Technical Advisor, Epidemiologist - Asia

CHAI’s global malaria and neglected tropical disease (NTD) program provides direct technical and operational support to countries around the globe to strengthen their programs and reduce the burden of preventable, treatable diseases. We support governments to scale up effective interventions for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance, with the goals of sustainably reducing the number of illnesses and deaths worldwide in the short-term and accelerating progress towards elimination of malaria and NTDs in the long term.

CHAI has been working on malaria programs in Asia since 2008 with a focus on elimination in the Greater Mekong Subregion. In 2024, CHAI commenced work on dengue, which includes supporting the deployment of mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia .

Position Overview

CHAI is seeking a highly motivated individual with strong public health experience and analytical skills to serve as an epidemiologist and technical advisor to its teams across Asia. This role offers a unique opportunity for a talented individual to apply epidemiological and analytical skills to guide the operations of a cross-country disease elimination program and an opportunity to help end two diseases in the Asia region. The successful candidate will be a key technical and strategic voice in the region, leading CHAI’s work on malaria and dengue analytics and surveillance.

The successful candidate will lead a small team of epidemiologists working directly with government counterparts to assess, design, and scale-up disease surveillance systems; conduct robust data analysis; and monitor and evaluate the success of ongoing efforts to achieve malaria elimination and dengue control. The individual will collaborate with a diverse team of CHAI staff based across multiple countries (primarily but not exclusively in Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, India, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea), government programs, academics, and public health agencies. The successful candidate will possess strong communication, organizational, and management skills; work independently to drive implementation; have the potential to grow into a global health leader; and have deep personal commitment to producing results.

Regional Strategy:

Serve as a technical and strategic leader for the region on malaria, dengue and expanding portfolios where required

Lead all malaria and dengue surveillance and analytics work for the GMS and other geographies, as required

Serve as an expert/technical advisor for epidemiological questions to CHAI’s regional team, country teams, and for senior leadership

Support rigorous evidence-based planning of intervention deployment, and design and implement monitoring to evaluate effectiveness of current government interventions, and identify potential approaches or strategies to accelerate progress

With the CHAI Regional Manager, country Program Managers and MoH counterparts, discuss and design CHAI and MoH strategy for malaria elimination and dengue control;

Technical project management:

Oversee the implementation of analytics, surveillance, and technology projects to support evidence-based decisions

Contribute to the formulation of annual work plans across multiple countries

Organize, clean, and integrate datasets; conduct statistical analyses; and develop and interpret malaria risk maps and stratifications

Lead monitoring and evaluation of the performance of existing and new surveillance processes and platforms, and identify ways of improving them

Review and ensure high-quality surveillance and analytics guidelines and SOPs, M&E plans, lessons learned documents, and operational manuals

Oversee design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination of operational research projects related to surveillance, intervention effectiveness, and entomology

Support the development of country-led systems for conducting data analysis and leading surveillance related processes;

Team management and partner collaboration:

Directly manage, onboard, provide technical mentorship, supervision, guidance, and training to a small team of junior and mid-level epidemiologists based across the region

Work directly with country teams and governmental staff to better integrate epidemiological, entomological, and programmatic data use and analysis into routine programmatic activities at all levels of the health system

Cultivate and establish relationships with local academic institutions, NGOs (e.g. PSI, PATH), and regional organizations (e.g. WHO, APMEN) working on data analysis or surveillance to inform elimination goals, which may include management of contracts with external partners

Foster a collaborative and high-performing team culture across malaria, dengue, and cross-cutting workstreams, helping build strong connections between technical, country, and regional teams;

Communication and knowledge management

Manage and develop resources and best practices to share lessons across teams; synthesize and disseminate findings through high-quality presentations, reports, and publications

Represent CHAI at external technical meetings, acting as the face of the organization to academic/technical partners within the region, including via the dissemination of findings through high-quality presentations, reports, and publications

Review and/or contribute to the development of the technical sections of grant deliverables and internal reporting (power points, programmatic reports, grant proposals, scoping documents);

Any other tasks identified.

Masters or PhD in public health, epidemiology or related field

5+ years of work experience with increasing levels of responsibility and leadership, including management experience

Enthusiasm for applying research methods to solve global health problems, focusing on malaria and/or other major global infectious disease concerns

Experience mentoring and managing junior technical staff

Experience with designing, conducting, and analysing epidemiological surveys

Experience in evaluating, working with, and strengthening disease surveillance systems

Experience in working and communicating with government officials and other external partners

Experience with strategic development for public health

Exceptional skills in the epidemiological analysis of health data and the application of analyses for decision-making

Statistical and geospatial analysis programming experience (including expertise with R, STATA, ArcGIS, QGIS and/or other relevant software)

High levels of proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and internet applications

Proficiency in report writing and other concise written communications

Ability to work independently in remote and unstructured settings and to adapt to new environments and challenges

Ability to collaborate and operate as part of a multicultural team

Exceptional written and oral communication skills

Willingness to travel extensively (30% of time)

Fluency in English

Advantages :

Knowledge of malaria, dengue, and/or other major global infectious disease problems

Experience in programming (e.g., JavaScript, Python) and/or working with surveillance platforms (e.g. DHIS2), data collection tools (e.g. ODK, SurveyCTO) and/or data visualization applications (e.g. Tableau, PowerBI)

Experience working in fast-paced, output-oriented environments

Experience living or working in resource-limited settings, especially in the Greater Mekong Subregion

Burmese, Khmer, Laos, Thai, and/or Vietnamese language proficiency.

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