Plenary Speakers
Cezmi Akdis
Director, Swiss Institute for Allergy and Asthma Research SIAF and President, European Academy of Allergy Clinical Immunology EAACI, Switzerland
Cezmi Akdis is the Director of the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF), a professor of Zurich University Medical Faculty, President of the European Academy of Allergy Clinical Immunology (EAACI), Founder and Executive Board Member of Global Allergy Asthma European Network (GA2LEN), Founder and Director of Christine Kühne-Center for Allergy Research and Education (CK-CARE), Founder of the World Immune Regulation Meetings. He has published more than 350 articles on molecular and cellular mechanisms of allergies and asthma and possibility of cure.
Syed Mohamed Aljunid
Professor of Health Economics and Senior Research Fellow, United Nations University, International Institute for Global Health, Malaysia
Syed Aljunid is professor of Health Economics and senior research fellow at United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health. Prior to this he served as consultant in Public Health Medicine and head of Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Malaysia (UKM). He obtained his MD from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Master of Science in Public Health from National University of Singapore and PhD in Health Economics and Financing Programme, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a fellow of the Academy of Medicine Malaysia since 2000 and awarded with Fellowship in Public Health Medicine Malaysia in 2011.
Walter Ammann
President, Global Risk Forum GRF Davos, Switzerland
Walter J. Ammann is founder and president of the Foundation Global Risk Forum GRF Davos and chairman of the International Disaster and Risk Conference IDRC Davos. He started his professional career in various consulting companies for geotechnics and foundation engineering, earthquake engineering and bridge construction. From 1986 - 1992 he was responsible for the R&D-department of a globally acting company in construction technologies and from 1992 to 2007 director of the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos and deputy director of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL in Birmensdorf. He is an expert in integrative risk management and its applications to all kinds of natural hazards and technical risks. He is author and co-author of over 250 papers, books and scientific reports.
Helmut Brand
Professor of European Public Health, Maastricht University and President-Elect, Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region ASPHER, Belgium
Helmut Brand is professor of European Public Health and head of the Department of International Health at Maastricht University. He studied Medicine in Düsseldorf and Zürich and earned a Master in Community Medicine from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and London School of Economics. Prof. Brand is a specialist in Public Health Medicine in Germany and the UK. Helmut worked in several Health Authorities and Ministries of Health. For 13 years he was director of the Public Health Institute of North Rhine Westphalia in Germany. Since then European Integration in Health is the main topic of his work. The recent research focus is on the European dimension of cross border health, comparative studies and policy advice and surveillance systems.
Charlotte Braun-Fahrländer
Professor, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), Switzerland
Charlotte Braun-Fahrländer has long-standing research activities in the area of Environment and Health ranging from air pollution effects on respiratory health of children to the assessment of environmental factors for the development of asthma and allergies to environmental determinants of children’s physical activity. She is the principal investigator from Switzerland of several large European Collaborative Research Programs in the field of microbial exposures and the development of childhood asthma and allergies.
Colin D. Butler
Associate Professor, ARC Future Fellow, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, College of Medicine Biology and Environment, Australian National University, Australia
Colin Butler's research concerns the interaction of global environmental change (eg population growth, climate change, ecological trends and resource depletion) with global population health. He is a co-editor of EcoHealth and a member of the scientific steering committee of Global Environmental Change and Human Health (GECHH). In 2009, he was named as one "a hundred doctors for the planet".
David Butler-Jones
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency, Canada
David Butler-Jones is Canada's first and current chief public health officer, heading the Public Health Agency of Canada. He is also a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba as well as a clinical professor with the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan's College of Medicine. Dr. Butler-Jones has served with a number of organizations including as: president of the Canadian Public Health Association; vice-president of the American Public Health Association; chair of the Canadian Roundtable on Health and Climate Change to just name a few. In 2010, Dr. Butler-Jones was the recipient of the Robert Davies Defries award, the highest honour presented by the Canadian Public Health Association, recognizing outstanding contributions in the field of public health.
