We have roots around the world.

CAnada
India
Iran
Peru
Thailand
United States

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Janet Tobias

Founder & Ceo

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Janet Tobias has parallel careers in medicine/technology and film/television. Tobias founded Ikana Health & Media in 2004. At Ikana, Tobias focuses on how health content, technology, and social networks affect health behavior. She leads Ikana’s work in strategy, business prototyping, and content creation. Tobias focuses her digital content work around global health and innovation.

Tobias is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Health Evidence and Policy at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia’s School of International Affairs and Public Policy, and a Research Professor of Global Public Health in the NYU Global Institute of Public Health (GIPH), where she is been a mentor in the Public Health Entrepreneurial Ventures course.

Tobias sits on the advisory board of Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s student clinic: East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership. She previously sat on the board of Healthbuilders, Healthright International, and The National Juvenile Defenders Center (https://njdc.info). She was a member of the Drug Forum of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, from 2009 to 2015, where she was part of the MDR-TB working group, and helped organize a forum on public understanding of clinical trials.

Tobias started her film and television career at CBS’ 60 Minutes as Diane Sawyer's associate producer. She then worked as a producer at ABC News’ Prime Time Live, as the editorial producer for ABC’s legal and criminal justice coverage, a national producer at Dateline NBC, and an executive producer at VNI (which became New York Times Television). After working at the networks, she moved to PBS where she created and executive produced the Emmy award winning PBS program Life 360.

In 2001, she co-founded Sierra/Tango Productions, which has produced over 20 documentaries, many of them on medical/health subjects including neurosurgery, infertility treatment and the emotional health of teenagers. In 2012, Tobias’ first feature documentary, No Place on Earth, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was released theatrically by Magnolia Pictures in North America and Senator Films in Europe. Her most recent feature documentaries are Unseen Enemy, about the 21st century threat of epidemics, and Memory Games, about four of the world’s best memory competitors.

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Roger Lopez

Chief Operations & financial Officer

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Rogger migrated from Peru in 1999 and earned his Bachelors degree in Business Administration with a concentration in public accounting. After 3 years of working in the accounting field for Adams & Salter, Rogger moved into Production Management at Ikana and then in 2015, became the chief operations officer at Ikana.

Rogger has also served as the lead producer on a variety of feature documentaries focused on global health including: Unseen Enemy, Heart of the Matter, Memory Games and UnMasked: We all Breathe.

Veronica Aronova

Associate producer

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Veronica Aronova is the associate producer at the Global Health Reporting Center. She is a Russian-American filmmaker, media entrepreneur and polyglot, speaking Russian, French, Spanish, English and Portuguese. While earning her BA in Political Science from McGill University, Veronica founded the popular Montreal-based digital journal Graphite Publications. She also produced Pueblo Mágico, a series of documentary shorts about the lived experiences of American residents in the sparsely populated and harsh landscapes of the Sonora Desert in the US-Mexico borderlands. The shorts were included in an interactive exhibit at Centre Never Apart in Montreal in spring 2020. She has been developing and producing documentary shorts for Ikana Health Action Lab and the Global Health Reporting Center since 2018.

 
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Christopher Beauchamp

Photographer

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Christopher Beauchamp is a photographer specializing in health and crisis zone photography, and dynamic adventure imagery for editorial, corporate and advertising clients. Chris has shot work for Ikana in places as diverse as Liberia, Cambodia, Belgium, Italy, Columbia, Argentina, China and the United States.

Chris recently branched out from still photography into cinematography working on short videos focused on people’s health challenges, and recently on his first feature Until 20, the inspiring story of James Ragan, who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at the age of 13.

 
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Shayon Maitra

Director & Editor

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Shayon is an editor, director & screenwriter, who graduated from Columbia University’s MFA Film Program. He also holds a BA in Economics from The University of Chicago. Shayon was born in India, and has lived all over the world: Dubai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, London and Chicago. He is fluent in Bengali, Hindi and English. Prior to filmmaking, Shayon worked in the world of finance, until he decided to follow his passion for cinema and film. He has directed and edited many short films that have played in festivals across the world.

 
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Zac Nicholson

Director & Cinematographer

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Zac Nicholson is an American filmmaker born in New York and living in Brooklyn. His work as a director and cinematographer spans the medium from narrative to documentary film, and is regarded for its unique character-driven, cinematic perspective.

Most recently, Zac shot the feature length documentary, Unseen Enemy, for CNNFilms about humanity's increasingly perilous relationship with microbial threats such as ebola, influenza and zika and Memory Games about the world's elite memory athletes for ARTE/ARD.

 
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Jamila Paksima

Director & Producer

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Jamila Paksima Rowell works as a Senior Producer with Ikana Media. Her focus is corporate campaigns and consumer health content.

Jamila has an extensive background in news and documentaries. She has traveled with former President Jimmy Carter and Bill Gates Sr. of The Gates Foundation to report on efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, and accompanied 13 multi-faith leaders to Iran. Other work includes examining how mentally challenged adults live successfully together in a community and looking at the final days of a man on death row. Her most recent documentaries have appeared on PBS, MSNBC and The Discovery Channel.

Early in her career, Jamila worked at NBC News for 11 years producing documentaries for NBC News Specials and segments for Dateline NBC, Tom Brokaw and "First Person with Maria Shriver."

Jamila has received two Emmy nominations; 1st prize for domestic television broadcast – RFK Journalism Award 2000; The Silver Screen Award; Society of Professional Journalists-2000 best series investigative reporting; and the CINE 2003 Golden Eagle Award for her film on Child Rape and AIDS in South Africa; and the 2008-2009 OMMA award for excellence in online Video and Animation for Babycenter.com. Jamila actively contributes her free time to two NGO’s based in South Africa:Acres of Love and Mosaic, SA.

 
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Worawit Wattanasomboon

Graphic designer

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Woratwit, or "Mo", has grew up in Thailand, where he graduated from university with a BA in Humanities. He has taught english to people learning it as a secondary language. He has also resettled refugees through a work and cultural orientation program at Phanat Nikhom Camp in Chonburi, Thailand. In 1995, he came to United States to study at New York Institute of Technology. He graduated from NYIT with a MA in Communication Arts and Computer graphics.

 
 
 
 

Advisors

We are fortunate to have the guidance of people with decades of knowledge, expertise and success in health, business, technology and design.


Tom Nicholson

Strategic advisor / Operations, Strategy & Insights

 

 

Our Credo


Good science improves the world.

Stories make our planet a better place.

We are all connected members of one human family.



 
We wish to leave the world healthier than when we entered it.
— Ikana Health Action Lab