Professor Sir Michael G. Marmot

Director, UCL Institute of Health Equity (Marmot Institute)

Sir Michael Marmot has led research groups on health inequalities for over 35 years. He was Chair of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), which was set up by the World Health Organization in 2005, and produced the report entitled: ‘Closing the Gap in a Generation’ in August 2008. At the request of the British Government, he conducted a Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England post 2010, which published its report 'Fair Society, Healthy Lives' in February 2010. This was followed by the European Review of Social Determinants of Health and the Health Divide, for WHO Euro. He chaired the Breast Screening Review for the NHS National Cancer Action Team and is a member of The Lancet-University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health. He is a Principal Investigator of the Whitehall II Studies of British Civil Servants, investigating explanations for the striking inverse social gradient in morbidity and mortality. He leads the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and is engaged in several international research efforts on the social determinants of health. He served as President of the British Medical Association (BMA) in 2010-2011, and is the new President of the British Lung Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution for six years and in 2000 he was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen, for services to epidemiology and the understanding of health inequalities. Internationally acclaimed, Professor Marmot is a Foreign Associate Member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and a former Vice President of the Academia Europaea. He won the Balzan Prize for Epidemiology in 2004, gave the Harveian Oration in 2006, and won the William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research in 2008.

Professor Martin McKee

Chair, International Scientific Committee, European Public Health Association

Martin McKee qualified in medicine in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with subsequent training in internal medicine and public health. He is Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he is co-director of the European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition (ECOHOST), a WHO Collaborating Centre. He is also research director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and president-elect of the European Public Health Association. He has published over 720 academic papers and 42 books and his contributions to European health policy have been recognised by, among others, election to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences, and the US Institute of Medicine, by the award of honorary doctorates from Hungary, The Netherlands, and Sweden and visiting professorships at universities in Europe and Asia, the 2003 Andrija Stampar medal for contributions to European public health and in 2005 was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He has an active following on Twitter as @martinmckee

Professor Johan Mackenbach

Chair, Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands

Johan Mackenbach is Professor of Public Health and chair of the Department of Public Health at Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His research interests are in social epidemiology, medical demography, and health policy. He has (co-)authored more than 500 papers in international, peer-reviewed scientific journals, as well as a number of books. He is a former editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Public Health. He is actively engaged in exchanges between research and policy, among others as a member of the Health Council of the Netherlands and the Council for Public Health and Health Care. He is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and honorary professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Professor David Vlahov

Dean, School of Nursing, University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Vlahov is Dean and Professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing. He brings experience in inter-professional and interdisciplinary education and research, serving on the faculty as Professor of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins and Columbia Universities, with adjuncts in Medical Schools at Cornell, Mount Sinai and New York University and the College of Nursing at New York University. He has also served as co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars program. He brings research expertise in epidemiology, infectious diseases, substance abuse and mental health. Dr. Vlahov conducted studies of urban populations in Baltimore for over 20 years and has led epidemiologic studies in Harlem and the Bronx, which have contributed much information on racial/ethnic disparities in health and approaches to address such disparities. Dr. Vlahov initiated the International Society for Urban Health (www.isuh.org), serving as its first President, and also served on the New York City Board of Health. Dr. Vlahov is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Urban Health, has edited three books on urban health and published over 610 scholarly papers. In 2011 Dr. Vlahov was both elected to the Institute of Medicine and inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. In 2012 he was invited by the National Department of Health and Human Services to serve on the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice. In early 2013 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

Professor Trevor Hancock

Professor and Senior Scholar, University of Victoria

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a public health physician and health promotion consultant and is currently a Professor and Senior Scholar at the new School of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria. The main focus of his work has been in the area of healthy cities and communities and he is one of the founders of the global Healthy Cities and Communities movement. Over the past 30 years he has worked as a consultant for local communities, municipal, provincial and national governments, health care organizations, NGOs and the World Health Organization.

He was an Advisor and consultant to WHO Europe's Healthy Cities initiative and co-authored the original background paper for the project in 1986. He was a member of the Knowledge Network on Urban Settings (part of the new WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health) and a member of the Global Research Network on Urban Health Equity. He was the founding Chair of the Ontario Healthy Communities Coalition in 1992 and is on the Board of the BC Healthy Communities Initiative. In 2008 he was received the International Society for Urban Health’s Humanitarian Award.

Alex Ross

Director of the World Health Organisation, Kobe Centre

Before taking up the post as Director, WHO Centre for Health Development, Kobe, Japan in October 2011, Mr. Ross was the Director of the World Health Organization's Programme for Partnerships and UN Reform where he developed and directed collaborative relationships with a variety of stakeholders to advance global public health. In leading the Programme, he provided strategic policy guidance for WHO on health partnerships, partnering with different sectors, and engaging with the private sector. He cultivated partnerships between the Organization and the UN system, the private sector, the non-governmental sector, regional intergovernmental organizations and parliamentary associations.

His major achievements include;

• Key policy documents of WHO and UN regarding global public health, partnerships particularly engaging the corporate sector such as companies and related entities.
• Inputs to the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness framework negotiations, including a strategy to engage vaccine manufacturers, other private sector entities, the World Bank/IMF to fund the operations.
• Support to create the Medicines Patent Pool Foundation (an innovative approach to pooling patents and intellectual property) and other innovative financing approaches for health such as the Millennium Foundation and the Solidarity Tobacco Levy.

Mr. Ross has also served in various senior positions at WHO Headquarters: the Director of Programme on Partnerships and UN Reform (2007-2011); the Director of the Office of the Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases (2006-07) and Chief of Staff for the Office of the Assistant Director-General for HIV, TB and Malaria (2003-2006). During these periods, he developed mutually supportive relationship with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and advanced the agenda of broader access to medicines and vaccines for developing countries. Before joining WHO, Mr. Ross served as a Senior Health Advisor Health systems, HIV/AIDS and integrated health policy for the UK Department for International Development (2001-2003); and Deputy Chief for Health and Education in the USAID Bureau for Africa (1993- 2001) He also worked in the U.S. Public Health Service (1990-93), the U.S. Congress House Energy and Commerce Committee (1988), and the U.S. General Accounting Office (1987-89). In summary, Mr Ross has engaged in the development of a number of health initiatives and partnerships within and beyond the health sector during the course of his career. Mr. Ross holds Masters and Bachelors of Science degrees in Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles. An American citizen, Mr. Ross has lived in Canada, England and France. He is fluent in English and French. Mr. Ross is married with two children.

Jo Ivey Boufford, MD

President, New York Academy of Medicine

Jo Ivey Boufford, MD, is the President of The New York Academy of Medicine. She is a Professor of Public Service, Health Policy and Management at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the New York University School of Medicine. She served as Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University from June 1997 to November 2002. Prior to that, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from November 1993 to January 1997, and as Acting Assistant Secretary from January 1997 to May 1997. While at HHS, she served as the U.S. representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1994–1997.

From May 1991 to September 1993, Dr. Boufford served as Director of the King’s Fund College, London England, and she served as President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), the largest municipal system in the United States, from December, 1985 until October, 1989.