Ignazio Cassis
Member of the National Council, Swiss Confederation, Switzerland
Coming from the Italian-speaking (southern) part of Switzerland, Ignazio Cassis is today member of the Swiss Parliament in Berne. His is especially engaged in the Politics of Health and Social Affairs, as well as in the International Trade Politics. He trained as a clinician in internal medicine and as a public health professional. He was president of the Swiss Society for Public Health and director of the Cantonal Office of Public Health of his region for 11 years and he then became vice-chair of the Swiss Medical Association and lecturer at the Universities of Lausanne and Lugano.
Manuel Cesario
Professor, Environmental Change and Sustainability, University of Franca’s Graduate Programme on Health Promotion, Brazil
Manuel Cesario is MD specialized in Community Health, he also holds a PhD in Human Ecology/Collective Health/Sustainable Development, and since 2007 he is professor of Environmental Change and Sustainability at the University of Franca’s Graduate Programme on Health Promotion, where he develops early warning systems for (re)emerging neglected infectious diseases at the Southwestern Amazonia tri-national region. He is member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the ‘Global Environmental Change and Human Health’ ESSP’s Project and the IUFRO’s Steering Committee for the ‘Forests and Human Health Task Force’. He is also a fellow of the Linnean Society of London.
Andrew E. Collins
Director of the Disaster and Development Centre, Northumbria University, United Kingdom
Andrew Collins is reader and director of the Disaster and Development Centre at Northumbria University. He is recurrently researcher, consultant or advisor with a wide range of governmental, non-governmental and humanitarian organisations operating internationally or locally. Andrew’s research and publishing work involves the theoretical, methodological and policy integration of health ecology, disaster reduction, sustainable development and human security. He led the establishment of the world’s first disaster management and sustainable development postgraduate programme launched in 2000, and the Disaster and Development Centre (DDC) launched in 2004. He supervises a community of PhD researchers spanning disaster and development studies. His orientation in this field includes through earlier voluntary service in contexts of conflict and environmental crises.
David Dror
Chairman, Micro Insurance Academy, India and Hon. Professor of Health Insurance in Low-Income Countries, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
David Dror is an acclaimed international expert in micro insurance. He was named “Personality of the Year” in 2009 by the Asia Insurance Industry for “groundbreaking research and study which has helped boost understanding of how the world’s poorest communities can benefit from microinsurance”. In Nov. 2011, he received the “Global Citizen Lifetime Achievement “Karmaveer Puraskaar” Award for Social Justice and Citizen Action, from the Indian Confederation of NGOs. He is honorary professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 2007 David Dror founded the Micro Insurance Academy in New Delhi. MIA has quickly grown in prominence, and is now considered the leading technical service provider in microinsurance. In 2011 MIA was also incorporated as a non-profit association in Germany.
Marco Ferroni
Executive Director, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, Switzerland
An expert in international agriculture and sustainability issues, Marco Ferroni joined the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture as its Executive Director in 2008 after a career in multilateral institutions and government. Before joining the Syngenta Foundation, Marco Ferroni worked at the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank in Washington DC. As deputy manager of the Sustainable Development Department of the IDB, he was responsible for regional sector policy and technical support to the Bank’s country departments. As the IDB’s principal evaluation officer he assessed the relevance, performance and results of Bank strategies and investments. As a senior advisor at the World Bank he advised on donor relations and directed work on international public goods and their role in development, foreign aid and international affairs. Earlier in his career, he was an economist and division chief for development cooperation and international trade in the government of Switzerland.
Gary Fitt
Deputy Chief, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences and Chair, Co-operative Research Programme, OECD, Australia
Gary Fitt is an insect ecologist with a long research career in integrated pest management, pest ecology and the sustainable deployment of transgenic crops in agriculture, particularly in the cotton industry. He is currently Deputy Chief of CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences and Program Leader for Ecology. He currently leads a national project on IPM in the Grains industry and is heading the development of a new initiative in Vector Ecology and Human Health. Dr Fitt is Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the OECD Cooperative Research Program on Natural Resources in Sustainable Agriculture which is sponsoring the One Health Summit.
Monika Carmen Przygucka - Gawlik
Councellor of the Minister, Department of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Poland
Monika Carmen Przygucka - Gawlik is an expert in international relations and cooperation with the European Union. She is a cooperation expert at the United Nations on human rights, a national representative in the Committee for the multicultural aspects of the Council of Europe, a national representative in the OECD Expert Group for the health services and a national representative in the European Health Committee of the Council Europe. She is a lecturer of "international public health" at the Academy of Physical Education and the Medical Centre of Postgraduate Education, Warsaw and her professional expertise are on international public health, bioethics and human rights, geriatrics and gerontology, social policy.
