Maha Abusamra is a consultant/trainer with over 20 years of experience in gender and programme management. She applied the Positive Deviance approach in the areas of gender equality in the Middle East and is one of the founders of the Palestine UN Gender Innovation Lab. She worked with UNDP, UNRWA and Catholic Relief Services on Gender, Governance, Social Development programmes, as well as in the private sector.

Diane Baik is a consultant with over eight years of applying the positive deviance approach in the areas of health and nutrition. She has worked with World Vision and World Bank on various projects.

Casey Blochowiak is the director of curriculum and learning for a K-12 public school district. She has 2 years of experience using the positive deviance approach in the U.S. to provide a framework for school districts to look within and identify teachers whose instructional approaches/strategies yield increased academic success for students.

Samir Chaudhuri is the director of the Child In Need Institute with expertise in nutrition, mother & child health, adolescent health & nutrition, and child protection. He has worked with CINI, UNICEF, Dept. of Women & Child, and the government of West Bengal, India and has over 25 years of experience with the PD approach.

Dr. Cissé holds a PhD in Food and Nutrition, and brings over 15-years of professional experience in coordinating and managing health and nutrition programs. He was responsible for the conception and implementation of nutrition activities including support to the Food, Nutrition and Child Survival Division (DANSE) of the Ministry of Health in Senegal and played a key role in promoting the PD/hearth model approach in Senegal.

Lucia Dura is an academic and consultant with areas of expertise in qualitative methods and evaluation with the positive deviance approach. She has prior experience implementing positive deviance in the areas of vulnerable populations, education, healthcare, and most recently, correctional prison populations. She has worked in many countries, including the United States, Uganda, and Indonesia.

Michael Gardam is the Director for Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control at the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion. Michael is a PD Champion for the reduction of the hospital-acquired infection MRSA. Within Canada, he has helped a number of hospitals control outbreaks and develop their infection control programs.

David Gasser has been interviewed for numerous Positive Deviance publications for his abilities to apply the Positive Deviance approach in diverse areas like the private sector, public agencies, health-care and education. David works as a consultant and has been applying the Positive Deviance approach for over 12 years.

Ahmet Günes own his own company, Günes Consulting, where he has worked in applying the Positive Deviance approach for over eight years. He has worked in the private sector, in education, and with children with his own company as well as with PD Academy.

Tamotsu Ito is an organizer of the Positive Deviance Japan Network as well as a Master Black Belt of Six-Sigma with over 7 years of experience with the PD approach. His areas of expertise include the private sector and welfare for people living with dementia.

Masamine Jimba conducts global health research in many lower income countries and has advocated the Positive Deviance approach in Asian-Pacific countries for over 7 years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his team has been carrying out WeCanChange Initiative for COVID-19 using the PD concept.

Inger W. Johannsen is a partner at Reflexio based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She brings over five years of experience to the Positive Deviance approach and has extensive knowledge working in sectors like vulnerable populations and education. She has worked with institutions for institutionalized children, and within the educational sector.

Since 2002, Paul I Kadetz has examined health and development interventions in his research and scholarship from a perspective of assets-based approaches, particularly Positive Deviance. With over 18 years of experience with the PD approach on 5 continents, he specializes in population health and international development with a focus on China, Philippines, and the United States.

Siaka Konate is an independent consultant on the use of the Positive Deviance approach in West Africa. Born and raised in Mali, Siaka has worked for Save the Children US and trained numerous organizations on the use of the approach to combat childhood malnutrition and scaled his approach to over 387 communities around Africa.

Dileep Kumar is a Public Health Specialist, PhD Scholar and USAID-funded project manager who has worked with organizations like RSPN and HANDS on Positive Deviance related projects including a polio eradication program, Nutrition, Family Planning and a Maternal and Child Health Program funded by DFID, USAID and WHO. He has over 6 years of experience implementing the Positive Deviance approach in Pakistan.

F. James Levinson has been practicing positive deviance since the early 1980s and has decades of experience applying positive deviance in the nutrition realm. He has worked with UNICEF, USAID, and the World Bank in many regions around the world including South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Jane Lewis is a consultant that has worked with the government, third sector, universities, and commercial companies through a social enterprise organization. She taught Positive Deviance at Oxford University, HEC Paris, and Oxford Brookes University. With over nine years of experience with the Positive Deviance approach, she has many publications dedicated to the approach.

Curt Lindberg has 14 years of experience using the PD approach specifically within the healthcare and educational sectors in North and South America. His work has been received by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among many other international organizations.

Jon Lloyd is a senior clinical advisor for Plexus Institute and a Senior Associate at the PD Initiative. He worked on a community-wide effort to eliminate endemic Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Dr. Lloyd is currently coaching several of these hospitals and is also applying PD to the problems of youth violence and the twenty five year disparity in longevity that affects people with serious mental illness.

Debora Niyeha is a Resident Advisor working with Institute for International Programs at Johns Hopkins University coordinating National Evaluation Platform in Tanzania with over 12 years of experience in PDH programming. She played a key role in establishing PDH programing at World Vision and Aga Khan Foundation both in Tanzania and Uganda. She continues to be PDH champion and provide support to other institutions across East Africa Region.

Dr. Patricia A Omidian has over 20 years of experience using the Positive Deviance approach in psychosocial support, community wellness, and disaster/post-conflict. She has worked in West Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East for organizations such as Focusing Initiatives, Aga Khan University, UNICEF, WHO, Save The Children, and The IRC.

Nobuyuki Ota is a Partner at Valeocon Management Consulting with expertise in applying Positive Deviance to the private sector. He has worked with PD Japan in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region and has been applying the Positive Deviance approach for over four years.

Muhammad Shafique is a specialist in communication and behaviour change with areas of expertise in malaria and dengue prevention and control, maternal and newborn health, and polio eradication. He has worked with Malaria Consortium, Save the Children, and Merlin organzations and in many countries, including Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Pakistan.

Anirudra Sharma is a Positive Deviance professional with experience in nutrition work in South Asia and Nepal. He has used the positive deviance approach for over four years with organizations like Save the Children and UNICEF.

Akira Shibanuma has been a community health and economic researcher in resource-limiting settings for eight years. He teaches the Positive Deviance approach for postgraduate students in the international health program at the University of Tokyo and conducts Positive Deviance research in Cambodia.

Christina Shoemaker Simmons is a consultant with areas of expertise in education, immigrant accultration, public health and pacific islanders. She has worked extensively in Hawaii, United States with social services and schools and community groups while applying the Positive Deviance approach for over seven years.

Angela Sims is a consultant with experience in the public sector, communities, and not-for-profit. She has worked primarily in the United Kingdom with Woodward Lewis and Hidden Insights while applying the positive deviance approach for over thirteen years.

Dr. Arvind Singhal describes himself as a sense maker and amplifier of positive deviance. Dr. Singhal has been involved with the in-depth documentation of the Positive Deviance approach. He has served as a co-facilitator of numerous PD meetings, has guided several graduate theses on positive deviance, and has raised the “volume” on PD in his courses, lectures, and keynotes in the past six years.

Monique Sternin is one of the pioneers of the PD approach and has worked closely with diverse communities and organizations worldwide to teach and implement the PD approach for over 20 years. Her work spans various sectors including education, public health, and displaced populations, among others.

Lars Thuesen is a PD consultant with 10 years of experience specialized in the justice, social, and humanitarian sector, among many others. He is involved with UN agencies, local authorities, and government sectors.