Raghu Dhital

Raghu Dhital is the Executive Director of BNMT Nepal. Raghu has worked in community based public health with BNMT for twenty years and has diverse experience across multiple sectors, including infectious diseases control programmes, WASH and disaster response and recovery. He has a strong passion for working with communities to identify priorities and facilitate solutions together. Throughout his career, he has worked in partnership with government health services and NGO networks to augment existing services and contribute to the development of Nepal.

His main responsibilities are to oversee the overall activities of BNMT; develop strategies, plans and activities for the all the programs of BNMT; establish good coordination and collaboration with government authorities, District Health Offices, NGO partners and advocates and facilitate the successful implementation of Tuberculosis Control Program.

Before taking this role, Raghu served as the Deputy director of BNMT. He previously worked as Project Manager for IMPACT TB phase I from 2017-2019. He was involved 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 including initiation of microscopic camps in hard to reach areas of Nepal.

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.

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 serves as the Advocacy, Networking, and Resource Mobilization Manager at BNMT Nepal. With a strong focus on project designing and grants application, she has demonstrated remarkable success in securing funds for numerous impactful initiatives. Notable among these are Health Link funded by UK aids, Enhancing Community Health funded by the Big Lottery Fund, Health Facilities Reconstruction and Health Service Strengthening I & II funded by AmeriCares, TB REACH Wave 5, Adolescents SRHR project funded by AmplifyChange, Project Horizon funded by BNMT UK, as well as the Global Fund projects 2017-2018 and 2018 to 2021. She has also contributed writing the projects – SUSTAIN: Emergency support and Sustenance to communities affected by crisis funded by AmeriCares, and COVID Kurakani, a supplement of COVID gene sequencing project, Epidemic Intelligence.

With an MSc in Public Health from the esteemed Berlin School of Public Health, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany, Saki has taken the lead in successfully implementing three Sexual and Reproductive health and Rights projects (AmplifyChange, Butterfly, Project Horizon) in rural Sindhupalchowk, Nepal. She has also spearheaded the Research, Evidence and Development Initiative (READ-It) project, focusing on evidence synthesis tailored to national gaps; and the Breaking the Stigma project, which explores the feasibility and acceptability of self-sampling for HPV as an alternative method for cervical cancer screening. Additionally, Saki holds a master’s degree in Health Care Management from Pokhara University, Nepal.

As a valuable member of the senior management team, Saki has played a key role in the development of organizational policies, policy briefs, project briefs, reports, storybooks, and IEC/BCC materials. She has also contributed significantly to the strategic planning of BNMT, shaping the organization’s vision and direction in the strategic plan for 2020-2025.

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.

Bibha Dhungel

Bibha, an MBA graduate and passionate advocate for public engagement in health and science, leads the public engagement department at Birat Nepal Medical Trust since 2019. She also works as one of the Associate Festival Directors for the Global South Arts and Health Week, being held in Egypt in September 2023.

She has spearheaded diverse projects in BNMT, collaborating with communities, stakeholders, artists, and creative professionals, focusing on COVID-19, tuberculosis, and menstrual hygiene management. Notable projects include COVID animations, TB day activities with folk song and dance, community perspectives videos, Mithila art-themed TB murals, and project video summaries. She co-designed and led the ‘COVID Kurakani’ project, featuring televised panel discussions on pathogen sequencing. Additionally, she successfully organized the ‘Lead like a Woman’ national conference, empowering students to learn about leadership and overcome barriers. With 8 years of experience, Bibha leads the organization branding, managing all the organization owned digital media (websites/social media accounts), and diverse publications including the annual report, policy briefs and research summaries.

She has also contributed in writing successful grants for the organization including, COVID Kurakani (conversations), SUSTAIN series (1- 5), AmplifyChange and TB REACH and Global Fund. She engages in developing various reports and documentation, as well as monitoring and evaluation functions.

She is a talented singer and her interests include singing, dancing and art, with a particular interest in traditional Nepali music and dance forms.

Bhola Rai

Bhola Rai is the Project Manager in BNMT Nepal based in the Makwanpur district. He is leading the ASCOT project, inbuilt within in the IMPACT TB 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.

Gyanendra Shrestha

Gyanendra Shrestha is the Project Manager for the Epidemic Intelligence project and Eastern Regional Manager. He is an experienced public health professional and project leader, starting as a Statistical officer for Government of Nepal in the year 1997, and later joining BNMT as a drug scheme In-charge, progressing as a district programme coordinator and project manager. He has a deep understanding of the implementation and factors driving successful delivery of community based public health programmes in Nepal. He is responsible for ensuring successful implementation of project; establishing good coordination and networking with project partners, government authorities, major hospitals, health offices, and other development partners.

Gyanendra holds a double master’s degree in Public administration and Population and Rural Development.

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.

Dipendra Panday

Dipendra Panday is the ‘District Program Coordinator’ in Epidemic Intelligence project positioned in Banke district of Nepal. His is responsible for planning, coordination, implementation and monitoring activities for Epidemic Intelligence Project, and supporting the TARGET TB Project and TB Recovery Project within the district. Dipendra has previous experiences of working at BNMT as the District Coordinator for multiple projects such as ‘Enhancing community health in Nepal’ project funded by Big Lottery Fund and ‘National TB Program’ funded by Global Fund/Save the Children. He has completed Community Medicine Auxiliary(CMA), Health Assistant (HA) from CTEVT and BPH from Tribhuvan University (TU). He has received different training such as; CB-IMNCI, IMAM, TB Modular, MToT on Golden Thousand Days, MToT on TB management & e-TB, DHIS-2, M-health, life skill training.

Sudip Paudel

Sudip Paudel is the Project Officer working in the RESPOND II project, funded by Americares. Based in Rolpa district, he works closely with the team at the regional office in Banke. Sudip holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Health and a diploma in Health Assistance. His experience includes working with several organizations such as the Health Directorate Office in Lumbini Province, One Heart Worldwide, New Era, Intrepid Nepal/CMDN/JANTRA, Prakash Awareness Group, and Chitwan Hospital Pvt. Ltd. With over six years of experience in public health and clinical fields, Sudip brings extensive knowledge and expertise to his role.