She was President of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration in 2002–2003. She was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1992 and is a member of its Executive Council, Board on Global Health and Board on African Science Academy Development. She was elected to serve a second four year term as the Foreign Secretary of the IOM beginning July 1, 2010.

Professor Roderick J. Lawrence

Head of the Human Ecology Group at the Institute of Environmental Sciences

Roderick J. Lawrence graduated from University of Adelaide (Australia) with First Class Honours. He has a Master’s Degree from the University of Cambridge (England) and a Doctorate of Science from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale, Lausanne (Switzerland). In January 1997 he was nominated to the New York Academy of Science. In 1999 he was nominated Professor in the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Geneva. He currently is Head of the Human Ecology Group at the Institute of Environmental Sciences. He is the founding Director of the Certificate of Advanced Studies in Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 since 2003. He is also Director of the Global Environmental Policy Programme at the University of Geneva in partnership with UNEP since 2010. His biography has been included in Marquis Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in Science and Engineering.

Dr Megumi Kano

Technical Officer for the World Health Organization (WHO)

Dr Megumi Kano has been a Technical Officer for the World Health Organization (WHO) Centre for Health Development in Kobe, Japan, since 2009. Her areas of focus are urban health metrics development and health equity reduction. She currently leads the centre’s work on ageing and health particularly in collaboration with Japanese researchers. Previously, she was a Senior Researcher of the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), focusing on public health issues related to disaster situations. She received her doctorate in public health from the UCLA School of Public Health

Amit Prasad

Technical Officer with the World Health Organization (WHO)

Mr. Prasad is a health economist working with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Kobe, Japan. He has coordinated the development of WHO’s Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART), which is increasingly being used by cities, globally, for planning and monitoring action. Currently, he leads WHO’s initiatives on urban health metrics and works closely with country officials on capacity building and developing global standards on metrics. Previously, he has worked for several years in WHO (Geneva), and at the Harvard School of Public Health. Mr. Prasad received his education in economics and international development from Harvard University.

Dame Tina Lavender

University of Manchester

Dame Tina Lavender is Professor of Midwifery at the University of Manchester. She also holds an honorary contract at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester. She leads a programme of research, Midwifery and Women's Health; her main research focus being the management of prolonged labour and partogram use. Dame Tina has published extensively in this field. She is Co-editor in Chief of the British Journal of Midwifery, Associate Editor of the African Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health, Editor of the Pregnancy and Childbirth Group of the Cochrane Collaboration and on the editorial team of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Dame Tina is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Midwives and European Academy of Nurse Science. She is also the faculty Academic lead for fundraising (Global Health theme). Dame Tina also acts as a regular Advisor to the World Health Organization, particularly in relation to guideline development.

Professor Mukesh Kapila

University of Manchester

Mukesh Kapila is Professor of Global Health and Humanitarian Affairs at the University of Manchester. He is also Special Representative of the Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity, and Chair of Minority Rights Group International. His book “Against a Tide of Evil” was released in March 2013. Professor Kapila has extensive experience in the policy and practice of international development, humanitarian affairs, human rights and diplomacy, with particular expertise in tackling crimes against humanity, disaster and conflict management, and in global public health. He has qualifications in medicine, public health, and development from the Universities of Oxford and London. He has served in senior roles in the British Government and at the United Nations, World Health Organization, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. In 2003, he was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II and named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his international service. In 2007, he received the Global Citizenship Award of the Institute for Global Leadership.

Professor Tony Redmond OBE

Director of the UK International Emergency Trauma Register

Tony has led medical teams to sudden onset disasters, complex emergencies and conflicts for over twenty five years . He recently led medical teams to the earthquakes in china in 2008 and Haiti in 2010. He is Director of the UK international Emergency trauma register which aims to improve training and accountability of those who respond to large scale emergencies overseas. He is academic lead for global health education at Manchester medical school.

Professor Mike Kelly

Director of the Centre of Public Health at NICE

Professor Mike Kelly is Director of the Centre of Public Health at NICE where he leads on the development of public health guidance. He is a public health practitioner, researcher and academic. He was educated at the universities of York, Leicester, and Dundee. Before joining NICE he was Director of Evidence and Guidance at the Health Development Agency. Professor Kelly has previously held academic posts at the Universities of Leicester, Dundee, Glasgow, Greenwich and Abertay. He holds honorary posts at the universities of Cambridge, Manchester, Sheffield, UCL and Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

Professor Kelly’s research interests are in evidence based approaches to health improvement, methodological and philosophical problems in public health research and evidence based medicine, evidence synthesis, coronary heart disease prevention, chronic illness, disability, physical activity, health inequalities, behaviour change, social identity and community involvement in health promotion. From 2005-8 he was the co leader of the Measurement and Evidence Knowledge Network of World Health Organisation’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. He has published more than two hundred papers in medical, social scientific and public health journals and is author/ editor of seven books. In 2010 he was awarded the Alwyn Smith Prize of the Faculty of Public Health for his work on cardiovascular disease and alcohol misuse prevention.

Professor Kevin A. Fenton

National Director for Health and Wellbeing, Public Health England

Professor Kevin Fenton, MD, PhD, FFPH, is the Public Health England National Director for Health and Wellbeing. In this role he oversees PHE's national prevention programmes including screening for cancer and other conditions, Health Checks, national health marketing campaigns, public mental health, and a range of wellbeing programmes for infants, youth, adults and older adults. The Health and Wellbeing Directorate also leads PHE's Health Equity portfolio with a range of programmes and activities focused on addressing the social determinants of health, and promoting settings-based approaches to health improvement.

Professor Fenton was previously the director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a position he held for seven years from November 2005. He also served as chief of CDC’s National Syphilis Elimination Effort and has worked in research, epidemiology, and the prevention of HIV and other STDs since 1995. Previously he was the director of the HIV and STI Department at the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency.

Dr Ann Marie Connolly

Director of Health Equity and Impact, Public Health England

Dr Ann Marie Connolly was appointed to the role of Director of Health Equity and Impact in Public Health England in April 2013. Working from the Health and Wellbeing Directorate her role is to ensure that the new public health system is supported to address health inequalities and the determinants of those inequalities. She heads up a new programme called Healthy People, Healthy Places, focussing on helping ensure that the places where people live work learn and play enable people to stay healthy.

Originally trained as a GP, Dr Connolly has been working in public health for the past 25 years, most recently as a Director of Public Health in a London borough. Over her career she has held a variety of posts both within and outside of the UK. These include working for WHO EURO on Healthy Cities across Europe, research on HIV with the Medical Research Council of South Africa and embedding public health in the curriculum of a new medical school in Ireland.

Professor John Ashton

President of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians

Professor John Ashton CBE, formerly North West Regional Director of Public Health and Regional Medical Officer from 1993 – 2006 and Director of Public Health and County medical Officer for Cumbria from 2006- 2013 has been elected President of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians from 2013 – 2016 was born in Liverpool in 1947.

He was educated at Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Medical School and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He specialised in psychiatry, general practice, family planning and reproductive medicine before entering Public Health in 1976.