Delia Grace
Program Manager Agriculture Associated Diseases, International Livestock Research Institute ILRI, Kenya
Delia Grace is a veterinary epidemiologist working at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi and is Research Leader for agriculture associated disease in the new research programme on agriculture, health and nutrition led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). At ILRI, she leads work on food borne disease in informal markets for livestock products of developing countries. Before this she worked for 7 years in community based animal health in Bangladesh, East Africa and West Africa and has authored several guides and papers on participatory approaches. Her other research interests include ecohealth, one health, urban agriculture, animal welfare and gender and livestock.
Martyn Jeggo
Director, CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL), Australia
Since 2002 Martyn Jeggo has been the director of CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL). He has chaired the Organising Committee of the 1st International One Health Congress in Melbourne, Australia from 14-16 February 2011. From 1996–2002, he was head of the Animal Production and Health Science Section of the Joint Food and Agricultural Organisation/ International Atomic Energy Agency (FAO/IAEA) Division of Agriculture, in Vienna, Austria. In that role, he managed a range of FAO/IAEA Coordinated Research Programs involving more than 200 research contracts relating to animal production and health. Among other international activities, Prof. Jeggo also developed an international external quality-assurance program for veterinary laboratories. For more than 15 years, Prof. Jeggo oversaw the management of laboratory networks dealing with: rinderpest and contagious bovine pleuropneumonia in Africa; FMD in Asia; brucellosis worldwide.
Olga Jonas
Economic Adviser, World Bank, USA
Olga Jonas joined the Operations Policy and Country Services Vice Presidency (OPCS) of the World Bank in 2001. She has been responsible for coordinating the World Bank Group’s operational response to avian and human pandemic influenza threats and for working with Senior UN Influenza Coordination (UNSIC) on monitoring the overall global response since 2006. Among other assignments, she was the lead World Bank author of the joint UN-World Bank global progress reports and delivered presentations on the global response to ministerial conferences on avian and pandemic influenzas in Bamako (2006), New Delhi (2007), Sharm el-Sheikh (2008), and Hanoi (2010). Ms Jonas joined the World Bank Group in 1983 through the Young Professionals Programme. Prior to that she held positions at Princeton University, the Bank for International Settlements, and the OECD. She was educated at Williams College and Princeton.
Laura Kahn
Research Scholar, Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, USA
Laura Kahn, a physician, is a research scholar with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and is a recipient of the New Jersey Chapter's Laureate Award. In September 2009, she published "Who's in Charge? Leadership during epidemics, bioterror attacks, and other public health crises." She is a monthly columnist for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is a founding member of the One Health Initiative, a global effort to integrate human, animal, and environmental health.
Alexander Kekulé
Director, Institute for Biosecurity Research (IBS), Germany
Alexander Kekulé is director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Chairman of the Institute for Biosecurity Research (IBS). In his research, Alexander Kekulé is focused on molecular biology of hepatitis viruses, viral oncogenesis and infectious diseases control. He has been granted several research awards, among them the Karl Heinrich Bauer Award for Cancer Research and the Hans Popper Award for Basic Research of the International Association for the Study of the Liver. Since 1988, Professor Kekulé has been working as a business consultant with focus on research management and biological risk management. Prior to his present position, Prof. Kekulé was deputy director at the Institute for Virology, University of Tübingen, and research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Martinsried.
Günter Klein
Professor, International Center for Sustainable Development, Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Germany
As senior academic advisor at the UN-University, Bonn, and director and professor at the German Space Agency, he was working with a focus on support to the UN- Decade Water for life 2006 - 2010. From 1995 – 2005 he was director for Environment and Health at WHO, Regional Office of Europe, Copenhagen and Bonn. As director of the Water Hygiene Department and head of the Biological Laboratories at the Federal Health Office, Berlin, he has been in charge of water resources and water supply for Germany (1979-1995). Günter Klein studied Marine Biology at the Institute of Marine Research in Bremerhaven, biology and sanitary engineering (Bochum and Darmstadt University) were followed by 6 years of practical engagement at Dortmund Water Works and in developing countries (1966 – 1979).
