor of the Suez Canal University, Ismalia, Egypt. Folke has co-authored more than 400 original peer reviewed scientific papers, including book chapters and books, most in the field of burns, critical care and microcirculation.
Hilmar Kjartansson
Hilmar is an MD FACEM trained in Internal and Emergency Medicine in New Zealand and Australia. He has worked as a consultant in Emergency Medicine in New Zealand, Australia and Iceland and was Clinical Director at Landspitali University, Reykjavik for many years. Hilmar’s interests include trauma and burns and he is passionate about the delivery of high quality medical care in all settings. Hilmar is a co-founder of the medical device company, Kerecis, and has established a humanitarian branch that provides product, care and training in many low income countries. Through his enterprises with Kerecis and as an Emergency Medicine physician he has established a strong network of physicians, NGOs, philanthropists and government relations.
Margaret Roy Gowrinath
Margaret has an MA in Nursing and Business Administration and is currently Director of Operations, Apple Hospital and Research Centre, Indore, India. A versatile strategist and dynamic leader, Margaret has completed programmes in Environmental Science and Clinical Decision Support Services in the US. Under her leadership as Head of Nursing Staff at Choithram Hospital and Research Centre, Indore, the hospital was the first to achieve the award for ‘Nursing Excellence’ in the region. Her passion for teaching has led her to be faculty for various healthcare programs around the world. She is a member of many nursing societies and healthcare associations, and is active as the Chairperson of Medical Services of the Rotary club, Adarsh, Indore.
Partners
Our reach is always expanding thanks to a dedicated network of individuals and organisational partners. Please get in touch if you want to fund or work with us.