John worked in Newcastle and Northumberland, Hampshire and London before returning to Liverpool and the North West in 1983. For two years he was a councillor on Hampshire County Council.

John Ashton is well known for his work on Planned Parenthood and healthy cities and for his personal advocacy for Public Health. He was a member of the British delegation to Macedonia during the Kosovo emergency and played a prominent role in resolving the fuel dispute. He has been prominent in the fight for justice for the 96 victims of the Hillsborough football disaster.

John holds chairs in the Liverpool medical School, Liverpool John Moore’s University, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Manchester Medical School, the Valencia Institute of Public Health in Spain, the Universities of Central Lancashire, Lancaster and Cumbria.

He is the author of many scientific papers: articles and chapters in books and of several books including “The New Public Health” which has been the standard textbook on Public Health.

Professor David Morris

Professor of Mental Health, Inclusion and Community

David Morris is Professor of Mental Health, Inclusion and Community in the School of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire and Director of the Centre for Citizenship and Community, a collaboration with the RSA and the Royal Society for Public Health. Prior to this, David was Director of the cross – government National Social Inclusion Programme (2004-2009) at the National Institute for Mental Health in England. He holds a Visiting Academic Associate post in the Health Service and Population Research Department of the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London.

David has founded and led a number of programmes in the field of inclusion and health equalities and contributes widely both nationally and internationally in a range of advisory and consultative roles to the development of policy and practice on social inclusion.

With a professional background in social work and management of Mental Health services in social care, David’s career has spanned statutory and voluntary sectors, central and local government, social care, health and academia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts with whom he is working on ‘Connected Communities’, a five year programme on social networks and community capital.

Professor Chris Webster

Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Hong Kong

Professor Chris Webster is Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, HKU. Until January 2013 he headed Cardiff University’s School of Planning and Geography, one of Europe’s largest planning schools and there built a partnership with Cardiff Medical School to explore the association between spatial environmental configuration and individual health outcomes.

He is an urban planner, spatial analyst and urban economist by training and intellectual tradition but was drawn into the science of healthy cities by years of researching Mainland China’s phenomenal urban growth; the lack of connect between practicing city-planners and public health scientists; his life-long study of self-organising complex urban systems; and the inspiration and encouragement of epidemiologists such as John Gallacher, Peter Elwood and Stephen Palmer, to revisit the Public Health roots of Urban Planning.

His spatial analysis team has developed sDNA (spatial Domain Network Analysis) a network analysis tool that allows the measurement of an individual’s home-based accessibility to health-improving and detracting destinations, measured at multiple spatial scales. He has recently partnered with Professor Gabriel Leung’s Public Health group at the University of Hong Kong and with Cambridge University’s GIS lab.

The expanded Cardiff-Cambridge-HKU team is setting about the task of adding a set of highly discriminating spatial environmental measures to large study cohorts such as the UK Biobank, the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study; the Children of 1997 Hong Kong Chinese birth cohort; and the Prospective Chinese Elderly Cohort. Chris Webster’s books include Webster and Lai (2003) Property Rights, Planning and Markets: managing spontaneous cities, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar; Glasze; Webster and Frantz, (2006) Private Cities, London, Routledge; Wu, Webster, He and Liu, (2010) Urban Poverty in China, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar; Wu and Webster (Editors) (2011) Marginalisation in Urban China. London: Palgrave McMillan; and Sarkar, Webster and Gallacher (March 2014) Healthy Cities: Public Health Through Urban Planning. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Professor Webster has five prize-winning academic papers on urban theory. His present professional mission is to change the way cities are planned in China.

Jenny Donovan

Principal of Melbourne based urban design practice Inclusive Design

Jenny is the principal of Melbourne based urban design practice Inclusive Design. Her practice looks at how the design of the built environment can create places that offer people the optimal conditions to thrive and fulfil their potential. This means designing places that offer qualities and opportunities that help communities help themselves to meet emerging health and social challenges. Her work places equal emphasis on the process of design (how we design, who we involve) and product of design (what gets built). She has been appointed by UN Habitat as an international expert in placemaking and her experience spans the UK, Ireland, Kosovo, Ethiopia, Australia and Sri Lanka.

Jenny Donovan is the author of “Designing to heal: planning and urban design responses to disaster and conflict” published by the CSIRO. The book is based on her experience of projects in the private, public and community sectors, in Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Ethiopia, Kosovo and Sri Lanka and studies of projects in New York, Montserrat and the Caribbean.

Paul Whittaker

Paul was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, in 1964 with a hearing loss and has been profoundly deaf since the age of 8. He is an organist and pianist, having gained his ARCO and ALCM diplomas whilst still at school. In 1983 Paul was accepted at Wadham College, Oxford to read for a music degree, followed by a post-graduate performance course at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, in 1986. In 1988 Paul founded the charity ‘Music and the Deaf’ to help deaf people access music and performing arts. Covering resources, talks and lectures, training events, workshops, signed concerts, dance and theatre performances, this work takes Paul all over the UK.

Since 2007 Music and the Deaf has run the Deaf Youth Orchestra of West Yorkshire, and there are now similar groups in the North West, Peterborough and London, with more planned. The charity is also developing more signed song resources and a training programme so that more people have the confidence, skills and resources to make music with deaf people.

More information on Music and the Deaf, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2013, can be found on www.matd.org.uk. In 1992 Paul was awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling fellowship to research music among deaf communities in the USA. The same year he began giving signed theatre performances in London and across the UK.

In 2010 he provided the first ever signed Prom, “Sondheim at 80” which was also broadcast on BBC2, and followed that with a performance of “Porgy and Bess” with Opera Lyon at the Edinburgh International Festival. He has also signed for Rambert Dance Company, with “The Sixteen” choir, the BBC National Orchestra or Wales and Aldeburgh Festival.

Among current projects are a 3-year project involving the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and deaf schools in 9 different European cities, and helping to set up music activities for deaf people in the Dominican Republic and Singapore. He also occasionally adjudicates signing choir classes at music festivals. In 2005 Paul was invited by HM The Queen to attend a reception to celebrate British Music at Buckingham Palace, and the same year received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Huddersfield, in recognition of his music education work with deaf people. Paul was awarded an OBE for services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2007.

Dr Arpana Verma

University of Manchester

Arpana is Director of the Manchester Urban Collaboration on Health, in the Centre for Epidemiology in the Institute of Population Health. She is chair of the local organising committee for ICUH2014.

She was PI of EURO-URHIS 2 (http://www.urhis.eu) and is president of the European Public Health Association section on Urban Health. She leads on a number of public health and health service research project. Many of these projects involve data linkage of health indicators, risk factors and the wider determinants of health to help understand the urban challenges to health both within the UK and globally.

She is Director for Undergraduate Studies for the Institute of Population Health and works in the Community Based Medical Education team at the Manchester Medical School. She holds an honorary clinical consultant post at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust.

Professor Thomas Illig

Hannover Medical School

Since January first 2012 Prof. Thomas Illig is heading the Hannover Unified Biobank, including all biomaterials from Hannover Medical School (MHH). MHH is one of the largest medical faculties in Germany including 60 institutes with more than 9 000 employees. Prof. Illig is establishing a modern high-throughput biobank and a molecular analysis centre at MHH.