Thomas Krafft
Professor, Department of International Health, Maastricht University, Netherlands
Thomas Krafft’s research interests are in Health Systems Research (especially pre-hospital and emergency care), Syndromic Surveillance, Health Geography, and Global Environmental Change and Urban Health. Regional foci lay in Europe, India and China. He is visiting professor for Health Geography at Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Center for Health Management Studies & Research in Pune/India and honarary professor of the Institute for Geography and Natural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing/China. He lectures at the Centre for Management and Quality in Health Care, Donau-University Krems/Austria. In addition to his teaching assignements Thomas Krafft chairs the Advisory Group on Global Change and Health of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) and he is the Scientific Secretary of the Commission on Health and the Environment of the International Geographical Union (IGU-CHE).
Nino Künzli
Deputy Director, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute - Swiss TPH, Switzerland
Nino Künzli is professor of Public Health (Ordinarius) at the University Basel Medical School, and the deputy director of the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute Basel, Switzerland, where he heads the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health with its 8 research units assembling >160 interdisciplinary scientists. His own research focus is environmental epidemiology with an emphasis on understanding the effects of air pollution on health. Nino Künzli is a long-standing collaborator and directory board member of the Swiss SAPALDIA study. The populations of Davos and seven other Swiss regions participate in SAPALDIA since 1991 in research to understand the contribution of air pollution and other causes to chronic diseases. He is the chair of the Swiss Federal Commission on Air Quality – an advisory board of the Swiss Government. Nino Künzli received his M.D. from the University of Basel and his M.P.H. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
Alberto Laddomada
Head of Unit, Animal Health, Directorate General for Health and Consumers DG SANCO, European Commission, Belgium
Alberto Laddomada is a Doctor in Veterinary Medicine, with post-doctoral studies in microbiology and virology in Italy and the UK. He is the Head of Unit for Animal Health in DG Health and Consumers, position that he covers as from 2007. Before joining the Commission in 1997 as veterinary legislator, he used to work in the fields of animal virology and epidemiology of animal diseases at the Istituto Zooprofilattico della Sardegna, Italy. He is the author of several scientific studies and has significant experience in contagious animal disease control and crises management.
Roderick Lawrence
Professor, Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Roderick Lawrence is professor at the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Geneva and he is head of the Human Ecology Group at the Institute of Environmental Sciences. He teaches inter-and trans-disciplinary approaches to problem identification and problem solving in the Master’s Degree of Environmental Sciences. He is director of the Certificate of Advanced Studies on Sustainable Development, and also the Global Environmental Policy Programme at the University of Geneva which is organized in partnership with UNEP. His research interests include inter- and trans-disciplinarity, human ecology, urban health and quality of life. He has been a scientific adviser for the World health Organization since 1994. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Network of Transdisciplinary Research sponsored by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences. He is also an associate member of the New York Academy of Sciences since 1997.
Francois Le Gall
Lead Livestock Specialist, World Bank, USA
Francois Le Gall is livestock adviser of the World Bank, in the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the Sustainable Development Network since September 2011. Prior to that he held different positions as acting sector manager for agriculture and rural development for Central African countries, program coordinator for agriculture and rural development in the francophone countries of sub-Sahara Africa and operational adviser of the Sustainable Development Department of the East Asia and Pacific Region. From 1997 to 2006, he served as a livestock specialist in the Africa Region of the World Bank. Prior to his appointment at the World Bank Francois Le Gall served with the French Cooperation as co-Director of Animal Health and Applied Research at the Agence Nationale de Développement de l’Elevage in Central African Republic. He is author and co-author of several technical and scientific publications in the area of agriculture and rural development, and livestock and animal health.
Juan Lubroth
Chief Veterinary Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO, Italy
Juan Lubroth is the chief veterinary officer of the Food Agriculture Organization of the UN. As a biologist (Whitman, 1979), veterinarian (U Georgia, 1985), epidemiologist/ virologist (Yale 1995), he had studied medical microbiology with a strong focus on arthropod-borne diseases in wildlife and livestock as well as zoonoses in animal production systems, turned disease manager, he recognised early the importance of multidiciplinary work along the lines of one medicine, one health, one environment. Juan Lubroth previously worked at USDA’s Plum Island Animal Disease Centre, the Pan American Health Organization, the Mexico-US Commission for the Prevention of Exotic Diseases, and U of Georgia’s Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study centre. He is joined by co-authors with stellar competencies across the One Heath approach.
