Keynote
Prof Linda-Gail Bekker is the Chief Executive Officer of the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation and Director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa. Prof Bekker is a physician, scientist and infectious disease specialist. Her research interests include programmatic and action research around antiretroviral roll-out and TB integration, prevention of HIV in women, youth and MSM. Prof Bekker serves on numerous international scientific and advisory committees. She is a A+ rated scientist, has published >700 peer-reviewed papers.
ESI Presentation
Nadra Lisha is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Prevention Science at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Department of Medicine. A trained biostatistician, she specializes in applying advanced statistical methods to address challenges in addiction-related research, including tobacco use, missing data, comorbid conditions, and multiple drug use.
Nadra is an active collaborator, consultant, and co-author with numerous investigators, postdoctoral fellows, and trainees, primarily at UCSF. Much of her published work emerges from a group science approach, with multiple co-authors contributing to shared research. In these collaborations, Nadra typically serves as a quantitative methodologist, guiding study design and planning, monitoring data collection, and ensuring data quality.
In addition to research, Nadra mentors postdoctoral fellows and other trainees in data management and statistical analysis. This includes providing guidance on both routine and advanced analyses as well as directly performing novel statistical applications. Since 2014, she has also served as a statistician on Dr. Ling’s U01 study at the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE), which evaluates innovative interventions to prevent tobacco use among young adults in bars and nightclubs.