Before 2012 he worked for 15 years at Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen (HMGU) at the end as director of the Independent Research Unit of Molecular Epidemiology.

Thomas Illig was head of the biobank of the department of epidemiology with more than 50 000 genomic DNA samples consisting of population-based and case-specific cohorts. Prof. Illig is leading the biobank group of the German National Cohort including 200 000 participants. He has great experience with biobanking projects and intensive contacts to leading biobanks in Europe. Prof. Illig is member in leading biobank consortia (BBMRI, P3G, Bioshare-EU).

He has a longstanding experience in environmental, molecular and genetic epidemiology. He co-organized large population based and disease related biobanks (e.g. KORA, Augsburg Diabetes Family Study). One main focus is the molecular analysis of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases mainly of type 2 diabetes and CVD but also on other complex diseases like asthma, atopic eczema and lung cancer.

Dr. Jane Kaye

University of Oxford

Dr. Jane Kaye is a Director of the Centre for Law, Health and Emerging Technologies at Oxford: HeLEX at the University of Oxford http://helex.medsci.ox.ac.uk/ The centre specialises in investigating the relationships between law, ethics, and practice in the area of emerging technologies in health. She obtained her degrees from the Australian National University (BA); University of Melbourne (LLB); and University of Oxford (DPhil). She was admitted to practice as a solicitor/barrister in 1997 and is member of the University of Oxford’s Faculty of Law. She is also on a number of international expert committees and scientific advisory boards and was on the UK Ethics and Confidentiality Committee of NIGB. She is one of the leaders in the ELSI2.0 Initiative http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6082/673.summary and the Making Connections network on the governance of biobanks. She was the Rapporteur for the EC Expert Report, Biobanks for Europe - The Challenges for Governance June 2012 http://www.publichealth.ox.ac.uk/helex/biobanks_for_Europe.pdf and is on the editorial boards of Applied and Translational Genomics, Law, Innovation and Technology, the Journal of Law and Information Science and Life Sciences, Policy and Society.

David Satterthwaite

International Institute for Environment and Development

David Satterthwaite is a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and editor of the international journal Environment and Urbanization. He is also a visiting Professor at the Development Planning Unit, University College London and was awarded the Volvo Environment Prize in 2004. Most of his work has been on poverty reduction in urban areas in Africa, Asia and Latin America, undertaken with local teams. He has written and edited various books on urban issues, including Squatter Citizen (with Jorge E. Hardoy), The Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Cities, Environmental Problems in an Urbanizing World (with Jorge E. Hardoy and Diana Mitlin) and Empowering Squatter Citizen (with Diana Mitlin), all published by Earthscan. He also co-authored two recently published books on urban poverty with Diana Mitlin - Urban Poverty in the Global South: Scale and Nature and Reducing Urban Poverty in the Global South, both published by Routledge. He also has a particular interest in how climate change can or will add to the stresses and shocks faced by low-income urban dwellers. He is a Coordinating Lead Author for the chapter on urban adaptation in the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment, along with contributing to the Third and Fourth Assessments.

Prof Fatemeh Rabiee

Birmingham City University

Prof Fatemeh Rabiee BSc, MScPh, PhD, CertHEd, RPH Nutr, is a Professor of Public Health Promotion within the Faculty of Health, Birmingham City University, Birmingham- UK. She has experience of working in the UK, Netherlands and in Iran as a practitioner, manager and as an academic in the field of Public Health Promotion. In addition, she has extensive experience of supervising postgraduate students and consultancy in the broad area of Public Health in the Eastern Mediterranean region, & EU countries.

Prof Rabiee has initiated, managed and implemented a number of applied research projects in the broad area of health and social care. Her main research interests are: health and social policy, health inequalities, mental health promotion, public health nutrition and evaluation of health & social care projects.

Professor John Newton

Chief Knowledge Officer of Public Health England

Professor John Newton is the Chief Knowledge Officer of Public Health England. He joined PHE having been the Regional Director of Public Health for NHS South Central since 2007 and Honorary Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Manchester since 2004. Professor Newton has twenty years of experience as a consultant in public health and a strong track record in academic, professional service and senior management roles. As well as being an academic epidemiologist in the University of Oxford for eleven years, he has also been Director of Research and Development in two large NHS teaching hospitals (Southampton and Oxford) and was the first Director and CEO of UK Biobank. He has a long-standing interest in the use of knowledge to drive public health practice. In 2005 he led work for the Department of Health on a national public health information and intelligence strategy. He has recently been centrally involved in directing the information, intelligence and research functions of Public Health England. This involves delivery of national cancer and other disease registration and production of a range of outputs to support public health activity.

Professor Caroline Moser

Professor Emeritus at the University of Manchester

Caroline Moser is Professor Emeritus at the University of Manchester. She was the Director of the Global Urban Research Centre (GURC), and previously worked at the Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College London, the London School of Economics (LSE), the World Bank and Brookings Institution. A social anthropologist and social development specialist, her recent research has focused on intergenerational asset accumulation and urban poverty reduction, asset adaptation to climate change, gender violence, and understanding the tipping points of urban conflict and violence. She is currently advisor to the Ford Foundation’s Global Urban Research initiative.

Dr Rubina Jasani

University of Manchester

Dr Rubina Jasani is a Lecturer at Humanitarianism Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester. Her areas of interest are anthropology of violence and reconstruction, medical anthropology with a special focus on social suffering and mental illness and the study of lived Islam in South Asia and the UK. Her doctoral work examined moral and material ‘reconstruction’ of life after an episode of ethnic violence in Gujarat, Western India in 2002. Since finishing her PhD, she has finished two pieces of research on ethnicity and mental health in Britain. One looks at the role of ethnicity and culture in explanatory models of mental illness, and the second interrogates the notion of ‘institutional racism’ by unpacking the subjective experiences of compulsory detention under the mental health act. Currently she is engaged in new research in the area of Islamic healing practices in Europe.

Dr Kirsten Howarth

University of Manchester

Dr Kirsten Howarth is a Lecturer in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response at HCRI at the University of Manchester. Prior to this, Kirsten was a Teaching Fellow in International Development at the Institute for Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester. She completed her PhD on the causes of post-war violence and crime in El Salvador, with a particular focus on unpacking the role of both violent state and non-state actors in influencing the consolidation of peace and long-term development. Her current research builds on from her PhD by analysing urban violence and its humanitarian consequences.

Professor Matt Hickman

Professor in Public Health and Epidemiology at Bristol

Matt Hickman is a Professor in Public Health and Epidemiology at Bristol, and Honorary Public Health Consultant at NHS Bristol and Health Protection Agency. He is a member of UK CRC Public Health Centre of Excellence (DECIPHER) and NIHR School of Public Health Research. His research programme focuses on epidemiology and public health consequences of drug misuse – including epidemiology and prevention of HCV, drug related mortality and adolescent substance use with grants from MRC, NIHR, NIH and Wellcome. MH is Deputy Regional Editor of Addiction, and was a member of the recent Academy Medical Sciences Working Group on Brain Science. MH chairs an NIHR doctoral research award panel and recently chaired the NICE Programme Development Group on Hepatitis Testing. MH is a member of the Scientific Committee of European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction, and the Cochrane collaboration on Drugs and Alcohol. MH is a member of the NHS Advisory Group on Hepatitis and Health Protection Agency Hepatitis Programme Board. Recent work has won the Royal College of General Practitioner (RCGP) paper of the year 2010 and European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction paper of the year 2011 and 2012.

