BOARD of advisors – USA

Ex-Ambassador in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia (2000-2004)

Prof Baibourtian has also been a Senior Adviser to the United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia (2008-2013). In this capacity, he coordinated the activities of twelve UN agencies on the country scale. Along with the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary, Prof Baibourtian co-chaired the U.S.-Armenia Security Dialogue. He also co-chaired bilateral Intergovernmental Commissions on Trade, Economic, Technological, Cultural, and Educational Cooperation with India and China. He was the Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York (1993-1995) dealing with international peace and security issues at the UN Headquarters and then served as the Consul General in Los Angeles (1995-1997). Prof Baibourtian has been a Professor of Practice of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is a Consultant to various agencies in international affairs, diplomacy, and international development.

Prof Baibourtian holds two PhDs – in International Studies and Modern World History and is the recipient of several awards, including the Fridtjof Nansen Humanitarian Service Medal.

Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Katwa completed his pediatric residency at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and a Fellowship in Pediatric Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine at Harvard. He severed as the Director of the Aerodigestive Center at Boston Children’s Hospital for 7 years and then became the Director of the sleep laboratory at the Children’s Hospital. He was recently elected as the President of the Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin – Sleep (AAPIOS), the largest ethnic sleep physician organization in the US. His research interests include pediatric sleep-disordered breathing and aspiration/reflux-related lung disease and have been widely published in international journals. Dr. Katwa lectures regularly at national and international conferences and is actively involved in training fellows, residents, and medical students at Harvard Medical School. He also does educational seminars and teaches regularly in India to increase awareness of sleep disorders.

Abraxeolus Consulting

Abraxeolus Consulting offers a wide array of problem solving leadership and expertise. While Abraxeolus is broad and has worked on such things as HR Visions, Leadership Assessments, Pricing tactics, and sales force/marketing plans, it has its deepest spikes in strategy, the operationalization of strategy, Business Development, and portfolio selection and management. As its MD, Mr Engert assists clients in such areas as strategy, its operationalization, business development/in-licensing, private equity sourcing and advisory roles, portfolio strategy, selection, and management, operational improvement programs, turnarounds, corporate development, and M&A. Abraxeolus has advised a broad range of clients, from multi-billion dollar multinationals to family-owned businesses in such industries as Biosimilars, Generics, Branded Pharmaceuticals, API, Healthcare Information Exchanges, medical supply companies, distributors, animal health companies, other consulting firms, and not-for-profit agencies.

He was recently the Senior Vice President and Head of Biosimilars for Teva Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for the business unit. Other prior positions include Global Head of Portfolio Management & In-licensing at Teva; Global Head of Portfolio Management & In-licensing at Sandoz; VP of Strategic Planning, Portfolio, and API Sourcing at Geneva Pharmaceuticals; and consultant at McKinsey & Company’s health care practice.

Mr Engert holds an MBA from Wharton and a BS in Mathematics from MIT.

Prof Sharmila Makhija is the Founding Dean and CEO of the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. Founded in 2021, Alice L. Walton School of Medicine will be taught by leading medical and scientific minds to help students rise to the health challenges of the 21st century with a focus on physical, mental, emotional, and social health. The School will be a national, state-of-the-art medical facility located in Bentonville, Arkansas with the goal of welcoming its inaugural class in 2025.

In her new role, Prof Makhija, works with health systems and institutional partners to enhance medical education and prepare students for their future health care roles in the community and country. ​

An international expert on gynecologic care, Prof Makhija most recently served as the Chella and Moise Safra Endowed Chair at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System in New York, where she was also Department Chair of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women’s Health and Professor of gynecologic oncology. ​

Prof Makhija earned her B.A. in Chemistry from Cornell University and her medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at the University of Louisville Hospital and a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She received her executive MBA from Emory’s Goizueta Business School.

​ Dr. Makhija has previously held faculty positions at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she received the medical education award and the Argus Teaching Award from the medical school. At Emory University, she was division chief of gynecologic oncology, a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar, and the Leach Endowed Chair in obstetrics and gynecology. She served as Department Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health, was a tenured professor of gynecologic oncology and the Donald E. Baxter Endowed Chair in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. While there, she also served as the Chief Medical and Operations Officer for the Center for Women and Infants. At the University of Louisville College of Business executive MBA program, she was an instructor for the course “Economics of Health Sector Management.”

