About the seminar series

The webinars alternate between a selected topic of general interest and meetings with presentation of PhD proposals or other work in progress. The webinars strengthen the links between CISMAC’s partner institutions and CIH, and fosters linkages to other researchers at the University of Bergen and in its collaborating low- and middle-income country research institutions.

Bilde
An Illustration of a keyboard with webinar written on it
Photo: Colourbox

Web-link

We use Zoom for the webinars. Link will be sent out prior to each meeting to everyone on our e-mail list. If you would like to recieve an invitation please send an e-mail to cismac@uib.no

Ideas for topics

When opportunities for particularly interesting talks/seminars suitable for online presentations arise, we may change the schedule accordingly. Needless to say, such changes will be made in agreement with the presenters of scheduled webinars and will be announced as early as possible, and no later than two weeks prior to a specifically scheduled webinar.

If you have ideas for topics that could be of general interest to CISMAC researchers, please write to cismac@uib.no and Ingvild.sandoy@uib.no.

Please help us spread this information about the webinars with other members of your research team.

2026 - spring semester

Date: May 6
Time: 13:00-14:30 CET
Title: "Effect of LActation SUpport and HUman Milk banks in Uganda on health, breastfeeding and growth in very low birthweight infants: a project description"
Presenter: Ingunn Engebretsen 

Date: April 8
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: TBA
Presenter: TBA

Date: March 11 
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: TBA
Presenter: Vundli Ramokolo

Date: January 14 
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: "Accountability Beyond Blame: Rethinking Maternal Death Surveillance and Response"
Presenter: Mulu Beyene Kidanemaria

2025 - fall semester

Date: December 10 
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: “Accountability and the framing of avoidable maternal deaths: Perspectives from maternal death reviews in Tanzania”
Presenter: Kerstin Almdal

Date: November 12 (Cancelled. Will be rescheduled for spring 2026)
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: TBA
Presenter: Vundli Ramokolo

Date: October 8
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: “Rethinking Implementation Science: Lessons from a decade (2015-25) experience of Multi-implementation Research Projects in Ethiopia”
Presenter: Araya Abrha Medhanyie 

Date: September 10
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: "Linear growth beyond 24 months and child neurodevelopment in low-and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis"
Presenter: Ravi Upadhyay

2025 - spring semester

Date: June 11
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: "The effectiveness of alcohol based handrub, given to women in the community in preventing  severe infections in Ugandan infants from birth to 3 months of age, results from the BabyGel trial"
Presenter: Martin Chebet

Date: May 21
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: "Do Early-Life Nutrition Interventions Reduce or Raise Obesity Risk? Evidence from Two Randomized Trials in India?"
Presenter: Rukman Manapurath 

Date: April 02
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: “Incidence of and risk factors for small vulnerable newborns in north India: a secondary analysis of a prospective pregnancy cohort”
Presenter: Ramachandran Thiruvengadam

Date: February 12
Time: 10:30-12:00 CET
Title: "Implementation research to promote treatment of pneumonia in under-five children in a North Indian district”.
Presenter: Barsha G. Pathak 

Date: January 08 
Time: 12:00-13:30 CET
Title: Implementation Research- What? Why? How?
Presenter: Sarmila Mazumder

2024 - fall semester

Date: December 11
Time: 13:00-14:00
Tentative title: Challenging implications of the politicization of maternal death reporting:  Case studies from Tanzania and Ethiopia
Presenter: Astrid Blystad and Karen Marie Moland

Date: November 13 (Cancelled. Will be rescheduled for spring 2025)
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: TBA
Presenter: Sarmila Mazumder

Date: October 2
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Economic support, comprehensive sexuality education and community dialogue for girls' empowerment in Zambia
Presenter: Ingvild Fossgard Sandøy, Hanne Keyser Hegdahl and Mweetwa Mudenda

Date: September 11
Time: 12:30-14:00
Titles: Single Cleansing of The Umbilical Cord Stump with Chlorhexidine to Prevent Newborn Infections: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Uganda,
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Exposure and Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: A Cohort Study
 Presenters: Victoria Nankabirwa and Halvor Sommerfelt