Professor Munir Pirmohamed

David Weatherall Chair in Medicine at the University of Liverpool

Professor Munir Pirmohamed is currently David Weatherall Chair in Medicine at the University of Liverpool, and a Consultant Physician at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. He also holds the only NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics in the UK, and is Deputy Director of the M.R.C. Centre for Drug Safety Sciences, and Director of the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine. Professor Pirmohamed is a Commissioner on Human Medicines and is the Chair of its Pharmacovigilance Expert Advisory Group. He is also an inaugural NIHR Senior Investigator, and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in the UK. He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications.

Professor Pirmohamed's research focuses on individual variability in drug response, both safety and efficacy, with a view to evaluating the mechanisms, and identifying strategies to personalise medicines in order to optimise drug efficacy and minimise toxicity. The work spans the whole spectrum from discovery to implementation with laboratory based studies being linked translationally to patient studies, with the aim being to develop the evidence base that can move discoveries from the lab to the clinic. The translational research agenda has been strengthened through the award of the MRC Clinical Pharmacology training scheme for clinical fellows. Professor Munir Pirmohamed has received a number of honours including in 2011, the William Withering Medal from the Royal College of Physicians and the IPIT award for Public Service from the University of North Carolina in the US.

Dr Tim Ward

Retired Biomedical Translational Scientist

I am a retired biomedical translational scientist who worked within the Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology Group of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre (formally the Paterson Institute). My job as pharmacodynamics manager meant I was responsible for the development, validation and implementation of all assays used by the group in early phase II/II clinical trials. I have over 30 years experience in Cancer Research, principally Anticancer Drug Development specializing in anti cancer drug screening, DNA damaging assays and developing multiplex platforms for use in pre clinical and clinical research projects. My publications include numerous research papers and book chapters on bioreductive anticancer drugs and I was involved in the development of a number of drugs which entered early clinical trials. I was a member of the Cancer Research UK New Agents committee (NAC) 2010-2012. My research interests in recent years were centered on detecting and characterizing circulating tumour cells and micro emboli. I also had a keen interest in utilizing circulating DNA as a biomarker of tumour DNA to detect specific tumour mutations which impact on response to modern targeted agents. The eventual goal of these programs of work was and still is to further understand the mechanism of tumour dissemination and to develop screening methods that will enable the concept of directive therapy to be fulfilled. Since retirement I have become a member of a clinical trial steering committee (REQUITE). This trial, set to commence in 2014 is attempting to Validate predictive models and biomarkers of radiotherapy toxicity in order to reduce side-effects and improve quality-of-life in cancer survivors.. My current scientific interest now centres on sensitivity to radiotherapy in cancer patients, in particular those who have had Pelvic Radiotherapy. As a result of this I have become a trustee of the Pelvic Radiation Disease Association the only UK charity supporting and campaigning for cancer patients who are suffering side effects from their radiotherapy.

Professor Ken Muir

Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Manchester

His main research interests are in translational applications of the epidemiology of cancer and other chronic diseases and healthy ageing. His work in these areas has attracted substantial funding from the UK's leading funders in these conditions together with significant funding from the EU.

Ongoing studies include investigations of prostate, breast and ovarian cancers each of which involves the assessment of both environmental and lifestyle exposures (for example diet and occupational history) together with the modifying influences of the genetic make-up of the individual.

He is also very interested in the key differences in cancer occurrence between Asian and Western populations. His current work is centred on screening and prevention initiatives in hormonally dependent cancers and other common conditions.

Clive Parkinson

Director of Arts for Health at Manchester Metropolitan University

Clive Parkinson is the Director of Arts for Health at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has previously led on mental health promotion for an NHS Trust and managed day services for people affected by schizophrenia. Through facilitated networking, research and development and high level political lobbying, he has succeeded in gaining strategic support and a greater understanding of the potency and social value of art and design. He is working to further understand the potential impact of culture and the arts on public health and inequalities and is a founder member of the National Alliance for Arts, Health and Wellbeing and a member of the UK Arts and Health Research Network.

In Lithuania he is working with The British Council and the Government on strategic development in arts/health and an ongoing training and seminar series. Building on the 2011 Manifesto for Arts, Health and Wellbeing in the UK, he is working in Italy and Turkey with people in recovery from substance addiction and will be facilitating a similar participatory process with European partners to develop a European Recovery Manifesto, which will be launched in September 2014.

His current Arts and Humanities Research Council funded collaborative research, is focused on Dementia and Imagination, to which he is particularly interested in the artist as researcher. His ongoing personal research is around the relevance of arts and culture in end of life care and recently he co-curated an exhibition of contemporary visual art - Mortality: Death and the Imagination - in Manchester. He regularly blogs at: http://artsforhealthmmu.blogspot.com

Rob Cookson

Director of Business Development for the Lesbian and Gay Foundation

Rob Cookson is Director of Business Development for the Lesbian and Gay Foundation (LGF), and its strategic led for Sexual Health. Rob has worked within the field of sexual health for over 6 years, and is passionate about increasing access to services, and reducing the health inequalities faced by lesbian, gay and bisexual people (LGB). Rob’s particular passion is recognising LGB people as community assets, with valuable skills, knowledge and insights to reduce incidents of HIV and other STIs.

During his time at the LGF, the LGF’s sexual health programme has expanded, to include areas of work supporting the provision of postal HIV kits and using new technologies to ensure targeted health promotion messages reach LGB people. Rob is a member of a variety of key forums, including the Greater Manchester Sexual Health Network Board and the national PREP PROUD study steering committee.

Rob has over 15 year’s experience of working within the Voluntary & Community Sector, including at Chief Executive level for two capacity building organisations. Rob has recently gained the qualification of MA in Community Practice, with themes of this study including health inequalities and the impact of globalisation.

Geoff Holliday

Public Health Strategic Manager Salford City Council

Coming from a background in sales, Geoff started his second career in 1987 in Lincolnshire. Volunteering with the local HIV Group, picking up group work skills and a sketchy understanding of the NHS while driving a taxi in the evenings to earn a living. His first post with the NHS was as “HIV Trainer” with the North Lincolnshire Health Promotion Service.

His first move to the Northwest was taking a post as a gay men’s outreach worker with Warrington Health Authority in 1993. In his ten years in Warrington he became a Health Promotion Specialist – Sexual Health and gained an MSc in Public Health in 1998. Working with the voluntary and statutory sectors developing policy and training to support work concerning sexual health by all agencies.

