Mr Suman Chandra Gurung

Suman Chandra Gurung is an Executive Director of BNMT Nepal. He is a public health specialist with MPhil in Population Studies from TU, MSc in Development Management (International Health) from UK, PG Development Management from UK and Bachelor in Public Health, Certificate in General Medicine from TU, Institute of Medicine, Kathmandu, Nepal. He has over 27 years’ experience of health & development work in Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Tibet and UK and employers include BNMT Nepal, IOM Nepal, NHSSP (DFID) Nepal, DHSP (DFID) Nepal, UNDP/UNV Bangladesh, Surmang Foundation Tibet/China, ADRA/Nepal, UMN CDHP Nepal, Save the Children Fund (UK) Nepal.

Suman has had wide and extensive experience of project management, health systems strengthening, planning, monitoring, evaluation, facilitation skills, co-ordination, research and technical assistance to government & External Development Partners (EDPs). He has also been involved in developing guidelines, manuals, resource maps, MoHP staffs job descriptions, proposal developments, curriculums, lesson plans and has trained health workers, volunteers and teachers.

Dr. Maxine Caws

Max Caws is the Principal Investigator of IMPACT TB and a senior TB researcher at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She was Head of the TB group at Oxford University Clinical Research Unit Vietnam for 11 years and researches diverse aspects of TB including drug resistance, diagnosis, clinical treatment trials, bacterial virulence and host susceptibility determinants. She is currently based in Kathmandu, Nepal. She has a BSc in biochemistry from the University of St Andrews, a PHD in medical microbiology from King’s College, London, where her thesis topic was tuberculous meningitis, and an MSC in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Raghu Dhital

Raghu Dhital is the Deputy Director of BNMT and the Programme Manager for IMPACT TB in Nepal. He has worked at Birat-Nepal Medical Trust, Nepal since July 2014. His main responsibilities are to develop policies, strategies, plans and activities for the TB control program, to establish good coordination and collaboration with government authorities, District Health Offices, NGO partners and advocates and to facilitate the successful implementation of Tuberculosis Control Program.

Similarly, Raghu worked in Britain Nepal Medical Trust as a TB REACH Project Manager from February 2012 to June 2014 and has successfully implemented TB REACH WAVE- 2 project in Nepal. He has also been involved in Active Case Finding through systematic mobilization of community health volunteers and initiated Microscopic Camp in hard to reach areas of Nepal. Raghu’s main interest is to replicate TB REACH Active Case Finding learning in hard to reach areas of Nepal.

Laxmi Prasad Dahal

Laxmi Prasad Dahal is Chief Finance Officer of BNMT Nepal based on head office Kathmandu. He is responsible for overseeing the finances and accounting operations, financial planning and management of BNMT Nepal. He has worked at Birat Nepal Medical Trust, Nepal since January 2017. He earned his Masters’ degree in Commerce at Nepal Commerce Campus Kathmandu. He has over 15 years’ of professional experience in finance, accounts, taxation and audit matters.

Similarly, he worked in The Britain Nepal Medical Trust in Nepal with different capacities from July 2006 to December 2016.

Saki Thapa

Saki Thapa joined BNMT in 2014. She is a core member of BNMT and works as an Advocacy, Networking and Resource Mobilization Manager at BNMT Nepal. She is responsible for project designing, and grants application and has demonstrated history of developing and implementing Tuberculosis, sexual and reproductive health and right, WASH, Mental health and health system strengthening projects in Nepal.

Saki did her MSc in Public Health from Berlin School of Public Health, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany. She also holds master degree in Health care management from Pokhara University, Nepal. Her area of interest is SRHR, maternal and child health, and mental health. She is equally concerned on the increased NCD’s in the country and climate change. She is interested in generating evidences to help improve lives of both local and global communities through research.

Currently, she has taken additional responsibility of Amplify Change project, READ-It project and Breaking the Stigma Project as a project manager to improve sexual and reproductive health and right of adolescent in rural Nepal.

She is kind, responsible and honest individual, who has very positive attitude towards life and likes travelling and making friends.

Rajesh Parajuli

Rajesh Parajuli is the Human Resource and Administration Manager of BNMT Nepal since July 2014. Before this, he has worked with the Britain Nepal Medical Trust since April 1994 at various sections in different capacities. Now, he is a member of Senior Management Team of BNMT Nepal. He is responsible for overall human resources management and administrative management of the organization including overseeing of hiring, retention, termination, personnel records, performance appraisal, legal compliance, compensation, benefits, development of policies and long-term staffing strategies, and day-to-day administrative, logistics and procurement management. He is also focal person for coordinating with the government authorities and other stakeholders.