Michael Manfredo
Head of Department, Warner College of Natural Resources, Colorado State Universit, USA
Michael J. Manfredo is a professor and Head of the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources at Warner College, Colorado State University, USA. Dr. Manfredo’s has 75 peer-reviewed research articles on the role of social science in natural resource management, was the founding co-editor of the journal entitled Human Dimensions of Wildlife and has two recent books entitled Wildlife and Society: The Science of Human Dimensions and Who Cares About Wildlife: Social Science Concepts for Understanding Human-wildlife Relationships. He is currently working on an edited book entitled Understanding Society and Natural Resources: Forging New Strands of Integration Across the Social Sciences.
Hans Peter Michel
Mayor, Davos Municipality, Switzerland
Hans Peter Michel was born in Davos in February 1954, and spent his youth in Davos Monstein. In addition to being a farmer, he studied psychology at the Correspondence University Hagen, graduating in 2001. He completed more than 1500 days of service in the military, leaving with the rank of colonel. Between 1982 and 2004 he managed the biological farm of his parents, together with his family. In 2000, Hans Peter ended his work as a council politician, as the president of the municipality’s parliament and for the next three years acted as governor. Since the beginning of 2005 he is the Mayor of Davos and chairs the governing council of Davos.
Patricia Moser
Lead Health Specialist, Poverty Reduction, Gender and Social Development Division, Asian Development Bank ADB
Patricia Moser is the Lead Health Specialist for the Regional Sustainable Development Department of the Asian Development Bank, where she provides strategic guidance and oversight to ADB’s health activities, including support to regional departments and management of regional health portfolio and knowledge products. She is also co-chair of ADB’s Health Community of Practice. Her prior experience includes serving as Health Director of the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Washington, DC; various positions within the ADB; and service as a US Foreign Service Officer with the United States Agency for International Development. She has directed and taught courses on health and development as an adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University (2006 – 2011) and George Washington University (2000 – 2002), both in Washington, DC.
Virginia Murray
Head, Extreme Events and Health Protection, Health Protection Agency, UK
Virginia Murray qualified in Medicine and works for the UK’s Health Protection Agency where she is head of the new Extreme Events and Health Protection section and is taking forward work on evidence base information and advice on flooding, heat, cold, volcanic ash, and other extreme weather and natural hazards events. She works closely with UNISDR and WHO and since 2009 she has been a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, published in November 2011.
David Nabarro
United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition and UN System Coordination on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, USA
In October 2009, Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General, has appointed David Nabarro as his Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition. David Nabarro joined the WHO’s Department for Health Action in Crises in 2003 and in September 2005 he moved to the office of the UN Secretary General as Senior Coordinator for Avian and Pandemic Influenza. In January 2009 he was also asked to coordinate the UN system’s High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis. Before joining the UN for several years David Nabarro worked in child health and nutrition programmes in Iraq, South Asia and East Africa. He also taught at the London and Liverpool Schools of Tropical Medicine and served as Director for Human Development in the British Government’s Department for International Development (DFID).
Nikos Papadopoulos
Secretary General, European Academy of Allergy Clinical Immunology EAACI, Greece
Nikos Papadopoulos is associate professor of Allergy and Pediatric Allergy at the University of Athens (NKUA) and head of the Allergy Department, 2nd Pediatric Clinic, NKUA. He did his medical studies and specialization at the University of Athens and post‐graduate studies at the University of Southampton. He is author of over 150 peer reviewed papers and book chapters. His research studies on the interaction of viral infections with allergy and asthma have received wide attention, earning a number of international awards. He is regularly invited to give presentations at international meetings. He is the coordinator of the European Union‐funded consortium ‘PreDicta’, looking into the role of respiratory viruses in asthma persistence. He has served, among other, in committees of EAACI, GA2LEN, WAO, EFA and ARIA. He is currently the Secretary General of the EAACI.