Date: August 14
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title:  Impact of an integrated intervention package during preconception, pregnancy, and early childhood on biomarkers of infant growth in the first 6 months of life: A sub study in WINGS
Presenter: Ranadip Chowdhury

2024 - spring semester

Date: June 19
Time: 13:00-14:30
Title: Labour augmentation with oxytocin in low- and lower-middle-income countries   
Presenter: Monica Lauridsen Kujabi

Date: May 15 (Cancelled. Is rescheduled for fall 2024)
Time: 12:30-14:00
Tentative title: MATRISET   
Presenter: Astrid Blystad and Karen Marie Moland

Date: April 17 (Cancelled. Is rescheduled for fall 2024)
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: TBA       
Presenter: Ingvild Fossgard Sandøy 

Date: March 20
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Labour progression in urban resource-constrained maternity units - An appeal for change     
Presenter: Monica Lauridsen Kujabi

2023 - fall semester

Date: December 13
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: 'Zinc as adjunct treatment for clinical severe infection in young infants​​​​​'​
Presenter: Dr. Nitya Wadhwa 

Date: August 16
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: "Quality Improvement Initiative to Improve the Duration of  Kangaroo Mother Care in the Facility, South India".
Presenter: Dr. Sathya Jeganathan

2023 - spring semester

Date: April 12
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: : Assumptions and estimation of complier-average causal effect in RCTs
Presenter: Hugo Cogo Moreira

Date: March 08
Time: CANCELLED, will be rescheduled.
Title: Labour augmentation with oxytocin in low- and lower-middle-income countries
Presenter: Monica Lauridsen Kujabi

Date: February 22
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Effects of Result-based Financing on maternal, neonatal and child health care services in Tanzania.
(Eskindir Loha, Ottar Mæstad, Vincent Somville, Peter Binyaruka, Jo Borghi)
Presenter: Eskindir Loha

Date: January 11
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: What are the consequences of vitamin B12 deficiency in early life, what do we know, what are the remaining research questions, and how should we address these? 
- and how has CISMAC contributed to generating the evidence
Presenter: Tor Strand

2022 - fall semester

Date: December 14
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: "Impact of a package of health, nutrition, psychosocial support, and WaSH interventions delivered during preconception, pregnancy, and early childhood periods on birth outcomes and on linear growth at 24 months of age: factorial, individually randomised controlled trial"
Presenters: Dr. Sunita Taneja and Dr. Ranadip Chowdhury. 

Date: November 9
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: How to deal with lack of adherence in Randomized Controlled trial: new alternatives to Intention-to-treat applied to trials in education
Presenters: Hugo Cogo-Moreira

Date: October 12
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Effect of kangaroo mother care initiated in community settings on financial risk protection of low-income households: A randomized controlled trial
Presenters: Tarun Choudhary

Date: September 28
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Effect of community-initiated kangaroo mother care on breastfeeding performance in low birthweight infants: A randomized clinical trial
Presenter: Bireshwar Sinha

2022 - spring semester

Date: March 30.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Chapter 12 (Using Regression Models in Epidemiologic Analysis)
Presenter: Monica Kujabi

Date: March 16.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Chapter 10 (Controlling Confounding by Stratifying Data)
Presenter: Farhan Yusuf

Date: March 2.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Chapter 9 (Analyzing Simple Epidemiologic Data)
Presenter: Ravi Upadhyay and Ranadip Chowdhury

Date: Feb 16.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Chapter 8 (Random Error and the Role of Statistics)
Presenter: Mahima Venkateswaran

Date: Feb 2.
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Chapter 7 (Dealing with Biases)
Presenter: Eleni Zoumpoulia Papadopoulou

Date: Jan 19
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Chapter 5 (Types of Epidemiologic Studies)
Presenter: Catherine Schwinger

Date: Jan 5
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Chapter 3 (recap) and Chapter 11 (Measuring Interactions)
Presenters: Tarun Choudhary and Bireshwar Sinha

