Anna Mia Ekström

Master of Public Health (MPH) quantitative methods from Harvard School of Public Health (1995),

Medical Doctor (MD, 1997, Uppsala University)

PhD medical epidemiology (Karolinska Institutet (KI), 2000). 
Full professor (since 2013) in Global Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Senior clinical consultant infectious diseases (överläkare)

Employed at Karolinska Institutet the Department of Global Public Health (GPH) & Södersjukhuset, Department of Infectious Diseases/Venhälsan, 70% reserach/30% clinical work.

Research group leader for Global & Sexual Health (GloSH) with about 50 affiliated researchers at GPH, KI.

Over 25 years leading international research teams and projects including clinical trials, cohort-studies and qualitative research in Europe, Africa and Asia on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR),  access to HIV prevention and care in adolescents girls and young women (AGYW) and key populations with a special focus on prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), gender-based violence (GBV/IPV), sexual risk behaviours, maternal and child health, health systems, implementation research, policy implementation, demographic surveillance, norms and values, emerging infections (Mpox, Ebola, Zika, COVID-19), and global vaccine policy and vaccine access

Published over 285 scientific publications (H-index 42. Top-90-100% in number of publications at KI)

Funding 
European Commission (Horizon), Hadea, EDCTP, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Swedish Research Council, Forte, NIH, Sida, WHO, Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, KI, European CDC, Stockholm County Council, FAS,  EBA, Groschinsky, Swedish Public Health Agency, Solstickan, Gilead, Janssen, South African Medical Research Council, UNICEF.
As main applicant acquired > 120 million SEK (12 M Euro) in external research grants in competition

Expert & Leadership assignments

·     2026- :Chair, SweDev, Swedish Development Researchers’ Network

·     2019-2026: Member KI’s Internationalisation Board

·     2025- Expert in EBA: Government appointed Expert Group for Aid Studies eba.se/en/

·     2025-: Expert in Sweden’s scientific reference group for access to COVID-19 vaccines (Swedish Government department of Foreign Affairs)

·     2022-2026: Sweden's representative in HERA's Advisory Forum- EUs Health Emergency Preparedness & Response Authority

·     2023-:  Chair/Member, technical advisory group on Market Access for Vaccines (MVAC), World Health Organization (WHO) https://www.who.int/groups/technical-advisory-group-on-market-access-for-vaccines.

·     2023- : Representative in FoUU-committee with hospital and KI management (SÖS)

·     2022- :  Board member of Centre for health crisis, Stockholm

·     2021-2022: Expert in COVAX Independent Allocation of Vaccines Group (IAVG) for global COVID-19 vaccine allocation, WHO https://www.who.int/groups/iavg

·     2021- : Research lead (FoUUi) for at the Department of infectious Diseases, Södersjukhuset (SÖS)

·     2020-2024: Chair/Member Sida’s Scientific Council, Swedish International development Agency (Sida)

·     2021: Leader KI’s taskforce on COVID-19 and public health and resource group on COVID-19 and global health

·     2020-2022: Member Swedish Governments's scientific reference group (Richard Bergström's) for COVID-19 vaccines

·     2019-2025: Senior member, Karolinska Institutet’s Ethical Council

·     2018-2022: Senior advisor Global Challenges think tank, Vice President for the Health Council

·     2014-2018: Board member INDEPTH Scientific Advisory Committee. International network of all health and demographic surveillance sites in the world

·     2008-: Leader Global & Sexual health (GloSH) research group https://ki.se/en/gph/global-and-sexual-health-glosh at KI with @50 multidisciplinary international researchers, home of prof. Hans Rosling’s teaching legacy

Other expert assignments: 
Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, Advisor Africa CDC.  Institute for Communicable Disease Control, Swedish Migration Dept, Stockholm Needle Exchange, Sweden’s Foreign Dept, Swedish Society of Medicine, Medical Research Council, Noaks Ark’s HIV Foundation, Aids Accountability International, Doctors against AIDS, HIV Outcomes,

Other merits & Awards:
Woman of the year 2022- rank 95 among the 100 most influential women in Sweden 2022, Expressen
Public health/medical expert, Musikhjälpen, helped collect 48 million SEK to health care & 30 M SEK to HIV
Main supervisor of Ziad El-Khatib awarded Best HIV thesis of the year (Sweden) (2011)
ERA evaluation: My research group Global & Sexual Health at Karolinska Institutet scored “Excellent” i.e top research groups at KI (2011)
Harvard School of Public Health’s representative of Students for Human Rights at the Harvard Model UN course in Diplomacy and Negotiations, in Geneva in Switzerland (1995).

Supervised 31 graduated PhD students (15 as main supervisor) and 50% from LMIC. Ongoing supervision of 10 PhD students.
   
30 years of teaching university students & course leadership, chair/member of 30 PhD dissertation boards

Course coordinator undergraduate course "Global health" 4.5 credits
Course coordinator "HIV - an individual focus from a global perspective" 7.5 credits
Course coordinator "Infectious diseases" Master of Global health, 4.5 credits
Responsible for KI's process of internationalisation 2015-2018 to include global health in all study programmes at KI.
Responsible for Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in Global Health in 2016 with 17, 000 participants across the world. Frequent participant in public lectures, media (TV, radio, newspapers). 


Scientific coordinator for the Sweden –Tanzania PhD training program sponsored by Sida 2015-2026 and actively involved in the Sweden-Uganda PhD capacity building exchange programmes since year 2000.