Mark Rosenberg
Professor, Queens University and Co-Chair Global Environmental Change and Human Health Project, Canada
Mark Rosenberg is professor of geography and cross-appointed as professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is the co-chair of the scientific steering committee of the Earth System Science Partnership Joint Project on Global Environmental Change and Human Health (ESSP GECHH). From 2000 to 2008, Professor Rosenberg was the chairperson of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Health and the Environment (CHE). He was the editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal on Aging (2004 to 2010) and a North American Editor of Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy (2001 to 2010). His research covers a wide range of topics including health and the environment, access to health care services, and vulnerable populations.
Jonathan Rushton
Senior Lecturer in Animal Health Economics, The Royal Veterinary College, United Kingdom
Mark Jonathan Rushton is an agricultural economist who specialises in livestock economics and development. He works on livestock development, animal diseases and one health issues in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. This work has been in association with a range of regional and international agencies and national governments. His key interests are the role of livestock in the livelihoods of poor people worldwide, impact of livestock diseases, the use of participatory methodologies in veterinary epidemiology and the marketing of agricultural products. He sits on the management committee of the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health and has played a role in the debates on One Health through his continuing associations with the World Bank, FAO and CDC. He is currently working at the Royal Veterinary College as a senior lecturer in animal health economics.
Boleslaw Samoliński
Chairman, Sub-Committee on Priorities of Ministry of Health, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Poland, Poland
Boleslaw Samoliński is professor and head of the Prevention of Environmental Hazards and Allergology Department and director of the Environmental Health Centre of the Warsaw Medical University. He is also head of the Clinical Immunology Department of the Central Teaching Hospital. Boleslaw Samoliński is chairman of the Sub-Committee on Priorities of Public Health during the Polish Presidency of the EU Council, national consultant for public health, president-elect of the Polish Society of Allergology and chairman of ARIA CC in Poland. Two of his most important research projects are the Epidemiology of Allergic Diseases in Poland (ww.ECAP.pl) and Global Adult Tobacco Smoke Survey (GATS).
Rainer Sauerborn
Director, Department of Tropical Hygiene and Public Health, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Rainer Sauerborn is director of the Department of Tropical Hygiene and Public Health (HD) since 1996. His research focus is on improving the quality of and access to care in low income countries. A paediatrician, he trained at the Harvard School of Public Health. From 1990 -1996 he was faculty member of the Harvard Institute for International Development and prior to that - 1979 to 1982 - he headed the Nouna health district.
Stefan Seebacher
Head, Health Department, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies IFRC, Switzerland
Stefan Seebacher is the head of the Health Department at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) based in Geneva. He is responsible for all aspects of global health programs in development and emergency settings. Stefan Seebacher has also been a leading consultant in International Health and Development having contributed to strategic planning and capacity building in the areas of evaluation and project design. He holds an MD from the University of Innsbruck in Austria, a diploma in Tropical Medicine and Parasitology from the Bernhardt Nocht Institute in Germany, a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Management in Non-profit Organization from Regis University. He has authored number of reports and publications around health programming, monitoring and evaluation.
Ulrich Sperling
Director, Safe Food Solutions Inc. SAFOSO, Switzerland
Ulrich Sperling is a biochemist by training and has worked in strategic management consulting with a focus on business building and sustainable growth strategies. He has more than 10 years of experience in the field of animal health and food safety. As a director at SAFOSO (Safe Food Solutions Inc.) he brings together scientific and business perspectives. One of his mandates is to serve as the Executive Director of the TAFS Forum.
Bron Taylor
Professor, Religion and Environmental Ethics, University of Florida and Carson Fellow, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, USA
Bron Taylor is professor of Religion and Environmental Ethics at the University of Florida, and a carson fellow of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society Munich Germany. His research focuses on the emotional and spiritual dimensions of environmental movements, and he has led and participated in a variety of international initiatives promoting the conservation of biological and cultural diversity. His books include Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future (2010),the award winning Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2005), andEcological Resistance Movements: the Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism (1995).He is also the founder of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, and editor of its affiliated Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture.
Berhe Tekola
Director, Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO
Berhe Tekola (DVM, MVSc, PhD) took up his current position as Director, Animal Production and Health Division, FAO of the UN, in August 2011. He has served as Director, Animal and Plant Health Regulatory Directorate, and also as Director of the Ethiopian National Veterinary Institute, within the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ethiopia. Berhe Tekola started his professional career 1986 initially as Field Veterinarian after which he was appointed as Head of a number of offices in the area of Animal and fishery resources. He has progressive taken up responsibilities in the international animal health realms.
