Our Core Team
Tropical Health delivers its work through a team of experienced core staff and affiliated consultants.
About Us
Tropical Health is a consultancy group specialising in the monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) of health and related programmes. With decades of team experience, Tropical Health tailors its services to the client’s needs and the nature of the programme, conducts deep research and analysis, and delivers a full, unbiased picture of programme successes and challenges, along with actionable recommendations to improve results.
Caroline Vanderick
Co- founder, Managing Director
Caroline has 25 years of health programme management and MERL experience in Africa and Asia. She is responsible for the company’s development and project delivery and also serves as quality assurer or senior consultant on some assignments. Prior to co-founding Tropical Health, she was the Programme Director of a large UK health NGO, responsible for overseeing and developing its Africa programme portfolio. Clients appreciate Caroline for her dynamic and grounded adaptive management style as well as her leadership and partnership facilitation skills. She has lived and worked in Burundi, Tajikistan, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda and Ethiopia and travelled for short-term assignments in many more countries for a variety of major international donors.
Albert Kilian
Co- founder, Senior Technical Expert
Albert started his public health career in the late 1980s as researcher on onchocerciasis in Liberia. He trained as a paediatrician, then added skills in tropical medicine and medical parasitology, epidemiology, biostatistics, and mathematical modelling of infectious diseases. Since the 1990s his focus was initially on malaria in programme development and implementation at various levels in Uganda, and later shifted to monitoring and evaluation and operations research at the international level. He is an expert in quantitative analysis and evaluation and his strength is his ability to understand the underlying problems and find creative and innovative MERL solutions. After eight years as Tropical Health’s Technical Director, Albert now provides strategic senior technical expertise for our projects.
Helen Merati
MEL Lead
Helen is a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) professional with 20 years of experience spanning consulting organisations, multilateral organisations, global health initiatives, governments, NGOs, and the UK NHS. Before joining Tropical Health Helen spent eight years as an independent consultant, two years working in the NHS and ten years working in a large consulting firm where she specialised in health; providing management, consulting and technical backstopping support to short- and medium-term assignments across Africa and Asia. During her career to date, Helen has managed and contributed to over 30 evaluations, designed and co-designed multiple MEL frameworks, theories of change, participatory evaluation techniques, and learning systems. As a generalist, Helen has worked across a wide range of topic areas including health systems, HIV and AIDS, SRMNCAH, global health security, antimicrobial resistance, neglected tropical diseases, and more. At Tropical Health, Helen is leading on MEL strategy, implementation, and learning initiatives, including integrating innovative MEL methodologies and thinking into Tropical Health’s MEL portfolio.
Nicola Moran
Head of Programmes and Operations
Nicky has 18 years of experience managing operations for health programming across Africa and over 30 years managing company operations and organisational development for support services including human resources, finance, administration and procurement. Prior to joining Tropical Health, she was Regional Operations Manager for Africa for a large consultancy company in the health sector and has worked in the INGO sector and for academic institutions. She has lived and worked in Madagascar and Kenya and has travelled extensively delivering high-quality support to projects and institutions across Africa. At Tropical Health, Nicky ensures efficient and compliant corporate and programmes systems and oversees our programmes management and operations.
Luc Boydens
Finance Manager
Luc is an economist with 25 years’ of experience managing, evaluating and supporting social and economic development programmes in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Luc is now responsible for the overall financial and accounts management of Tropical Health. Before taking this role, Luc was the Deputy Managing Director of a large value chain programme in Ethiopia after spending four years in Uganda managing a pilot Results-Based Financing health programme in Northern part of the country, which is highly valuable for his current role within Tropical Health. During his career to date, Luc led several mid- and end-term programme evaluations in various sectors, using OECD development assistance evaluation criteria as framework.
Katie Nield
Project and Operations Coordinator
Katie has nearly 20 years of experience in project delivery in various settings. At Tropical Health, she is involved in the management of several projects, working with a broad range of clients and partners. Her portfolio includes the 5-year Ghana Participation Programme funded by FCDO where she manages human resources, operations, compliance, logistics and finance. She also manages shorter term assignments such as the Global Fund funded multi-country Malaria Active Case Detection Thematic Review, or the Gates funded Health Campaigns Digitisation Evaluation. Her remit also includes leading on consultants management and Tropical Health’s website oversight as well as supporting other core operational functions. Her previous role was External Funding Team Leader for the Research and Knowledge Transfer Unit at a UK academic institution.