Moving to Salford Primary Care Trust in 2002 as Service Development Manager – Sexual Health, Geoff gained valuable operational management experience. This post allowed him to apply the strategic learning and public health principles of his previous experience to operational services delivering direct to the general public. He has been the lead on a major redesign of PCT provided sexual health services, working with colleagues from Public Health, Finance, Human Resources and the Greater Manchester Sexual Health Network to deliver better services for the people of Salford. This redesign won the “Nursing Times Award – Sexual Health” in 2007.

Returning from a secondment to the Department of Health project managing the GUMMAM and HIV outpatient tariff projects, Geoff assumed the role of Public Health Strategic Manager for NHS Salford and Salford City Council where he is responsible for Sexual Health and Teenage Pregnancy. He remains committed to sexual health and believes that with best use of available resources and serious multi-disciplinary commitment, all national and locally agreed Key Performance Indicators for Sexual Health are achievable.

Professor Aneela Atta Ur Rahman

Liaquat University Of Medical And Health Sciences (Lumhs), Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan

Prof Aneela Rahman is the Chairperson, Department of Community Medicine and Public Health Sciences and PhD Coordinator, Medical Research Centre at LUMHS. After MBBS and MPH she obtained PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health from the University of Nottingham, UK.

Currently, she is involved in a number of projects with special focus on control of infectious diseases. They include study on water-borne diseases, children’s vaccine preventable diseases and Knowledge, Perceptions and Practices of Mothers of <5 years age children on five key family practices related to child health, growth and development. She is also actively involved in production of health awareness messages, both audio and video, on Drug addiction, Water Purification, Tuberculosis & Violence against Women. To prevent road traffic accidents she has intiated a project for promotion of Public Health awareness messages for National highways and Hospitals.

Prof Aneela will be chairing the New opportunities in delivering better health to populations session on day two of the conference.

Professor Martin Gibson

Chief Executive of Northwest EHealth

Martin Gibson is Chief Executive of Northwest EHealth¹, Director of the NIHR Greater Manchester Comprehensive Clinical Research Network², clinical lead for the Northwest NIHR Diabetes Local Research Network and Associate Director for Industry for the CCRN. He is a consultant physician specialising in diabetes and lipid disorders at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust where he was formerly R&D Director of both the acute and primary care Trusts. Martin is an active clinical trialist and has had a long-term interest in the use of electronic clinical data systems to improve healthcare and facilitate research.

¹NWEH is a not-for-profit NHS/University collaborative that specialises in developing supported easy-to-use software tools to for clinicians, scientists and managers to undertake research, audit, commissioning and care –

²The National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR) networks provide infrastructure support for academic and life science industry clinical research across the country. These actively managed networks have significantly increased the capacity, capability and performance of the UK across all phases of clinical research – www.nihr.ac.uk

Dr Mary Tully

Reader in Pharmacy Practice in Manchester Pharmacy School, The University of Manchester

Dr Mary Tully is currently Reader in Pharmacy Practice in Manchester Pharmacy School, The University of Manchester. She also works one day per week at Salford Royal NHS Trust Hospital. Her research interests are two-fold. She is co-lead for the Patient and Public Involvement Theme for the Health e-Research Centre (HeRC), with an interest in public attitudes and opinions on the use of health data. She also had a research team working on the process and outcome of hospital and non-medical prescribing, particularly on ways of reducing prescribing errors made by junior doctors. She has published 70 peer-reviewed research papers and has helped attract over £10m in research grant money.

Professor Raymond Agius

Centre Lead for Epidemiology in the Institute of Population Health of the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, The University of Manchester

Raymond Agius is Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Director of the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Manchester School of Medicine. He is also an honorary consultant in the Central Manchester and Manchester Children's Hospitals NHS Trust and at South Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust. His previous appointments have included being Senior Lecturer in Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Edinburgh and before that Director of Medical Services at the Institute of Occupational Medicine.

His research interests have ranged widely from occupational to environmental ill health including respiratory and cardiovascular disease, stress and back pain, and audit and quality in the delivery of occupational health services. He has particular research interests in the incidence of occupational disease and work related ill health, in air pollution epidemiology and in methods of predicting new hazards - with a view to appropriate preventive measures. He has a special interest in education in occupational medicine especially utilising the internet and other innovative approaches. His book 'Practical Occupational Medicine' is now in its second edition.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of London and an Honorary a Fellow of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He serves or has served on several national and international committees, governmental and non-governmental bodies, and is a past president of the British Occupational Hygiene Society.

He has lectured widely and his 'eponymous' lectures or orations include the Donald Hunter lecture (Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Royal College of Physicians of London), the Smiley lecture (Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland), the Ferguson Glass oration (Australasian Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Royal Australasian College of Physicians) and the Heijermans lecture (University of Amsterdam).

Dr Tanja Müller

University of Manchester

Dr Tanja Müller is a Senior Lecturer in International Development at the Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM) and the Director of Research of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI), University of Manchester. She is the author of five monographs and numerous journal articles on political and social change, revolutionary states, well-being and aspirations, mainly in the geographical context of sub-Saharan Africa. Others parts of her work have dealt with the politics of HIV/AIDS, and the social and economic impact of the pandemic in high-prevalence settings. One focus of her most recent work centres on the changing conceptual underpinnings of humanitarian intervention over time, celebrity humanitarianism, and on refugee dynamics in urban contexts.

Dr Alfredo Stein

University of Manchester

Dr Alfredo Stein is a Lecturer in Urban Development Planning at the Planning and Environmental Management Department, and a member of the Global Urban Research Centre (GURC), University of Manchester. He has more than two decades of practical experience in the design, management, monitoring and evaluation of low-income housing, municipal and local development, post-emergency reconstruction and urban poverty reduction planning, policies and projects in parts of Latin America, Africa and Asia. His recent research focuses on climate change adaptation, urban poverty reduction, low-income housing finance and urban development planning.

Professor Diana Mitlin

University of Manchester

Professor Diana Mitlin directs the Global Urban Research Centre at the University of Manchester (www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/research/gurc) and also holds an appointment at the International Institute for Environment and Development (www.iied.org). Her work focuses on urban poverty and inequality including urban poverty reduction programmes and the contribution of collective action by low-income and otherwise disadvantaged groups. She has recently co-authored two volumes (with David Satterthwaite): Urban Poverty in the Global South: Scale and Nature and Reducing Urban Poverty in the Global South.

Dr Rony Brauman

Associated Director of HCRI

Dr Rony Brauman qualified as a medical doctor, and has worked in the field of international medical assistance since 1977. Initially serving as a field physician in developing countries with Médecins San Frontières (France), he became the President of the organisation from 1982 -1994. His interests range from ethical issues at stake in the relationships between humanitarianism and politics, to humanitarian discourses and practices primarily in war and natural disaster settings. He authored several documentary films, essays and books on these matters. He is Associated Director of HCRI, as well as Associate Professor at L'Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris, and Director of Research at the MSF Foundation (CRASH) also in Paris.