Rajesh has a Masters Degree in social science from Tribhuvan University and obtained various professional courses at national level and international level. He has successfully represented the organization in different national and international level meeting, workshops and seminars.

Kritika Dixit

Kritika Dixit is a Research Manager at BNMT with experience of over eight years in infectious diseases, mental health, and reproductive and sexual health. Her main area of interest is the social and structural determinants of health and the design and evaluation of socioeconomic interventions to tackle these factors. Ms Dixit led research projects that mainly involve exploring barriers to healthcare access especially in rural areas and to provide evidence to inform patient-centric healthcare models to improve equity in communities. More recently, she led the research implementation in the projects supported by the European Union, the Wellcome Trust, UK, and the Stop TB partnership which aim to increase tuberculosis case diagnosis in Nepal and to develop a locally appropriate socioeconomic support package for TB affected households. She holds a master’s degree in Global Health from Thammasat University, Thailand, and is a current PhD student at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Ms Dixit is a Farrar Foundation fellow and is also a recipient of early-career research grant from the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (RSTMH), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) as well as travel scholarships from the RSTMH and the TB Modelling and Analysis Consortium, UK.

Soma Rai

Soma is a HR and Admin Officer at Birat Nepal Medical Trust (BNMT) and Project Administrator for the IMPACT TB Project. She has been working at BNMT for the past 6 years and has over 15 years of experience in this field.

Nischal Bal Lama

Nishcal Bal Lama is Sr. Finance Officer at BNMT. He is mainly responsible for effective budgetary and financial controls, including the monitoring of expenditures and the reporting and investigation of significant budget variances along with the reconciliation of the field office expenditure report with the grant reports and oversee any inconsistencies that may exist. He is MBA graduate from APEX College (Pokhara University) and has more than 7 years of progressive work experience in the field of TEVT (Technical Education and Vocational Training), Agriculture, Reconstruction, WASH, Long Distance Sponsorship, SRHR and Tuberculosis. He was previously associated with Manakamana Training and Skill Development Institute (MTSDI) and Association for International Solidarity in Asia (ASIA Onlus Italy). His areas of interests are Finance, Economics, Football, Table Tennis, Mountain Biking and Trekking.

Bibha Dhungel

Bibha Dhungel is the Public Engagement and Training Officer in Birat Nepal Medical Trust. She is responsible for strengthening the brand image and enhancing the public engagement via development and maintenance of organization-owned websites, management of the social media (Twitter and Facebook), and development of promotional audio/visuals/print materials. She also handles the Twitter account of IMPACT TB and supports in its branding. She has been extensively involved in preparing the organization’s Annual Report for the last four years. She is an active member of the fundraising team. She has contributed to writing successful grants such as TB REACH Wave 5, AmplifyChange, and Global Fund. She engages in developing various reports and documentation, as well as in other programmatic activities including monitoring and evaluation functions. She is an MBA graduate from the Ace Institute of Management, Nepal. She enjoys singing, dancing, and art.

Bhola Rai

Bhola Rai is the Project Manager in BNMT Nepal based in Makwanpur district. He is leading the ASCOT project, which aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a socioeconomic support intervention for TB-affected households in Nepal. He has been working in BNMT for four years as a Research Associate in the IMPACT TB project, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 and the Seed Award project funded by the Wellcome Trust. Bhola holds a Bachelor’s degree in Public Health and he is also pursuing master’s degree in Public Health Administration from Tribhuwan University. Bhola has over seven years’ experience in research, particularly in data collection, management and analysis. He has over 10 publications in high impact peer reviewed journals. Mr Rai has also worked as a team leader with the Nepal Nutrition Intervention Project in Sarlahi, district in partnerships with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Nepal Netra Jyoti Sangh.

Manoj Kumar Sah

Manoj Kumar Sah is the District Programme Coordinator for IMPACT TB Project in Mahottari District. He is mainly responsible for implementing IMPACT TB project activities and research in the district. He has completed a Master in sociology, a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine & Surgery (BAMS), a Bachelor degree in education in Health and a certificate in General Medicine. I was involved in different public health project in coordination and management of district level health program activities (RH, CB-NCP/IMCI & CB-IMNCI, Nutrition and HIV/AIDS), health system strengthening, inventory and logistics management, good coordinating and supportive facilitative supervision and monitoring of the programme activities.

