Susan Loubser
CEO
Sue has a B.A. and H.Dip. Ed from the University of the Witwatersrand and a diploma in Business Management from UNISA’s Graduate School of Business Leadership. She used distance learning as a teaching modality as early as 1996, and has facilitated the implementation of both synchronous and asynchronous training in many different subject areas. She was the Director of Technology at a school system for over 20 years and has deep educational experience across all age groups. She has extensive experience in accreditation of schools and content—and served as an accreditation chair for both SACS (the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) and SAIS (the Southern Association of Independent Schools). She has been working with SMEs to create ADDIE-aligned interactive, engaging training modules in various areas of public health, including infectious diseases, biosafety, biosecurity, emergency preparedness, and disease surveillance. She has managed numerous grants from inception through course design, to finding suitable participants, enrolling them into the LMS, offering technical assistance as needed, and sending out certificates of completion. To date, she has overseen the online training of more than 1400 adults.
Dr. Hilliard Gastfriend
Director of Online Education and Training
Hilliard has a Ph.D. in Education, with concentrations in Curriculum Theory and Instructional Technology. Before joining BI, he worked for the University System of Georgia (USA), the statewide, public higher education system (of the 34 colleges and universities), where he was employed for more than 11 years in distance education and instructional design for their Instructional Technology Services division. He acted as a research assessment resource for units within the System Office. He specialized in program and project evaluation relating to online instruction, determining evaluation needs and design study parameters, collecting and analyzing data, and preparing reports for presentation at national, regional, and state educational conferences. He has over ten years of experience, specifically designing online courses in public health, laboratory biosafety and biosecurity, emergency preparedness and disease surveillance. Many of the courses were designed for LMICs such as Lebanon, Egypt, India, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Pakistan.
Professor Mayra Ameneiros, MSc
Director of Strategic Engagement and Development
Mayra received her BS in Biochemistry from Buenos Aires University and an MSc in Blood Banks services and Immunohematology from the Argentinian Association of Hemotherapy. She has a Postgraduate degree in International Security, Disarmament, and Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. She currently holds appointments at the Argentinian Chemical Association and at KaizenLab México. She lectured at the iGEM Academy and presented at a special session about Biorisk Assessment and Transparency by Design. She was a Professor at the Buenos Aires University for 6 years, where she engaged in online training through the virtual teaching and learning environments training program from the Center for Innovation in Technology and Pedagogy at the University. She partnered with Sandia National Laboratories to translate a Spanish COVID-19 biorisk management course, and to offer it to all Latin-American countries. Mayra is credentialed in both Biorisk Management and Biosecurity from the International Federations of Biosafety Associations, where she also serves as a Mentor at the IFBA Global Mentorship Program. At the national level, she is a member of the Biosafety and the Biorisk Management Committee at IRAM and the Biosafety and Biosecurity Subcommittee at the Argentinean Association of Microbiology. Mayra has served as the Biosafety and Quality Advisor at the National Agricultural Technology Institute, and as a Technical Advisor for the Ministry of Health (Argentina) for the design and containment of mobile laboratories. Internationally, she has several responsibilities as a member of the Steering Committee, the Action Package Prevent 3 on Biosafety and Biosecurity, and the Task Force on Advocacy and Communications at the Global Health Security Agenda Consortium. She is part of the Safety & Security Committee at iGEM and The International Working Group on Strengthening the Culture of Biosafety, Biosecurity, and Responsible Conduct in the Life Sciences. Mayra is the Deputy Coordinator at the Next Generation Global Health Security Network (NextGen), a Research Associate at King´s College London (Department of War Studies), and a member of the Consulting Advisory Board at Merrick & Company´s Life Sciences.