Bernard Vallat
Director General, World Organisation for Animal Health OIE, France
Bernard Vallat was elected Director General of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in May 2000 by the World Assembly. Prior to his present appointment, from 1997 to 2000, he was elected president of the OIE International Animal Health Code Commission. The work accomplished under his presidency led to numerous normative texts being adopted within the period of three years. In 2008 he received the Prix Penn Vet World Award at the University of Pennsylvania, an award that is seen in the profession as a “Nobel Prize for Veterinary Medicine”. The first seventeen years of his professional career - 1973 to 1990 - he spent working with the French civil service on multilateral or bilateral overseas cooperation schemes in a number of countries in Central Africa and the Indian Ocean.
Alain Vandersmissen
Senior Coordinator One Health, Emerging Diseases, Food Security, European External Action Service, European Union, Belgium
Since January 2006 Alain Vandersmissen has been the coordinator of the External Response of the European Commission to the Avian Influenza (AI) Crisis. As from January 2011, he has integrated the new European External Action Service under the authority of the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / vice-president of the European Commission. Currently his position encompasses “One Health”, Emerging Diseases and Food Security in Asia. Since joining the European Commission in 1993, Alain Vandersmissen has been active in the fields of animal health and production, rural development and public health. Before joining the European Commission, he gained extensive experience in development cooperation in Latin America, Asia and Africa. He was also a university researcher and occasional lecturer.
Chadia Wannous
Senior Policy Advisor, United Nations System Influenza Coordination UNSIC, Switzerland
Chadia Wannous is the Senior Policy Advisor of the UN System Coordinator for Avian and Pandemic Influenza Dr. David Nabarro. She is a public health professional with a doctorate degree in International Health and Development. She has more than twenty years of experience working in the public health filed in a number of countries in the Middle East, South East Asia, the Caribbean, and North America. Prior to her current position in Geneva, and since 2006 she has been working mainly on Avian and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response. First as a Technical Officer for WHO Regional Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response sub-unit in Bangkok, and as a Senior Advisor for the UN Resident Coordinator in Egypt and then as the UN System Influenza Coordination (UNSIC) Regional Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa region.
Qian Ye
Executive Director, International Project Office, Integrated Risk Governance Project, Beijing Normal University, China
Qian Ye is professor for climate change impacts at Beijing Normal University, deputy general secretary of the Chinese National Committee for IHDP and leading scientist of the Social and Economic Impact Assessment Group at Beijing Meteorological Bureau. He is executive director of the newly established IHDP core project, IRG-Project and member of the Scientific Steering Committee. His current research interest is focused on the role of social and ecological dynamic system in dealing with climate change and its impacts.
Maged Younes
Director Department of Food Safety, World Health Organization WHO, Germany
Maged Younes is the director of the Department of Food Safety at the World Health Organization. Following an academic career as Professor of Toxicology at the Medical University of Lübeck, Germany, he joined the World Health Organization in 1991. He held various key roles both at the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health and at WHO Headquarters, in particular in chemical safety as well as environmental and occupational health. From 2006 to 2007, he served as head of the Chemical Branch of the United Nations Environmental Programme. He holds a Doctor’s and a Master’s degree in biochemistry and physiological chemistry from the University of Tübingen and a degree of Dr. habil. in toxicology and biochemical pharmacology from the Medical University of Lübeck in Germany.
Jakob Zinsstag
Professor and Head, Human and Animal Health Unit, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute - Swiss TPH, Switzerland
Jakob Zinsstag graduated with a doctorate in veterinary medicine on Salmonella diagnosis at the Veterinary Faculty of the University of Berne in 1986. He worked in rural practice and as post-doctoral fellow on trypanosomiasis research at the Swiss Tropical Institute. From 1990 to end of 1998 he led a livestock research project at the International Trypanotolerance Centre in The Gambia and directed the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Since 1998 he leads a research unit at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel on the interface of human and animal health with a focus on health of nomadic people and control of zoonoses in developing countries under the paradigm of “one health” (a project that received the td-award 2004). He holds a PhD in Tropical Animal Health and is a Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Basel.