Govind Majhi

Govinda Majhi is our District Program Coordinator for Pyuthan District. He has been working with DrOTS Project since July 2019 but has been part of the Birat Nepal Medical Trust team from 2017. His job role includes the planning and implementation of programme activities for DrOTS Project within the district.

Govinda holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Purbanchal University (Nepal) and a Master’s Degree from Rajiv Gandhi University (India), both in Public Health. His Masters focused on ‘Factors causing delay in pulmonary-TB diagnosisin Morang District Nepal’. Continuing his interest in TB, Govinda applied for an internship in BNMT’s tuberculosis programme in Sunsari District -sponsored by Global Fund. He was then offered a job as District Programme Coordinator for the area of Dang, Udayapur and Makwanpur for IMPACT TB. His passion towards fighting the chronic ongoing problem of TB in Nepal inspired him to eventually apply for his current role in Pyuthan district. His vision is to see a TB-free Nepal.

Renu Bhandari Lama

Renu Bhandari Lama is positioned as Receptionist in Birat Nepal Medical Trust. She is one of the long serving employees of BNMT, working for more than 10 years in administration. She is mainly responsible for arranging appointments and logistic, managing incoming and outgoing correspondence, maintaining records related to vehicles and fuel, office equipment and general filing of office documents; maintain petty cash and assists human resource manager in other administrative and HR functions. She has more than 15 years of experience in the field.

Gangaram Budathoki

Gangaram Budhathoki is the project manager for the DrOTS Nepal project in BNMT Nepal and currently stationed in the regional office, Nepalgunj. He has been working with DrOTS Project since January 2019 but he has been part of the Birat Nepal Medical Trust team since 2017. He was initially appointed as District Program Coordinator for TB REACH Wave 5 project for Bardiya and Salyan district and later upgraded to M&E manager in the project. His job role includes the program planning, managing, coordination, monitoring & evaluation, implementation, recording and reporting of program activitiess as per Project objectives and activities within the regional and project districts.

He has worked with Government job in various health institutions as a health officer for more than twenty years and also in I/NGOs for more than three years as program officer and program coordinator. During his tenure with Government health institutions and I/NGOs offices, his role included the facilitation (training, meeting & workshop), coordination, drafting of project proposals, program design, planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluation, recording & reporting and research activities. Gangaram also has previous experience at the Government health system, Nepal National Tuberculosis program, district program coordinator, regional HIV program officer and community health quality improvement Officer.

Gangaram holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Tribhuvan University, Nepal in Health Education and Masters in Public Health from State University of Bangladesh (SUB). He wants to see Nepal as TB free region.

Gyanendra Shrestha

Gyanendra Shrestha is currently the Project Manager under GF project of Tuberculosis which is being implemented by BNMT Nepal since Feb 2017. He supervises TB program for five project implemented districts of Province 1. He previously had worked as Project officer in Handicap International for a year from 2016 to Jan 2017 at Kathmandu. He also worked as Project Manager in JANTRA under TB Reach Project. In The Britain Nepal Medical Trust from 2009- 2014, he had as a Program Manager based in Biratnagar and Nepalgunj based. He started his career as a Statistical officer in GON in the year 1997, and later joined BNMT as a drug scheme In-charge and then promoted to District program Coordinator and Program Manager. He holds double master degree, MPA (Master in Public administration and Master in Population and Rural Development. He has bachelor in Education. He acquires excellent management quality and very active always ready to work nature. He has a powerful/convincing communication and advocacy skill. He manages work very well under pressure. He is known to be an innovative and tactical performer.

Bikram Bucha

Bikram Bucha is a district program coordinator of the sexual and reproductive health and rights project funded by AmplifyChange. He is stationed in Sindhupalchowk district. He is responsible for planning, coordinating, implementing, monitoring, reporting and evaluation of the project activities in the district. He initially did an internship at BNMT Nepal and has been involved in the project since May, 2019.

Bikram is a young and dynamic public health professional and has demonstrated youth leadership and networking skills by engaging in youth led and youth run organization as volunteer, and holding the position of member and executive. He completed his Bachelors in Public health from TUTH, Institute of Medicine. His areas of interests and skills include maternal health, child health, nutrition, SRHR, mental health and research. A person with good sportsmanship, he loves playing sports, especially football.

