• MSc Global Health Policy, Edinburgh

• BSc Pharmacy, Damascus University

• Trueta Bursary, Oxford

• First Prize, Public Health Scotland Challenge

Sham is a pharmacist and health policy researcher specialising in medicines access, pharmaceutical governance, and real-world evidence. She holds an MSc in Global Health Policy from the University of Edinburgh, where her dissertation, an ARIMAX time-series analysis of UK medicine availability before and after Brexit across four national prescribing datasets, was awarded a Distinction.

Her research began behind a pharmacy counter. Dispensing more than a hundred prescriptions a day in Damascus during years of supply instability, she saw what medicine shortages mean patient by patient, an experience that now anchors her quantitative work. At the University of Edinburgh she has served as a research assistant on EU health policy, analysing over 10,000 records from the EU Transparency Register, and led the analysis that took First Prize in a university-wide challenge with Public Health Scotland. She trained in real-world evidence methods at the University of Oxford as a Trueta Bursary recipient, and led an award-winning JCI Damascus campaign that trained healthcare providers in Arabic Sign Language, reaching thousands.

Sham has presented her research in Jordan, Syria and the UK, and has written 79 Arabic-language science articles with the Syrian Researchers Foundation, where she serves on the executive board. Her work asks what it takes, in policy, in governance, in data, for a medicine to reliably reach the person who needs it.

• MPH, LSHTM

• BSc Pharmacy, Damascus University

• NIH Scholar, Johns Hopkins

• Best International Cooperation Project, JCI 2022

Haya is a pharmacist and public health researcher specialising in health financing, health systems evaluation, and research in conflict-affected and fragile settings. She holds a Master of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a BSc in Pharmacy from Damascus University.

Her expertise is grounded in practice. As a community pharmacist in Damascus she provided medication counselling to more than 1,400 patients, working inside a health system under sustained strain. Her field research has taken her from Douma to South Ghouta, working with disability organisations to document how health recovery reaches, and misses, communities beyond the capital. She chaired JCI Unite, an international cooperation project recognised as Best International Cooperation Project at the 2022 JCI National Convention, which reached over 7,000 people across Syria and abroad in partnership with more than sixteen organisations.

Haya trained in gender analysis in health research at Johns Hopkins University on an NIH scholarship, is a certified GIS professional, and has served for over seven years with the Syrian Family Planning Association and the Syrian Researchers Foundation, including as an HIV/AIDS counselling team leader and scientific reviewer. Her work asks a consistent question: how can fragile health systems be evaluated honestly, financed fairly, and rebuilt to reach everyone?