Andrew Phiri is an Associate Professor of Veterinary Medicine, specialising in Neglected Tropical Diseases, and a 22-year academic and researcher at the University of Zambia. He holds a PhD in Life Sciences and has served the School of Veterinary Medicine in senior academic leadership, most recently as Head of the Department of Clinical Studies, having previously spent four years as Assistant Dean of Research.

He was Scientific Coordinator and a Project Implementation Unit member on the five-year, $6 million World Bank-funded Africa Centre of Excellence for Human and Animals (ACEIDHA), which built collaborative research capacity across industry, agriculture, health, education and applied statistics; he now serves as the Centre's Deputy Leader. Across his career he has helped the School secure and deliver research funded by JICA, the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, the World Bank, NORAD, SIDA, DANIDA, USAID, the Wellcome Trust, the Fleming Fund and NEPAD.

His governance record runs alongside his research record: he has served as a Board member of the Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority, on the Executive Committee of the Veterinary Association of Zambia, and as a technical expert to the Zambia Bureau of Standards. He has led strategic-planning and organisational-realignment work for UNZA, VAZ and ZAMRA that opened new funding and rehabilitated ageing infrastructure, and has been central to the negotiation strategies behind it.

Sita Mwinanyambe is a Veterinary Assistant and Public Health Professional serving the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock in Mpongwe District, where her daily work spans livestock health, disease prevention and control, surveillance, farmer sensitisation and field veterinary support. She holds a BSc in Public Health, a Veterinary Paraprofessional qualification from the Zambia Institute of Animal Health, and a Certificate in Veterinary Laboratory Diagnostics — training that lets her read an animal-health problem from both a clinical and a public-health angle.

Her expertise runs across animal-health and veterinary clinical support, livestock production, disease surveillance and control, farm biosecurity and animal welfare, and farmer extension and community sensitisation — the practical, evidence-based work that keeps a district's herds, and the people who depend on them, healthy. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Veterinary Association of Zambia, and founded Women in the Veterinary Profession, a group advancing women's participation and leadership in the field.

Sita's professional vision is a stronger veterinary profession and healthier communities, built through skilled animal-health practice, public-health knowledge, continuous professional development and evidence-based veterinary services.

Dr Malama Mumba is a Principal Veterinary Research Officer and One Health Epidemiologist at the Central Veterinary Research Institute, Department of Veterinary Medicine, under the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, with more than 15 years' experience in laboratory leadership. Her focus is strengthening national laboratory systems and diagnostic capacity — the infrastructure that turns a field sample into a decision regulators, clinicians and outbreak responders can trust.

She is trained as an In-Service Applied Veterinary Epidemiologist and serves as a coordinator for the Global Laboratory Leadership Programme. An expert in antimicrobial resistance surveillance and an alumna of the African Society for Laboratory Medicine, she works to build Zambia's capacity for outbreak investigation and to sharpen the country's ability to detect, prevent and respond to critical health threats that move from animals to humans.

Her work is grounded throughout in a One Health approach that treats human, animal and environmental health as one interconnected system. Dr Mumba holds an MSc in One Health Analytical Epidemiology and a Bachelor's degree in Veterinary Medicine, both from the University of Zambia.

Mr Indopu F. Mubita is a Veterinary Assistant based in Shangombo District, Western Province, with a career path that began outside animal health altogether: an Advanced Certificate in Mechanical Engineering from NORTEC, before a growing interest in animal welfare and public health redirected him. He went on to earn a Certificate in Animal Health and Production from the Zambia Institute of Animal Health and a Bachelor's degree in Animal Science from the Zambia Open University.

He is currently reading for a Master of Public Health at the University of Zambia, focused on the intersection of animal health and community wellbeing — the same intersection his daily work already occupies. In Shangombo, he provides veterinary support services to rural communities, work that feeds directly into local food security and public-health outcomes in one of Zambia's more remote and underserved districts.

His combined background — engineering, animal science and public health — gives him a practical, systems-oriented way of working the field rarely produces on its own. Indopu remains committed to continued professional development and to advancing animal- and public-health practice in underserved regions of Zambia.