2021 - fall semester

1) 11 August
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: "How can India and Tanzania most efficiently reduce neonatal mortality to 12 per 1000 live births or less"
Presenter: Usha Dingra

2) 8 September
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: "Effect of ciKMC on fecal biomarkers of gut function in low birthweight infants"
Presenter: Bireshwar Sinha

3) 13 October
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Can benefits of early interventions sustain during primary grades? Findings from a follow-up evaluation of a rural, disadvantaged cohort in Pakistan
Presenter: Muneera Abdul Rasheed

4) 10 November
Time: 12:30-13:20
Title: Brief information about the two back-to-back courses in April 2022
         Discussion of Chapter 1 and the first part of Chapter 3 of Professor Kenneth J. Rothman’s book “Epidemiology – an introduction”video content and Prof. Rothman’s paper from 1976.
Presenters: Professor Halvor Sommerfelt

5) 24 November
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Recap of webinar Nov 10 + Chapters 1, 2 and 3
Presenter: Professor Halvor Sommerfelt

6)  8 December
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Chapter 4 (Measuring Disease Occurrence and Causal Effects)
Presenter: Professor Halvor Sommerfelt

7) 22 December
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: CISMAC Webinar series: Preparing for the CISMAC/BCEPS Epidemiology course with Ken Rothman
         Prevalence, Time-to-event analysis, Chapter 4: Causal effectsDate:
Presenters: Halvor Sommerfelt with Eleni Zoumpoulia Papadopoulou, Josephine Tumuhamye and David Mukunya

2021 - spring semester

1) 03 February
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: A digital health registry with clinical decision support for improving quality of antenatal care in Palestine (eRegQual): a cluster-randomized controlled trial
Presenter: Mahima Venkateswaran

2) 10 March
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title:“Effect of Community-Initiated Kangaroo Mother Care on catastrophic out of pocket expenditure and impoverishment: An Equity Randomized Controlled Trial”
Presenter:Tarun Choudhary

3) 14 April
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title:“The importance and challenges of long-term follow-up in studies on neurodevelopment. Experiences from Nepal.”
Presenters:The CISMAC-B12 Nepal team. 

4) 19 May
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: Catch up growth in childhood and association with neurodevelopment
Presenters: Ravi Upadhyay

5) 09 June
Time: 12:30-14:00
Title: “The effectiveness of a girls´empowerment programme on early childbearing and grade 9 completion in rural Zambia: A cluster randomized trial”.
Presenter: Ingvild Sandøy

2020 - fall semester

1) 09 September
Time: 13:30-15:00 CET         
Title: PART 1, Epidemiologic considerations around a case-control study of oxytocin (mis?)use and baby survival.
Presenter: Halvor Sommerfelt and Sanjana Mohan

2) 23 September
Time: 14:00-15:30 CET         
Title: PART 2, Epidemiologic considerations around a case-control study of oxytocin (mis?)use and baby survival.
Presenter: Halvor Sommerfelt

3) 07 October
Time: 12:30-14:00 CET         
Tentative title: “Effects of economic support and community dialogue on adolescent sexual behavior: findings from the RISE trial”
Presenter: Hanne Keyser Hegdahl

4) 21 October
Time: 12:30-14:00     
Title: PART 3, Epidemiologic considerations (around a case-control study of oxytocin (mis?)use and baby survival.)
Presenter: Halvor Sommerfelt, Bireshwar Sinha, Hanne Keyser Hegdahl.

5) 18 November
Time: 12:30-14:00 CET         
Title: Health Equity Impact of Community Initiated Kangaroo Mother Care (ciKMC)
Presenter: Tarun Shankar Choudhary and Kjell Arne Johansson

6) 02 December
Time: 12:30-14:00 CET         
Title: DSMBs – when and why they are needed, their organization and operation.
Presenter: Jose Martines with experience-sharing inputs from Simon Cousens of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Rajiv Bahl of WHO.

Last updated: 29.01.2026