Senior Technical Advisor

*Send resumes and CVs to Mr. Jeremy O’Brien, jeo56@georgetown.edu

Position: Public Health Laboratory – Senior Technical Advisor (PHL-STA) to the Botswana National Public Health Laboratory

Reports to: GU CGHPI Director for Health Protection Practice and CEO BNPHI

Collaborates with: GU CHPHI Technical Advisory Team assigned to BNPHI and the BNPHI Public Health Laboratory Lead and other BNPHI Pillar Leads and other CGHPI HQ Teams

External Collaborations: Africa CDC, World Health Organization, CDC Botswana, and other professional labs and regulatory organizations.

The Georgetown University Center for Global Health Practice and Impact (CGHPI) serves countries to sustainably improve health outcomes through the generation and translation of scientific evidence into policy and practice.

To achieve this mission, we catalyze the uptake, spread, and implementation of innovations; triangulate data from different sources, and tailor visualization of the information for each audience; design and implement integrated service delivery models; support communities of practice to inform policy and practice through efficient data use and horizontal and vertical collaboration; disseminate best practices and evidence globally through open source learning networks; build global, collaborative, multi-disciplinary, and interprofessional networks; undertake research that is informed by local needs; and invest in local leadership to own, provide oversight, and sustain implemented interventions. The Center operates in more than 7 countries and domestically within the United States and continues to expand. To advance its mission and in line with growth plans, the Center seeks a Public Health Laboratory Senior Technical Advisor (PHL-STA) based in Botswana to support the Botswana National Public Health Institute.

Position Summary: The PHL-STA will provide advanced technical advice and hands-on implementation including training and mentorship in support of BNPHI operationalization of the national public health laboratory system in the country. The PHL-STA will support the development of guidelines and standards for laboratory testing processes including sampling, testing, measuring, recording, and analysis of lab various tests in cooperation with the rest of the laboratory team. The PHL-STA will provide expertise in the development/update of national public health laboratory policies, strategic plans, and operationalization of national public health infrastructure optimization, quality assurance standards (external and internal), and development of core capacities of the country’s public health lab work force. The PHL-STA will support the lab surveillance system including developing capacity for genomic sequencing and lab information system working closely with the epidemiologic surveillance and information management function under BNPHI following the One Health Approach. The PHL-STA will play a critical role in the detection, monitoring, outbreak response, and provision of scientific evidence to prevent and control infectious diseases. The PHL-STA will be a member of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Practice and Impact (GU CGHPI)’s Health Protection Practice and will contribute to the Center’s other initiatives regionally and globally.

Essential Functions: The PHLA will work with the National Public Health Laboratory Director at BNPHI to perform the following functions:

  • Develop reference diagnostic tests and standards
  • Develop key laboratory diagnostic tests that should be carried out in public health labs
  • Support a network of other public health labs to adopt these tests
  • Develop Standard Operating Procedures and provide training and mentorship of laboratory interdisciplinary teams to institutionalize these practices for both human and animal labs
  • Design and support implementation of the performance evaluation framework to monitor the development of PHL core capacities
  • Participate in regional, Africa CDC, and global public health laboratory networks and support BNPHI’s PHL to implement IHR and other international treaties for sharing key lab-based disease surveillance and genomic sequencing data.
  • Provide expertise to inform the development and implementation of public health lab information system
  • Develop analytic indicators for lab-related data, work with data science teams to produce regular reports and key information needed to inform the country’s outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic management
  • Communicate effectively lab produced disease-related data for public health action
  • Prepare and/or support public health labs to achieve and maintain external quality standards (accreditation).
  • Develop public health laboratory regulatory standards
  • Perform other functions as may be required

Essential Qualifications and Experience Requirements

  • A doctorate degree in molecular biology or MSc in Microbiology plus graduate qualifications in Epidemiology
  • At least 5 years working in national public health laboratory practice with bench experience in molecular diagnostic testing and knowledge of genomic sequencing
  • At least 5 years of providing technical assistance to national public health labs
  • Proven training and mentorship experience
  • Verifiable record and experience in disease surveillance