James Jude Orbinski, is a Canadian physician, humanitarian activist, author and leading scholar in global health. Orbinski was the 2016-17 Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of California, Irvine, and as of September 1, 2017, he is professor and inaugural director of the Dahdaleh Institute of Global Health Research at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was previously the CIGI Chair in Global Health Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Wilfrid Laurier University (2012-2017), Chair of Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (2010-2012) and full professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto (2003-2012), where he was the founding Saul Rae Fellow at Massey College. Orbinski’s current research interests focus on the health impacts of climate change, medical humanitarianism, intervention strategies around emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and global health governance.
Mario C. Raviglione has been professor at the University of Milan, Italy since March 2018. He directs the activities focused on global health and aiming at pursuing didactic and research in this field as part of the new Multidisciplinary Research in Health Science (MACH) Centre. Part of his activities are devoted to teaching global health principles to undergraduate medical students, making the University of Milan the first in Italy, and one of the pioneers world-wide, introducing global health as a module among the required courses. At the same university, Raviglione is now coordinating the establishment of the first international online Master Course in Global Health in Italy . In 2019 and 2020, he was also Professeur Titulaire at the Global Studies Institute (GSI), Université de Genève, Suisse. Through the GSI, he has worked within the context of the Institute of Global Health. Previously, between 2003 and 2017, he was director of the Global Tuberculosis Programme at the World Health Organization (WHO) . He graduated in medicine from the University of Turin in 1980 and then trained in internal medicine and Infectious Diseases at Cabrini Medical Center in New York City and at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston where he was a Harvard University Clinical Fellow in Medicine and specialised in AIDS. Back in Europe, Raviglione joined WHO in 1991 as a Junior Professional Officer, and spent a few years working on TB and AIDS, TB epidemiology in Europe, and anti-TB drug resistance surveillance and response. In the mid-1990s, he set up both the WHO global drug resistance surveillance project and the WHO global TB surveillance and monitoring systems. Among his major achievements are the contributions to the development of the WHO's DOTS Strategy in 1995, and the direction of the development of both the Stop TB Strategy in 2006 and the End TB Strategy in 2014. During his years at WHO he worked with, and visited, more than 50 countries supporting their TB care, prevention, control and research activities. His research work has resulted in over 350 scientific articles and chapters on the topics of infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, TB, and global health, including the TB chapters in the last eight editions of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. He is editor of the 3rd and 4th edition of "Tuberculosis - A comprehensive international approach", a multi-author book, and associate editor of other books on public health, infectious diseases and tuberculosis. He directed the team that developed the book “Systematic screening for active tuberculosis – Principles and recommendations”, awarded by the British Medical Association as "Highly Commended Book" for Public Health in 2014. He is among the top 10 most cited authors in the TB field. His h-index is 107 and 87 (Scinapse) and his work has been cited over 55000 times. He is also among the top 25 Italian epidemiological scientists and the top 100 Italian scientists in general. As an expert in TB, he has worked as a teacher or visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, University of Geneva, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and University of Pavia. He has been visiting professor at the University of Brescia and has recently lectured at major universities including Harvard, McGill and Sydney. He participates in a variety of board of directors, scientific and advisory committees, including those of the TB Alliance, Doctors with Africa CUAMM, BE Health Association, International Health Commission of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart - Cabrini Ministries ,Fondazione 3Bi. and the McGill Global Health Programs International Advisory Board. In 2017-2018 he was member of the Lancet Commission on TB. During 2015-2017 he conceived and co-organised, with WHO and the Russian Federation Ministry of Health, the first Global WHO Ministerial Conference on TB in the Sustainable Development Era, held in Moscow on 16-17 November 2017, and his team worked towards ensuring that TB is raised in the international political agenda through the United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting on TB that was held in 2018.
Jaap Goudsmit is Dutch scientist, known for his research in the field of AIDS and influenza. He shifted his research interest to aging and neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's Disease. He is also a prolific writer of non-fiction books: Viral Sex, the Nature of AIDS (1997); Viral Fitness, the Next SARS and West Nile in the Making (2004); Serendipity Manual (2012); The Vaccine Bug, a personal history of the World of Immunity (2013); Immorbidity Alphabet, Spelling-out a life free of dis-ease (2015); The Time of your Life, Staying healthy to the End (2016) and The Art of Facing Mortality, a scientist's view (2016).
Perry N. Halkitis is an American of Greek ancestry public health psychologist and applied statistician known for his research on the health of LGBT populations with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS, substance use, and mental health. Perry is Dean and Professor of Biostatistics, Health Education, and Behavioral Science at the Rutgers School of Public Health. Between 1998 and 2017, Perry was faculty at New York University, serving in a variety of capacities, the last of which was Senior Association Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs at the College of Global Public Health and Professor of Global Public Health, Applied Psychology, and Medicine. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) at New York University, a bio-behavioral funded research site funded that also serves as a training site for public health, psychology, medical and student scholars working in the arena of LGBT health disparities informed by a theory of syndemics.
