The People Behind This Campaign

Dr. Sonya Stokes, MD, MPH

Emergency Physician · Campaign Co-Organizer

Dr. Sonya Stokes is an emergency physician and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where she has served on the Independent Task Force on Preparing for the Next Pandemic. She earned her medical degree from the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, and completed fellowship training in international emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, where she also earned a Master of Public Health in the program on forced migration and humanitarian assistance.

During her fellowship, she evaluated a community-based surveillance system monitoring internally displaced people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — work that connects directly to the surveillance gaps driving today's outbreak. She co-organized this campaign to get protective equipment and support to the Congolese health workers holding the line.

Dr. Andi Tenner, MD, MPH, FACEP

Professor of Emergency Medicine, UCSF · Campaign Co-Organizer

Dr. Andrea "Andi" Tenner is a board-certified physician in both emergency medicine and internal medicine. She completed a fellowship in International Emergency Medicine and an MPH focused on forced migration and humanitarian crisis, and holds a Certificate of Knowledge in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers' Health from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. She currently serves as Director for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response for the City and County of San Francisco, is a Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and is UCSF Global Health Sciences Affiliate Faculty.

Her career has focused on disaster preparedness and response, strengthening emergency care systems before and after disasters, and tropical infectious disease. She has worked across South America and sub-Saharan Africa — including an active conflict zone in South Kivu, DR Congo; the building-collapse response in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and overseeing Ebola Isolation Units for the International Rescue Committee in Sierra Leone. She served in multiple roles during the COVID-19 response, including Department of Public Health Incident Command, and led the Mpox Incident Management Team.

She has taught disaster-management principles for the U.S. Department of State and served as an expert consultant for the WHO Academy Mass Casualty Management Course. She was one of four editors of the WHO Basic Emergency Care Course, which has been taught to over 20,000 people worldwide. She currently serves on the WHO Technical Advisory Group for Integrated Clinical Services and sits on the boards of the African Federation for Emergency Medicine and the Global Snakebite Initiative.

Les Roberts

Epidemiologist · Professor Emeritus, Columbia University

Les Roberts is a Professor Emeritus at Columbia University. After four years at the CDC and a chapter with the WHO working during the Rwandan genocide, he conducted a series of mortality surveys in the adjacent parts of DR Congo with the International Rescue Committee — where Gang Karume was the logistician. These studies, documenting the deadliest war since World War II, received front-page coverage in the New York Times and led to a twelve-fold increase in U.S. humanitarian spending in Eastern DRC.

During that work, Les was arrested for carrying a satellite phone by a police commandant notorious for publicly executing people outside his office; Gang phoned his military contacts and got Les released within hours, and repeatedly arranged airlifts when interview teams were trapped by intense fighting. Gang became an author on the studies — something the IRC had never before done with a logistician. So grateful was one State Department official for the IRC studies that, when Les took a half-time position at Columbia, the official — unsolicited — offered to cover the other half of his salary for the next four years.

Over two decades at Columbia, 18 of Les's graduate students did practicums and projects with RHA in Eastern DRC, and most of his published field work was done in partnership with RHA and Gang Karume. Since retiring, both of his major field projects have been volunteer work for RHA in the Central African Republic and DRC.

Augustin Gang Karume

Technical Advisor · Rebuild Hope for Africa

Augustin Gang Karume is a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo with nearly three decades of humanitarian and development experience across both operations and programmes. He has worked in many African countries — including Chad, Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, and Nigeria — in roles including Country Director, Regional Operations Director, and Emergency Operations Director. He has an exceptional knowledge of the Great Lakes region and its power dynamics.

He currently supports the national non-profit Rebuild Hope for Africa (RHA) as Technical Advisor (part-time). In 2023 he spearheaded a countrywide mortality survey in the Central African Republic, and he is currently finalizing two mortality surveys in Eastern DRC with longtime colleagues. He has contributed to studies with reputed institutions including LSHTM, Columbia University, Tufts University, and Johns Hopkins. He also lectures at the Catholic University and the Official University of Bukavu, DRC, and is in the third year of his PhD in biodiversity conservation.