Poonam Bista

She is serving BNMT as a District TB Project coordinator since last 3 years (16th April, 2018) at National Tuberculosis Program supported by Global fund /SCI at Morang district of Province No. 1. Being the Coordinator, she is responsible for Planning, implementing, Coordinating with stakeholders, and monitoring the Project. She had past experience of working at NEW ERA Research Center as a revised HMIS facilitator for Morang District. She had also gained experience as a facilitator of the students of Diploma in general medicine at Birat Health College for a year. She was also engaged as Field supervisor at ageing survey conducted by MoHP at FY 2017/18.Graduating at Child development and gender socialization, she had done bachelor’s degree in Public health. Being a public health professional, she would like to serve the nation contributing to uplift the health status of the people as a whole.

Puskar Raj Paudel

Puskar Raj Paudel is the Project Manager of the IMPACT 2 TB project, based in Makwanpur district. He is a monitoring and evaluation and surveillance professional with Masters in Population Studies and Masters in Sociology from TU. He has over 12 years experience in project management, team management, logistic planning, monitoring, and evaluation of health & development work in Nepal. He has previously worked in KNCV TB Foundation, Mother and Infant Research Activities (MIRA), the New Era, SSMP/NHSSP, and Mercy Corps Nepal.

He has wide and extensive experience in community-based research projects, including randomized controlled trial (RCT), specifically in the area of maternal and child health, nutrition and tuberculosis issues, disaster risk reduction, cooperative, microenterprise development, and economic development.

Dr Khem Pokhrel

Khem is a global health professional with key expertise in designing, implementing, and evaluating Public Health Programs for more than 10 years in Nepal and abroad. He received MSc and PhD degrees in Global Health from The University of Tokyo, Japan. His primary areas of work comprise of Health System Strengthening, Global Burden of Disease Study, HIV, Nutrition, Mental Health, Digital Health, and Reproductive Health.

He worked for several research,  monitoring, and evaluation projects in various organization such as FACT project of Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA, Mental Health Project of CaMH, Canada, Care International, Family Health International, Save the Children International, and several other national organizations in Nepal. He has extensive research capacity and published multiple public health research articles in international indexed journals:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hGfU2lgAAAAJ&hl=en

Samjhana Shrestha

Samjhana Shrestha is the Research Officer at BNMT Nepal for the READ-It project. Samjhana is a passionate public health researcher with a stock of experiences in health research; data management and statistical analysis; and application of Geographical Information System (GIS) in health research. She completed MPH under Erasmus Mundus Master’s Program in Public Health from The University of Sheffield, UK, and the EHESP School of Public Health, France. She has received academic training on Geographical Information System (GIS) from Sheffield Hallam University. Her areas of interest in research revolve around infectious and non-infectious diseases, maternal and child health, health inequalities, and geospatial health -understanding how built environment influences health behaviors and health outcomes. She has previously worked in Neighborhood Environments and Mobility: Effects on Social Health Inequalities cohort project for assessing the association between spatial accessibility to sports facilities and sports practice through developing various models; and the integrated nutrition project ‘Suaahara’ for implementing interventional activities at the field level for improving the health and nutritional status of mothers and children.

Swastika Shrestha

Swastika Shrestha is a graduate with a Masters degree in Global Health from the Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin. She works as Research Officer in the project, Breaking the Stigma: An alternative approach to cervical cancer screening in Nepal.

Having had a couple of years of clinical experience as a dental surgeon, she developed an interest in the field of public health after which she pursued her Masters in the same field. Her previous experience of working in university hospitals piqued her interest in research driven tasks. Her areas of interest in research revolve around infectious and non-infectious diseases, sexual and reproductive health and she also likes exploring various social determinants of health. She enjoys working with and learning from people from different walks of life.

Rajan Paudel

Rajan Paudel is a young and energetic public health professional who’s aspiring to be an agent of change to improve lives and well-being especially for people living in rural communities.

Rajan is positioned as Research Associate, primarily responsible for the implementation of the operational researches under the Nick Simon’s Foundation funded IMPACT TB – II Project. He’s also working for TB READY project implementation funded by Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (RSTMH), National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and Farrar Foundation.

Rajan has completed his Bachelor’s degree in Public Health from the Institute of Medicine. During his internship at BNMT in 2019, he was actively involved in TB contact tracing, data collection, and management, as well as interviewing TB patients in IMPACT TB Project. He also contributed to the mapping of private pharmacies in Chitwan district. His interest lies in health systems research and social protection on diseases of poverty.