Dr David Dodman

College Teaching Fellow at University College London

Dr David Dodman is a Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) where he is team leader for institutional objectives on 'Cities and Climate Change' and 'Research Quality'. He holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Biology and Geography from the University of St Andrews, and a D.Phil. in Geography from the University of Oxford. Prior to joining IIED he was a Lecturer in Geography at the University of the West Indies (Mona, Jamaica). He is the author of more than thirty journal articles and book chapters, and the co-editor of 'Global Change and Caribbean Vulnerability: Environment, Economy and Society at Risk' (Kingston, UWI Press) and 'Adapting Cities to Climate Change: understanding and addressing the development challenge' (London, Earthscan). He is a College Teaching Fellow at University College London, and a Lead Author on the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Samuel Carpenter

Humanitarian Policy Adviser in the International Division at the British Red Cross (BRC)

Samuel Carpenter is a Humanitarian Policy Adviser in the International Division at the British Red Cross (BRC). At the BRC he leads the organisation's work on resilience policy and learning and coordinates an operational learning project on humanitarian action in urban areas. Prior to this, he worked with the Humanitarian Futures Programme, King’s College London on non-traditional humanitarian actors, and with the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium at the Overseas Development Institute, researching livelihoods and services affected by conflict. He also has operational experience working with Merlin on health and nutrition programmes in South Sudan. Samuel holds an MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Dang Thu Phuong

Dang Thu Phuong holds a MSc in Regional and Rural Development Planning from the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, and has over 16 years of working experience in Vietnam for multiple NGOs and donor agencies. Her research focuses on disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation in health and livelihoods in urban and rural contexts; indigenous knowledge in relation to health, agriculture and forestry; and pro-poor DRM/CCA policy and institutional analysis. She is also one of the founders and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Associate for the British NGO Challenge to Change (www.challengetochange.org) that supports poor communities to adapt to disasters and climate change in Vietnam.

Among her recent work are engagements with the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) and the analysis of Disaster Risk Reduction experiences from NGOs in response to the most damaging disasters and climatic events in Vietnam over the last 15 years. This work will contribute to the Vietnam Special Report of Managing Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters (SREX Vietnam) to be published by UNDP and MONRE in 2013.

Elena Lucchi

Humanitarian affairs specialist with Médecins Sans Frontières

Elena Lucchi studied international relations, human rights, and humanitarian aid. From 2000 to 2004, she worked at the International Committee of the Red Cross as a protection delegate and then as head of sub-delegation in Colombia, Rwanda and South Sudan. She later worked as a humanitarian affairs specialist with Médecins Sans Frontières, designing and implementing policies and advocacy strategies on several humanitarian issues in a number of countries.

Graham Saunders

Head, Shelter and Settlements, International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)

Graham Saunders is Head, Shelter and Settlements, International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). He specializes in the design, management and technical support of shelter and settlement relief and development programmes. A UK architect with a background in project design and management, he has extensive experience of shelter programming in Africa, South & South East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean.

A key focus of recent work has been on the role of shelter and settlement programming in risk reduction and livelihoods support, advancing the professionalisation of humanitarian action, and in promoting greater engagement between the humanitarian shelter and housing development sectors. In addition to the development of guidelines and programming tools, he has contributed to a range of sector initiatives, case studies and research publications with leading shelter practitioners and institutions, including overseeing the Sphere Minimum Standards in Shelter, Settlement and Non-Food Items.

As head of shelter and settlement for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva, his role is to support the IFRC in meeting its leadership commitment to the sector, building the required capacity and identifying and promoting best practices and innovation. As the interagency Global Shelter Cluster Coordinator, he is also responsible for overseeing the coordination of the humanitarian shelter sector in preparing for and responding to natural disasters at global and country level.

Laura Alfers

Social Protection Programme of WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment, Globalising and Organizing)

Laura Alfers has worked since 2009 as a researcher on the Social Protection Programme of WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment, Globalising and Organizing), an action research network which aims to improve the status of the working poor (particularly women) in the informal economy. Laura has been involved as a researcher and project manager of WIEGO’s Occupational Health & Safety for Informal Workers Project, which has run over 4 years in 5 countries. In June 2013 Laura was named as one of ten winners in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Centennial Innovation Challenge. The award provides an opportunity to pilot ideas about the regulation of workplace health and safety in informal workplaces that have been developed through the OHS Project, and will involve collaborations between informal worker organizations, local government institutions, urban planners, and health professionals. Laura is currently completing a PhD at the School of the Built Environment and Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. She also holds Masters degrees in Politics and Development Studies from Rhodes University, South Africa and Cambridge University, UK.

Dr. Umamaheshwaran Rajasekari

Director of Taru Leading Edge, India

Dr. Umamaheshwaran Rajasekari is the director of Taru Leading Edge, India. He has been providing technical guidance to governments, private sector stakeholders and INGO’s in the fields of system analysis, program design and project implementation. He is currently handling diverse portfolios that include hazard risk modelling, vulnerability mapping, climate variability analysis and technological interventions for social transitions. His recent works include systems design and development, with and for institutions, to enable city governments to mainstream climate change resilience. He has previously been director of communications at Centre for Urban and Environmental Change (CUEC, USA). Apart from consulting his interests include strategy planning, capacity building, teaching and traveling.

Despina Syrri

President of Symβiosis CSO, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki

Despina Syrri is president of Symβiosis CSO, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki. She has been a Visiting Fellow at the Amsterdam Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Director of Research and International Cooperation at the Immigration Policy Institute in Greece, and has worked with the Reuters News Agency, Athens News Agency, the South East Europe Research Centre, the Berlin Migration Netzwerk, the British Council, the Refugee Studies Centre and the EastWest Institute on issues of post-conflict development, migration, refugees, borders and the Western Balkans integration to the European Union.

She taught Political Science and Political Anthropology at the American College of Thessaloniki, worked from 1988 to date with International Organisations (Council of Europe, Stability Pact for South East Europe) and NGOs in Southern Africa, East Europe and South East Europe, as well as in election observation and human rights missions with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. She has published various journal articles and book chapters in Greek, South Slavic and English, and authored research papers and documentaries. She is currently involved in developing post-graduate degrees at EU level on Humanitarian Action (EUPHRA EC project), in citizens’ media (EIF programme) as well as in research on detention centres at the Greek-Turkish border and the treatment of third country nations at Europe’s periphery with ELIAMEP and the EU Fundamental Rights Agency.

Mateja Celestina

University of Manchester

Mateja Celestina is about to complete her doctoral dissertation at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on internal displacement as process, category and experience, with particular reference to Colombia. Throughout her doctoral studies she has presented at a number of conferences in the UK and abroad. Her topic greatly reflects her overall research interest, namely, the impact of conflict on people. Her future research plan is to focus on ‘stayees’, in order to bring conflict-ridden lives (struggles, achievements, social relations) of ordinary people to public prominence.

