Our team
The lab is directed by Prof. Thomas Druetz and is composed by a diversified team, including master, doctorate, and postdoctoral students. It collaborates closely with university partners in Canada and researchers in Haiti and sub-Saharan Africa.
Thomas Druetz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, at the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal and an adjunct professor in the Department of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, at Tulane University (USA). He has developed an expertise in evaluating the implementation and impact of health policies and interventions, particularly through the use of natural experimentation and quasi experimental designs. His research projects focus on initiatives aimed at improving access to health care in rural areas or to reduce malaria transmission. During the last 15 years, in collaboration with different partners, he has conducted studies in the Caribbean, Canada, West Africa and Central Africa.
I have a training in nursing and a professional master in obstetrical, gynecological, and perinatal nursing sciences. My research interest is in maternal and child health, human trafficking and sexual and reproductive health of women and adolescents. For my doctoral project, I aim to study human trafficking, with focus on sexual work exploitation.
I am a nurse and midwife, passionate about the sexual health of women and adolescents.
Lalique Brown is a PhD student in Public Health, concentration Global health. Her research interests are on reproductive health, particularly on the right and the access to abortion in contexts which are legally and culturally restrictive. She collaborates with the lab SAPRIME since 2019, when as part of her master’s project, she evaluated a new policy for free family planning in Burkina Faso. She also coordinated several qualitative and mixed methods research projects in Chad, studying community involvement and transmission of Guinea worm disease and poliomyelitis.
Sarah Cooper is a PhD candidate in Public Health (concentration Global Health), at the School of Public Health of University of Montreal. Her research focuses on maternal health, structural determinants of health and mixed methods. More precisely, within her PhD thesis, she is working on a mixed-methods project whose objective is to incorporate women’s perspective in the evaluation of quality of maternal health care, to evaluate the effects of a free health care policy for women of reproductive age in Burkina Faso.
Ammy Fiadanana holds a medical degree from the University of Antananarivo (Madagascar) and a Master’s in public health, society and development from University Aix-Marseille (France). His 15 year career in public health has grown through humanitarian work and community-based research and action. Over the years, he has accumulated experience in different areas: nutrition, maternal and child health, sexual and reproductive health, HIV. Since Fall 2022 he has been pursuing a PhD in public health at the School of Public Health of University of Montreal. His interests include HIV stigmatisation, intersectionality, and access to HIV screening.
Neda Firouraghi is a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Center in Public Health (CReSP), affiliated with the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal. Her research focuses on two major projects: one examining risk factors and the impact of violent events on healthcare access in the Sahel region, and the other analyzing socio-spatial health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic through the COHESION study. She completed her PhD in Medical Informatics, specializing in spatio-temporal epidemiology of infectious disease. Neda has published peer-reviewed papers, received research grants, reviewed many papers, and collaborated with international professors and researchers from different universities of Canada, Australia, U.S.A, Switzerland, Iran and Pakistan. Her employment history includes postdoctoral fellowship, executive and health information assistant, and lecturer.
Federica holds a medical doctorate from the University of Padua, in Italy and a master’s in Public Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. After years of work in research in Thailand, Papua New Guinea and a post-doctorate at the Research Center of Montreal University Health Center, she worked from 2016 to 2023 on international tuberculosis trials at the Research Center of McGill University Health Center (RI-MUHC). Within the SAPRIME lab, she primarily serves as the coordinators for the ISEASS project and also contributes to the development of other projects of the lab. She loves working on projects that integrate infectious disease control into primary health care.
Vena is an artist and a researcher in public health. Originally from Port-au-Prince, she is now based in Canada, where she shares her time between scientific research and visual arts. Drawing and painting are her favourites forms of artistic expression.
She is completing a PhD in Global Health at the University of Montreal. Her research focuses on transnational public health issues, epidemiology, and population health. Her thesis examines the fragmented institutional landscape of health sector in rural Haiti, using the lenses of complex adaptive systems.
Hi, I’m Modeste from Senegal.
With a master’s degree in Biology, I have worked on seasonal and emerging coronaviruses, focusing particularly on their dynamics and epidemiology. This experience allowed me to participate in several missions in rural areas during the COVID-19 pandemic, where my interactions with local communities have awaken in me a passion for public health. Currently I am pursing a master’s degree in Public Health.
My research objective is to evaluate the impact of opening a health center on improving accessibility to maternal health care in rural Burkina Faso.
Francine holds a bachelor’s degree in Public and Community Affairs from Concordia university, a higher education certificate in Public Health from the University of Montreal and a Master’s in Public Administration at the National School of Public Administration of Gatineau. Francine works on a research project called “Evaluation of public policies and programmes against malnutrition in all its forms, in Burundi”, whose main objective is to analyse the level of implementation of public policies aimed at improving healthy food environments in Burundi. The ultimate goal is to inform public policies for the improvement of population health.
Cheick Oumar Tiendrebeogo is a PhD candidate in Public Health with a concentration Global Health, at the School of Public Health, University of Montreal (ESPUM). He is a medical doctor and also holds a master’s in Health Promotion from ESPUM. His research focuses on maternal and child health in context of security crises. He is particularly interested on the effects of terrorist attacks on family planning in Burkina Faso, using an intersectional perspective. He contributes to academic life at ESPUM as a lecturer in Global Health, a teaching assistant in Prevention and Health Promotion, and a tutor in Community Health at the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Montreal.
Camille Beaujoin holds a master's degree in public health from the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal. During her master, she wrote her research dissertation under the supervision of Thomas Druetz, and in partnership with the Society for Studies and Research in Public Health (SERSAP) in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). Her dissertation focused on the caregiver-caretaker relationship and the decision-making power of women as barriers limiting access to maternal and reproductive care in a context of free health care, in Burkina Faso. She now specializes in evaluating health care interventions.
Physical address
Office 3151 (3rd floor)
7101 av. du Parc, Montréal
Postal address
Montreal University (Université de Montréal)
C.P.6128, City center branch,
Montréal, Québec
H3N 1X9