​ Dr. Makhija has published and lectured nationally and internationally on developmental therapeutics, such as gene therapy and monoclonal antibody therapy for the treatment of ovarian cancer, for which she received NIH funding as a Women’s Reproductive Health Research Scholar. She has been the Primary Investigator or Co-Primary Investigator for 15 translational/clinical grants and protocols for the NIH, NCI and pharmaceutical companies, including the HPV vaccine trials. She has served as a reviewer for the Department of Defense and the NIH Clinical Oncology Study Section.

Dr. Makhija established a NCI cooperative trial site at Tata Hospital in Mumbai, India to bring cervical cancer trials to patients who most needed access to the latest therapies. She has continued her work in India and served as the Women’s Health Co-Chair for the Global Healthcare Summit in New Delhi, India in 2016, sponsored by the AAPI (American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin) with a focus on Maternal and Infant Mortality.

Dr. Makhija is presently on the editorial board for the Journal of Oncology Practice and has served on the editorial boards for the Women’s Oncology Review Journal and International Journal of Gynecological Cancer. She is a reviewer for the journals Gynecologic Oncology, International Journal of Gynecological Cancer, and Clinical Cancer Research. Dr. Makhija is a graduate of Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM), serves on their advisory board and was an elected representative for AAMC CFAS (American Association of Medical Colleges, Council of Faculty and Academic Societies) while at the University of Louisville. She has served as a board of director member of numerous local, state and national organizations including the University of Louisville Medical Center, KMRRRG malpractice, KY Medicaid (Passport). She currently serves on Women’s Voices for Change, the Foundation for Women’s Cancers and the Indo-American Cancer Association. Dr. Makhija has been listed as a “Top Doctor in America” since 2008.

Mr. Ramu Damodaran is a distinguished diplomat known for his significant contributions to the fields of international relations and cultural diplomacy over a period of 40-years with the United Nations and the Government of India.

Mr. Damodaran is currently Permanent Observer of the University for Peace to the United Nations. He served the United Nations from 1989 to 1991, and again from 1994 to 2021, at which time he directed the Partnerships and Public Engagement Service in the United Nations Department of Global Communications. His responsibilities included outreach to, and cooperation with, global academic entities, civil society organizations and the creative community of entertainment and talent. He supervised the flagship publications of the Organization, UN Chronicle and The Yearbook of the United Nations, as well as the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library.

In 2008 Mr. Damodaran was asked to design the United Nations Academic Impact initiative, which was launched in 2010 and which he led until 2021. More than 1700 universities and institutes of higher education and research are part of this global network today, aligning activities and projects with the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Mr. Damodaran also served, from 2011 to 2021, as Secretary of the United Nations General Assembly’s Committee on Information and as the Department’s focal point for legislative relationships with Member States, including the finalization of resolutions to guide the Organization’s communications strategy.

His career with the United Nations and the Government of India included the position of Executive Assistant to the Prime Minister of India from 1991 to 1994. As a member of the Indian Foreign Service, he served in Indian diplomatic missions in Moscow and at the United Nations and in assignments in New Delhi with a range of governmental ministries, including External Affairs, Defense, Home Affairs, Human Resource Development and Planning.

At the United Nations, he was the Indian delegate to the Fourth Committee and the Special Committee on Decolonization, as well as Chair of the drafting committee of the United Nations Council for Namibia as the territory, then administered by the United Nations, moved to sovereignty and independence. He served as Secretary of the Secretary-General’s mission to Kuwait in 1991 in the wake of Iraq’s occupation of that country.

Mr. Damodaran is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, India, and a member of the Leadership Council of the international Sustainable Development Solutions Network as well as that of the Senior Advisory Council of the International Association of University Presidents. He is also on the boards of the United Nations Association in New York City and of the Committee for Teaching About the United Nations. In addition to regular speaking engagements globally, he has taught and conducted courses on the United Nations at New York University, at Handong Global University and Kyung-Hee University in the Republic of Korea and at Macquarie University in Australia.

Mr. Damodaran is a national of India with a master’s degree in history from the University of Delhi. He has also worked extensively in Indian mass media – television, radio and print publications-and theatre, including as a news anchor and stage actor. His radio feature “Echoes of a Generation” was awarded the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Prize. He was President of the United Nations Staff Recreation Council, which brings together cultural clubs created by staff members, from 2006 to 2021.