Nilisha Neupane

Nilisha is working as District Program Coordinator for IMPACT 2 TB project positioned in Bardiya district. After completion of Bsc. Nursing from BPKIHS Dharan, Nilisha worked as a registered nurse at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Maharajgunj for about 17 months. While working at clinical setting, she realized the role of public health in preventing many cases from reaching hospitals. Her interest towards public health intensified and she completed MPH from Maharajgunj Medical Campus, IOM in 2019. TB cases at hospitals were one of the leading factors to motivate her to pursue the career as a public health professional. She has joined BNMT with the passion to aid in making Nepal free from TB. She previously worked for Ipas Nepal for Nepal Family Planning Project at Makwanpur and Dailekh districts.

Rajesh Kumar Yadav

Rajesh Kumar Yadav is currently working as ‘District Program Coordinator’ in TARGET TB project at BNMT Nepal. His job role includes the planning, coordination, implementation and monitoring activities from TARGET TB within the District. Rajesh has previous experience at BNMT Nepal as the District Program Coordinator at Achham and Doti District sponsored by Global Fund/SCI. He has completed MPH with specialization in Public Health Service Management from Pokhara University. He has received PG research grant from NHRC and various research grants from different agencies. His MPH topic is the “Health Related Quality of Life and Factors Associated with Medication Adherence among Tuberculosis Patients of Gandaki Province of Nepal”. He is actively engaged in various Tuberculosis Research in collaboration with different research organization. He has published 11 original and review articles in peer reviewed journals. He is currently a reviewer of various journals and has the experience of working as a member of Epidemiological Data Audit of COVID-19 Pandemic in Province No. 2 representing NHRC.

Rajendra Dahal

Rajendra Dahal is working as the Project Manager for TARGET TB project of BNMT Nepal based in Regional Office, Nepalgunj. He is responsible for the execution of Australian Health Research Council funded project activities in Kathmandu, Banke and Pyuthan districts. He will closely work with the project partners GENETUP Nepal, TB Nepal and the University of Melbourne.

He is also responsible for program planning, implementation, budgeting, coordination, monitoring and evaluation, supportive supervision, follow-up, recording and reporting. He has previous experience of working as a Project Manager at Japan-Nepal Health and Tuberculosis Research Association (JANTRA) in Gandaki Province funded by Global Fund/SCI. He has completed Master’s in Sociology from Tribhuvan University, Nepal.

Sameera Gautam

Sameera Gautam is the District Program Coordinator for Chitwan under the IMPACT 2 TB project. She is a young and passionate public health professional with more than 7 years of working experience in different national and international projects, in tuberculosis, nutrition, and SRHR. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Health from the Institute of Medicine and a certificate-level course in General Medicine (Health Assistant) and is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Public Administration from Tribhuvan University. Passionate and driven to work in TB and research sector, Sameera joined BNMT Nepal on June 1, 2021. She is responsible for managing overall project activities along with other activities of BNMT Nepal within the district. Along with her passion for creating positive change in the lives of people, she loves music, networking with people, and trekking.

Nirmala Khatri

Nirmala Khatri is the Finance and Administration Officer of BNMT Nepal, positioned in Nepalgunj Regional Office, Banke district. She has been working under the IMPACT 2 TB since February 2020. Nirmala has more than seven years’ of working experience in several I/NGOs with expertise in financial planning, implementation, organizing as well as program implementation.  Previously she worked as program officer in National Federation of the Disabled Nepal (NFDN), Karnali Province project, fund by FFO Norway and DPOD Denmark. Nirmala holds a Bachelor Degree from Mahendra Multiple Campus, Nepalgunj (Tribhuvan University), with specialization in Finance. Nirmala finds passion in working for the poor and marginalized communities. She confidently handles financial matters and manages work very well under pressure. She is fond of adventures.

Sangam Paudel

Sangam Paudel works as the Administrator in BNMT Nepal, positioned in Nepalgunj regional office, Banke district.

“Learning by doing” is how Sangam quotes her character to be. She is a passionate learner having five years’ experience in HR and Administration, with academic background of MBA. She roots for effective communication and joint collaboration in work and believes that BNMT Nepal will be a key milestone to her growth and happiness, helping her to lead her interest to serve the Nepalese society.