Sally Chandler
Technical Lead
Sally has 12 years’ experience leading complex programmes within international development and healthcare in Africa, Asia and the UK. Working with a range of diverse stakeholders and donors, she offers advanced skills in the design and implementation of MEL strategies, with a passion for inclusivity and sustainability. Sally provides technical coordination and expertise to Tropical Health’s projects with her portfolio including a thematic evaluation of the UK Met Office’s Weather and Climate Information Services (WISER) and an end term evaluation of an inclusive eye health programme in Uganda and Malawi. Sally is leading specific data analysis and evidence synthesis for other projects, most recently, analysing and reporting results from an online survey investigating approaches for social and behaviour change to prevent holes in ITNs, and a trends analysis in community level per diem rates in sub Saharan Africa. She is also contributing to manuscript writing for scientific journal publications. She previously worked at Sightsavers, where she designed and led the MEL framework implementation for the UK Aid Connect funded economic empowerment of people with disabilities programme.
Eleanore Sternberg
Research Manager
Eleanore has a background in infectious disease ecology with a PhD from Emory University. She has spent the past ten years focused on vector-borne diseases, with most of that time devoted to the development and evaluation of new malaria vector control interventions. Prior to joining Tropical Health, Eleanore has managed research projects from the laboratory to a large, cluster randomized controlled trial in Côte d’Ivoire. In addition to Côte d’Ivoire, Eleanore has worked in Ghana, Benin, and Tanzania. She brings strong quantitative skills, extensive project management experience, and an ability to synthesize and communicate complex information. At Tropical Health, Eleanore works closely with the Technical Director to deliver on project implementation and consultancy services.
Nico Upton
Operations and Project Officer
Nico has a humanitarian and NGO background, with four years of experience working in operations and logistics. He is responsible for supporting the management and operational function of Tropical Health, providing effective administrative and logistical support across the project portfolio as well as aiding the organisational management and development processes. Prior to joining Tropical Health, he worked for a homeless charity in Bristol, UK as a project coordinator, facilitating a food insecurity project. After university, he lived in Northern Greece for two years working for an international refugee charity, providing leadership and management to a large multicultural team of staff and volunteers across various programmes in two camps, including aid distribution and psychosocial support.
Matt Worges
Public Health Analyst
Matt has more than 14 years’ experience in the implementation, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of malaria and other global health programmes. He completed his PhD in Tropical Medicine from Tulane University where he also conducted his postdoctoral studies. His research focused on the use of mobile phone-based surveys in Tanzania to measure key bed net indicators. During his post-doc, he led the quantitative aspect of an impact evaluation for a health systems strengthening project in the DRC, which made use of HMIS data. Before joining the PhD programme, Matt worked on malaria diagnostics projects serving as an M&E specialist. He primarily supported and travelled extensively to Mali, DRC, Madagascar, Zambia, and Benin. Matt brings with him extensive analytical skills having conducted various, complex statistical analyses as well as qualitative work. He is particularly interested in time series and geospatial analyses. At Tropical Health, Matt leads projects in a technical capacity, conducts quantitative and qualitative analyses, and supports the design of prospective programmes. He currently spearheads our contribution to the USAID PMI-funded Tanzania Vector Control Activity as well as the end-of-programme evidence synthesis for a large, health systems strengthening endeavour in South Sudan called the Health Pooled Fund.
Stephen Poyer
Associate – Senior Technical Specialist
Stephen is a public health epidemiologist with 14 years’ experience leading and supporting project MERL activities across sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining Tropical Health, Stephen provided evidence leadership to a large international health NGO, defining research agendas, leading multi country project teams, and championing data use. His research background includes malaria, child health and infectious disease, WASH, and private sector service delivery and quality. He brings technical expertise in theories of change, evaluation design, and quantitative and qualitative analysis, and a pragmatic approach to implementation. Stephen is appreciated for his leadership skills, his open and collaborative approach, and his focus on quality improvement. Stephen steers the company in all technical matters and learning, assures the quality of our work and provides senior consultancy services to our clients.
Our Partners and Clients
Tropical Health is proud to work with a diverse range of organisations from across the globe.
- Children Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF)
- Ecorys
- Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM)
- Itad
- Johns Hopkins University Center for Communications Programs (JHU-CCP)
- Light for the World
- Malaria Consortium
- Management Sciences for Health
- Montrose International
- Mott MacDonald
- Oxford Policy Management
- PATH
- Population Services International
- QED Group
- Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust Trachoma Initiative Africa
- Results for Development
- Sightsavers International
- Society for Family Health
- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO/UKAid)
- United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
- United States President’s Malaria Initiative
- World Bank
- World Health Organization
Clients choose to work with us because...
- We offer state of the art technical expertise;
- We bring scientific rigor and objectivity;
- We develop context-specific solutions drawn from international evidence and best practices;
- We have vast experience in programme design and implementation as well as consultancy management;
- We deliver timely and quality outputs against tight deadlines;
- We can work in and adapt to different settings, including poorly resourced environments;
- We are dynamic, responsive to client’s needs and bring a positive, solutions-driven approach to the work we do.
Work with Us
Join us as a MERL consultant for work on projects across several sectors and countries
Partner with Us
Partner with us for quality MERL services for projects funded or executed by your organisation