91��ɫ

Part of the 2026-2027.

Discover the latest research on environmental health challenges following the war in Ethiopia, with a special focus on Tigray. Hear findings from peer-reviewed studies, learn about ongoing research, and join an interactive discussion on humanitarian recovery, global health, and strengthening collaboration between the Global South and Global North.

Environmental health services, including water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and infection prevention and control (IPC), are essential for disease prevention and quality healthcare delivery. However, these services are often severely disrupted during war and humanitarian crises. The war in the Tigray region of Ethiopia (2020-2022) caused widespread destruction of WASH infrastructure, weakened IPC practices, and increased the burden of preventable diseases. This seminar presents evidence on community and healthcare facility WASH and IPC conditions in war-affected Tigray, highlights key environmental health challenges, and discusses opportunities for further research, collaboration, and sustainable recovery to strengthen health systems and community resilience.

Researchers, practitioners, policymakers, students, and humanitarian professionals are all welcome.

Speaker Profile

Akeza Awealom Asgedom is an Environmental Public Health Specialist with over 16 years of experience in public health research, teaching, and academic leadership. His work focuses on environmental and occupational health, humanitarian crises, conflict-related health impacts, and health systems resilience. He has published more than 45 peer-reviewed articles and has led numerous externally funded research projects. He previously served as Head of the School of Public Health at Mekelle University (2020-2023). He currently serves as a Community Fellow at 91��ɫ's Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research and as an Affiliate Scholar at The Africa Institute, Western University. He is also a Middle-Level Manager (MLM) for Technical Professionals trainee at The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Toronto Metropolitan University.

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The gentleman's climate cafe is a guided conversation space designed by men, for men to explore the emotional and psychological impacts of the climate crisis. Many men feel pressure to stay silent, stay strong, or stay "logical" - even when the future feels heavy.
But climate change isn't just a scientific or political issue. It's a human one. A masculine one. A mental health one.

This cafe offers a space to:

• Talk openly about fear, anger, grief, and hope
• Explore what climate courage means to you
• Connect with others and feel less alone
• Reclaim emotional honesty as strength

The collaborative Climate Café & Climate Fresk combines two proven approaches to engaging about climate change:

Climate Fresk is an interactive workshop that helps participants understand the science, causes, and impacts of climate change through collaborative learning. Using information based on IPCC research, you’ll work with others to explore how climate systems are connected and gain a deeper understanding of today’s climate challenges. Climate Café provides a safe space to talk about how you are being impacted, share thoughts and feelings, and begin to identify how you can take meaningful climate action.

Together this combined event gives you the knowledge you need, process the emotions you have and builds your resilience to take action for the benefit of you, your community and our planet.

Help us test out this novel idea, while developing your skills and having fun! Drinks and snacks will be provided.

Monday 5th October, 2026 – 2:30 PM, In Person

Organized by WIL – Wellness Impact Lab and The Office of Sustainability.

Global health is at a critical juncture. Geopolitical shifts, declining and increasingly uncertain funding, changing patterns of global interdependence, and declining public trust have placed unprecedented pressures on the institutions and arrangements through which countries cooperate to protect and improve health. Yet this disruption also creates an opportunity to ask a more fundamental question: rather than continuing to reform the existing system, should we rethink its architecture altogether?

In this special 90-minute event at the Dahdaleh Institute of Global Health, Professor Kelley Lee will explore the case for transforming the global health architecture. Drawing on her 2025 Wellcome Trust-commissioned paper, A Proposal for Transforming the Global Health Architecture, and referring to the ideas put forth by four other regional papers, she will begin by examining the historical evolution and current shortcomings of the global health system. The existing architecture, she argues, has developed in a largely ad hoc manner, resulting in fragmented institutions, overlapping mandates, insecure financing and governance arrangements that can struggle to respond to an increasingly interconnected world. The current disruption may therefore represent not simply a crisis, but a rare opportunity to go “back to the drawing board.”

This seminar is held in collaboration with the and Graduate Program in Global Health, School of Global Health at 91��ɫ.

In preparation for this seminar, Dr. Lee has recommended reading:

Speaker Profile

Dr. Kelley Lee is trained in International Relations and Public Administration with a focus on international political economy. She spent over twenty years at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was a core member of donor-led studies of WHO reform during the 1990s. She co-established the WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Change and Health, and chaired the WHO Resource Group on Globalization, Trade and Health. Dr Lee also co-led the Guildford Archiving Project to secure public access to internal tobacco industry documents, and then the Global Tobacco Control Research Programme to analyze their contents in relation to the globalization of the tobacco industry. Her research has been funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Cancer Research UK, European Research Council, Health Canada, New Frontiers in Research Fund, Nuffield Trust, Rockefeller Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, UK Economic and Social Research Council, UN Population Fund, US National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Trust, Canadian Biomedical Research Fund, World Health Organization and several governments.

She has authored 140+ peer-reviewed papers, 70+ book chapters and 15 books including The World Health Organization (Routledge, 2009), Researching Corporations and Global Health Governance (Rowman and Littlefield International with Ben Hawkins, 2016) and the Oxford Handbook of Global Health Politics (OUP with Colin McInnes and Jeremy Youde, 2020). She joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2011 as Associate Dean, Research and Director of Global Health. She is a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health, Royal College of Physicians, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

(via Zoom or Room 401, Health, Nursing, and Environmental Studies Building)

RSVP