Sonia Rego

About Me

Hi, I am Sonia, a person who has done a lot of things. I like learning Central Asian languages, talking about the importance of access to clean water and safe sanitation, and working towards a better world than the one we have right now. I currently live in the beautiful southwest of Scotland with Matthew Kusner and our two senior rescue dogs, Nora Ruth and Karl T. You can contact me at sonia1rego [at] yahoo [dot] com

Career

I currently work for NatureScot, an organisation that advises the Scottish Government on nature conservation.

Prior to this, I served as an education volunteer with the United States Peace Corps in Kazakhstan (2010-2011), earned a Master of Public Health (2012-2014) from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and Public Health on a full service scholarship, worked in racial health disparities research for the Washington University in St. Louis Medical School (2013), was a refugee health specialist at the International Institute of St. Louis (2014-2015), served as the Health Programme Coordinator for the Ghana Health and Education Initiative (2016), re-trained and worked as an organic grower (2017), and spent 3 years as a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2018-2021) working on drivers of antimicrobial resistance.

I was the seed saving project manager for 3 years at OmVed Gardens (2020-2023), running workshops on compost, gardening, and seed saving for a more resilient future. My team won a silver medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2022 for our exhibition, Saving Seed

I speak Kazakh (intermediate high), Uzbek (intermediate low) and can bumble around in present tense French

Writing

Karl and Nora / Where the Leaves Fall, Issue # 15.

Without Vultures / Where the Leaves Fall, Issue # 9.

With My Hands in the Soil / Where the Leaves Fall, Issue # 4.

Saving Seed / Where the Leaves Fall, Issue # 10.

Southern Upland Way: The Preamble

Gautham, M, Miller, R, Rego, S, et al. Availability, Prices and Affordability of Antibiotics Stocked by Informal Providers in Rural India: A Cross-Sectional Survey. Antibiotics. (2022).

Aftab, W, Khan, M, Rego, S, et al. Variations in regulations to control standards for training and licensing of physicians: a multi-country comparison. Hum Resour Health (2021).

Khan MS*, Rego S*, Rajal JB, Bond V, Fatima RK, Isani AK, et al. Mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on tuberculosis and HIV services: A cross-sectional survey of 669 health professionals in 64 low and middle-income countries. PLoS ONE (2021)

Khan MS; Bory S, Rego S, Suy, S, Durrance-Bagale A, Sultana Z, Chhorn S, Phou S, Prien C, Heng S, Hanefeld J, Hasan R , Saphonn V. Is enhancing the professionalism of healthcare providers critical to tackling antimicrobial resistance in low- and middle-income countries? Human Resources for Health (2020)

Rego S, Suy S, Bory S, Chhorn, S, Phou S, Prien C, Heng S, Wu S, Legido-Quigley H, Hanefeld J, Saphonn V, Khan, MS. Invisible medicine sellers and their use of antibiotics: a qualitative study in Cambodia. BMJ Global Health. (2019).

Khan MS, Rego S, Wu S, Coker R, Heymann D, Legido-Quigley H. Health systems barriers to controlling infectious diseases in low and middle income Asian countries in Resilient and people-centred health systems: Progress, challenges and future directions in Asia (Eds Legido-Quigley H, Asgari-Jirhandeh N) (2018).

Canines

This website would not be complete without a section for Nora Ruth and Karl T, the two best dogs (all dogs are good dogs though). Both struggle with some of life's harder moments, as I do, and have taught me so much about patience and resilience. I work with, and am a strong advocate of, positive methods training only. Those who choose to use negative reinforcement and use pain as part of their ''training'' are assholes and should not be trusted. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to write about Nora and Karl for Where the Leaves Fall. Here is an excerpt from that piece, that sums up who they are.

Elements

i = 0;

while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
    print 'Iteration ' + i;
    deck.shuffle();
    i++;
}

print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';