K. Srinath Reddy is the president of the Public Health Foundation of India and formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Igor Grant is an American psychiatrist. He is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. He is Director of the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program (HNRP) and the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR). Grant is the founding Editor of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society and founding co-editor of the journal AIDS and Behavior. His work focuses on effects of HIV and drug use, particularly alcohol, medical marijuana, and methamphetamine.
Dr. Allan R. Ronald is a Canadian doctor and microbiologist. He has been instrumental in the investigation into sexually transmitted infections in Africa, particularly in the fields of HIV/AIDS. Ronald is the recipient of multiple awards and honours.
Prabhat Jha, MD OC, is an Indian-Canadian epidemiologist and health economist working in the field of global health and founding director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada[UofT]. His research focuses primarily on premature mortality resulting from HIV/AIDS, tobacco, alcohol, malaria, maternal and child health, infectious and non-communicable diseases.
Mary Jane Rotheram-Borus is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor with the University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. Rotheram is the professor-in-residence in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She is the Director of the Global Center for Children and Families at UCLA and the former director of the Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services.
Martin T. Schechter is a Canadian epidemiologist recognized for contributions to HIV research, prevention and treatments and to addiction research. He is a professor and the former founding director of the School of Population and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Schechter received his Order of British Columbia in 1994 alongside BC's first Nobel Prize laureate Michael Smith. He now serves as Chief Scientific Officer of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.
Dame Anne Mandall Johnson DBE FMedSci is a British epidemiologist, known for her work in public health, especially the areas of HIV, sexually transmitted infections and infectious diseases.
James W. Curran is professor of epidemiology and dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. He is an adjunct Professor of Medicine and Nursing, and Co-Director and Principal Investigator of the Emory Center for AIDS Research. He is immediate past chair of the board on Population Health and Public Health Practice of the Institute of Medicine and served on the Executive Committee of the Association of Schools of Public Health. Additionally, he holds an endowed chair known as the James W. Curran Dean of Public Health. Dr. Curran is considered to be a pioneer, leader, and expert in the field of HIV/AIDS.
Francis Allan Plummer was a Canadian scientist, academic and HIV/AIDS researcher. He was "a recognized specialist in infectious diseases whose work influenced public health policy in Canada and abroad". He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Medical Microbiology at the University of Manitoba and Scientific Director General, National Microbiology Laboratory.
David DuPuy Celentano is a noted epidemiologist and professor who has contributed significantly to the promotion of research on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). He is the Charles Armstrong chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He holds joint appointments with the school’s departments of Health Policy and Management, Health Behavior and Society, and International Health, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases.
Vikram Harshad Patel FMedSci is an Indian psychiatrist and researcher best known for his work on child development and mental disability in low-resource settings. He is the Co-Founder and former Director of the Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Co-Director of the Centre for Control of Chronic Conditions at the Public Health Foundation of India, and the Co-Founder of Sangath, an Indian NGO dedicated to research in the areas of child development, adolescent health and mental health. Since 2016 he has been Pershing Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine of Harvard Medical School in Boston. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship in 2015. In April 2015, he was listed as one of the world's 100 most influential people by TIME magazine.
Hoosen Coovadia is a South African doctor, and Victor Daitz Professor emeritus at University of KwaZulu-Natal. He was awarded the 2013 AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility. He has also received the 1999 Star of South Africa Award from President Nelson Mandela and the 2000 Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.
David Albert Cooper was an Australian HIV/AIDS researcher, immunologist, professor at the University of New South Wales, and the director of the Kirby Institute. He and Professor Ron Penny diagnosed the first case of HIV in Australia.
Moses R Kamya, is a Ugandan physician, academic, researcher and academic administrator, who serves as Professor and Chair of the Department Medicine, Makerere University School of Medicine, a component of Makerere University College of Health Sciences.
David "Davey" M. Smith, is an American translational research virologist, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California San Diego, Co-Director of the San Diego Center for AIDS Research, and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego. His research interests include transmission, prevention, and treatment of both HIV and SARS-CoV2 (COVID-19). Since joining the UC San Diego faculty in 2003, Smith has been awarded more than $37 million in federal funding as a Principal Investigator. His research interests include transmission, prevention, and treatment of both HIV and SARS-CoV2.
Michel Alary is a Canadian academic, doctor of preventive medicine and a health researcher. He is a Professor of Social and Preventive Medicine at Université Laval and the director of population health research at the Research Centre of the CHU de Quebec – Université Laval. He also serves as a Medical Consultant at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec. Alary has published over 260 research papers and has produced major reports for the World Bank and UNAIDS about HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. He also evaluated the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's India AIDS Initiative for which his project received the Avahan Recognition Award. He has conducted epidemiological and preventive research on blood-borne infections, HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) among the most vulnerable populations in developed and developing countries.
