Clinical Research Training Programme (CRTP) Fellows
Yogish C B
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Yogish is a tech-savvy individual born and raised in Chilakavadi, Chamarajanagar. With a background in BAMS and MPH, he has gained valuable experience working as a DPC for an NCD project with the Karnataka state government and as an epidemiologist with MSF throughout his career. For the past 5 years, he has been dedicatedly contributing to IPH.
He is thrilled to join the CRTP fellowship, as it presents an excellent opportunity for him to further enhance his data analysis skills and collaborate with other fellows from diverse disciplinary backgrounds under the CTRITH project. He is enthusiastic about embarking on this new journey and looks forward to leveraging his skills to address complex challenges and contribute to the advancement of healthcare and public health.
Santosh Sogal
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Santosh (santosh@iphindia.org) holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work and has training in public health. They have prior experience working with the Institute of Public Health, primarily focusing on strengthening the local health system and enhancing care for diabetic and hypertension patients in rural populations. Santosh has also facilitated capacity building for taluka and district health managers for national health program reviews by using an indicator dashboard. They have conducted household surveys with field teams in various districts of Karnataka.
Additionally, Santosh has worked in the National Health Mission as a district program coordinator for the community process unit under the district reproductive and child health officer in Dharwad district for three years. Before joining the CRTP fellowship, they worked as a Research Associate in the One Health Research Project at Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra, BR Hills.
Santosh is enthusiastic about commencing the fellowship journey with the CTRITH team. They hope to acquire analytical skills and enhance their writing and presentation skills through the CRTP fellowship. Moreover, Santosh aims to become proficient in writing their research proposals by the end of this fellowship.
Manashri
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Manashri (manashri@iphindia.org) has completed their BAMS and MPH degrees. They possess seven years of experience as a public health professional, having worked with the National Health Mission (NHM) in both Gujarat and Maharashtra. Additionally, Manashri has gained valuable experience through their involvement with the non-governmental organization Jan Swasthya Sahyog and the Department of Community Medicine at MGIMS, Sewagram, Wardha, Maharashtra. These diverse experiences have provided Manashri with unique learning opportunities, enabling their growth as a public health professional at every stage of their career.
In their personal life, Manashri enjoys traveling, reading, and singing. They have a fondness for playing and chatting with children. Manashri’s specific interest areas within the field of public health include Health System Strengthening, Maternal Health, and Tribal Health.
Excitement fills Manashri as they anticipate the CRTP fellowship, as they believe it will further enhance their research skills and facilitate their development into an independent public health professional.
Praveen Rao S
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Praveen Rao S, originally from Gidada Hola, a foothill village between Mandya and Ramanagar districts, is a true rural talent with a pure Kannada medium background. Like many, he migrated to Bengaluru in search of livelihood and embarked on a journey that saw him explore various jobs, from being a security guard and working in retail banking to loan recovery and warehouse management. However, during this journey, he discovered his true passion: media communication and advocacy, a field in which he has gained nearly a decade of experience.
Praveen’s strengths lie in effective media communication at both the state and district levels, using media as a powerful tool for policy advocacy, community engagement, and some level of social media management and design. Despite being a college dropout, he kept going and completed his BA alongside his PR profession, and recently, he earned a post-graduation degree in rural development. Currently, he is working as a Public and Policy Engagement Officer for CTRITH in IPH Bengaluru, an association that spans over a decade. With the CRTP fellowship, his aspiration is to transform into a dedicated public health researcher in the true meaning and sense with a focus on community and policy engagement. He is committed to further enhancing his communication, presentation, public addressing, and policy engagement skills, all while collaborating with a diverse group of co-fellows and benefiting from the guidance of mentors. His ultimate goal is to make a significant contribution to public health in a meaningful way. Praveen is also a proud father of an 8-year-old Champ, and in 2022, they relocated from the capital city, Namma Bengaluru, to Mysore. This move prompted a slight change in their slogan, from “Namma Bengaluru” to “Namma Mysuru.”
Alen Alexander
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Alen, calls himself a migrant for life, being born in Kerala and spent his childhood in the Middle East, returning to India to study further in Kerala and later Karnataka. Alen felt his call to work with people from different parts of India and raise his skills to collaborate and bring solutions for social issues like community mental health in India. He has spent the last nine years getting his Master in Social Work from CHRIST, Bengaluru and clinical training through his Master in Philosophy in Psychiatric Social Work from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal and continuing to work in Karnataka. On the lighter side, he is an admirer of the arts and has taken up a recent interest in cultures and languages.
He worked as a project coordinator with the School Health Annual Report Programme (SHARP) NGO where he executed a CSR project focusing on energy conservation awareness for school children and capacity building for teachers in Bengaluru. He worked as a psychiatric social worker identifying families with multiple first-degree relatives with a history of mental illness, assessing them for research-related requirements and providing psychosocial interventions for the Center for Brain and Mind (then ‘Accelerator program for Discovery of Brain disorders using Stem cells (ADBS) project funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India) at NIMHANS, Bengaluru for three years.
Before joining the fellowship, he worked as a Psychiatric Social Worker under the Department of Psychiatric Social Work at NIMHANS, Bengaluru for a year where he taught and supervised trainees part of the MPhil program and block placement postings from external institutions, managed patients and caregivers consulting for clinical services for psychosocial assessment & interventions and collaborated with the multidisciplinary teams in the institution in academic and research activities. He also designed and conducted workshops, orientation and training programs for postgraduate students in mental healthcare and allied health sciences, visitors and stakeholders from various external institutions & agencies.
With the CRTP fellowship, Alen hopes to use his skills to address the challenges in tribal mental health and get trained in public health and improve his research & analytical skills to become an independent practitioner and researcher in public mental health.