Verena Brähler

University College London

Verena Brähler is a PhD Candidate at the Institute of the Americas, University College London and conducts research on security, organised crime, violence and human rights in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centro de Estudos de Segurança e Cidadania (CESeC) in Rio and is the founder of Researching Security (www.researchingsecurity.org). She is an External Analyst for IHS Jane’s, writing security and defense-related intelligence pieces on Brazil, and has also worked as a Policy Analyst for the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) in Rio de Janeiro and London between 2010 and 2012

Dr Jean Luc Poncelet

PAHO/WHO representative in Haiti

Dr. Jean Luc Poncelet is presently the PAHO/WHO representative in Haiti. Till April 2013 he was directing the Emergency Response and Disaster Risk Reduction Program of the Pan American Health Organization which is also the regional office of the World Health Organization for Latin America and the Caribbean. He has actively participated in almost all major emergencies that have affected the Western Hemisphere since 1986 by either leading health field response, or in its sub-regional or regional capacity to coordinate international health assistance in support to member states. He has elaborated or participated in the elaboration of many technical publication produced by PAHO/WHO as well as in high level courses for senior management in health disaster management.

Dr. Poncelet is a national of Belgium, Medical Doctor, Master in Public Health and Specialist in Tropical Medicine. He has been PAHO/WHO staff since 1986. He worked before that as General Practitioner.

Dr A. Metin Gülmezoglu

UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO

Dr A. Metin Gülmezoglu is the coordinator for the maternal and perinatal health and preventing unsafe abortion team at the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction, the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, WHO. Dr Gülmezoglu qualified as an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Turkey. He worked as a clinician and researcher in South Africa and obtained his PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand. He then worked at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University and at the United Kingdom Cochrane Centre focusing on systematic reviews. In 1998 he joined WHO in Geneva as a medical officer.

Dr Gülmezoglu conducted research on major causes of maternal mortality and morbidity since 1992. He contributed to large multicentre randomized controlled trials evaluating promising clinical interventions and improving the quality of maternal and perinatal health care. He joined the Cochrane Collaboration in 1994 conducted over 30 Cochrane systematic reviews on a wide ranging topics including maternal and perinatal health, newborn health, safe abortion techniques, contraception and sexually transmitted infections. He is in the editorial boards of the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth and Fertility Regulation review groups.

Since 1997, he also coordinates the WHO Reproductive Health Library, a specialist database in sexual reproductive health that focuses on providing access to key systematic reviews and WHO guidelines together with educational videos, currently published on the WHO web site in five UN languages.

Professor Waleska T. Caiaffa

President, International Society of Urban Health (ISUH)

Dr. Waleska Teixeira Caiaffa is president of ISUH and professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, School of Medicine in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Dr. Caiaffa leads the Observatory for Urban Health in Belo Horizonte (OSUBH). The OSUBH is renowned for producing timely and scientifically credible health intelligence and evidence for local and national decision-makers. Dr. Caiaffa spearheads OSUBH’s local, national and international lead roles on urban health focusing on urban inequalities and social-level determinants of health on non-communicable and communicable diseases. Currently she is the president of the International Society for Urban Health at the New York Academy of Medicine (ISUH/NYAM) and in 2011 she chaired the 10th International Conference for Urban Health (ICUH), in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

She is currently a consultant for the Ministry of Health in Brazil and for more than 18 years is recipient of the research fellowship from the Brazilian National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

He is a member of the editorial board of The International Journal of Drug Policy and the Journal of Urban Health. She is also a tutor for undergraduate, master, doctoral and post-doctoral students in Post-graduation Programs at UFMG, since 1995.

She has published widely in the peer-reviewed literature with original publications across all major aspects of population health ranging from health determinants to outcomes.

She holds a Masters in Public Health (International Health and Epidemiology) by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) - Bloomberg School of Public Health, PhD in Parasitology, concentration area of epidemiology by the Federal University of Minas Gerais and post-doctoral epidemiology at JHU.

Qasim Chowdary

Tobacco Control Lead for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust

Qasim Chowdary is Tobacco Control Lead for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust. His professional areas of interest include non-communicable disease, behaviour change and the power of marketing to influence consumers. He is experienced in working with young people in mental health and school settings. He has developed pioneering interventions using creative tools to frame messages reaching out to key segments of populations. His work has been independently evaluated and shared extensively in international fora.

Dr. Michael P. Eriksen

Dean, School of Public Health at Georgia State University

Dr. Michael P. Eriksen was appointed director of the Institute of Public Health at Georgia State University in 2002, and in 2012 he became the founding dean of the newly established School of Public Health at Georgia State. He received his academic training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and has had a long and distinguished career in public health. Dr. Eriksen has been employed in a variety of settings, including academia (University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas), the private sector (Pacific Telephone), state government (Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene), federal government (CDC), and international organizations (WHO). Dr. Eriksen has published dozens of peer-reviewed articles and is co-author of The Tobacco Atlas, published by the World Health Organization (WHO). He created and launched the Tobacco Portal, a web-based resource for tobacco-related facts and data.

During his time at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Eriksen was director of the Office on Smoking and Health where he played a leadership position in attempting to develop tobacco control policy for the United States. Dr. Eriksen received numerous awards for his work including the Tobacco or Health Commemorative Medal from WHO. In 2004, the Georgia Cancer Coalition designated him as a Distinguished Cancer Scholar.

As a tenured professor at Georgia State University, Dean Eriksen has taught graduate-level classes in the social and behavioral sciences, urban health, tobacco control and global health. He is also director of the Georgia State Partnership for Urban Health Research, Principal Investigator and Director of the Center of Excellence on Health Disparities Research, and Executive Editor of the public health research journal Health Education Research. Most recently, he is the Principal Investigator for the Georgia State Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Dr Bianca Maria Hermansen

Urban Planner, Architect Maa, Phd

Bianca is architect MAA and urban planner PhD. She is a researcher at The Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture. Bianca’s research covers Body Culture, Urban Culture, Active Urban Living, Healthy Cities and Livable Cities. She is founder and CEO of CITITEK; a research based urban design consultancy office. In addition she works as external consultant at Gehl Architects and Copenhagenize Design. Finally Bianca is lecturer and instructor at DIS the Danish Institute of Study Abroad and LIFE Copenhagen University, University of Washington, Seattle, and the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture. Bianca is an active lecturer, advisor and workshop facilitator.

Dr Jason Corburn

Director of the Center for Global Healthy Cities, Berkeley

Jason Corburn is jointly appointed as an associate professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He directs Berkeley’s Center for Global Healthy Cities (www.healthycities.berkley.edu) and co-directs Global Metropolitan Studies (metrostudies.berkeley.edu/). Professor Corburn also leads Berkeley’s joint MPH-MCP (public health & city planning) joint graduate degree program.

Professor Corburn has held visiting appointments at the University of Paris X, Nanterre, the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), and the University of Nairobi.

Professor Corburn has published three award-winning books. Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice (MIT Press 2005) won the 2007 Paul Davidoff Best Book Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning and was voted in 2009 by the Journal of the American Planning Association as one of the 30 most influential books in the first 100 years of American City Planning. He is also the author of, Toward the Healthy City: People, Places and the Politics of Urban Planning, (The MIT Press, 2009) and Healthy City Planning: From Neighbourhood to National Health Equity, published by Routledge in 2013. Corburn focuses on action-research that promotes urban health equity. One major project in Richmond, California, is called the Richmond Health Equity Partnership, and has brought together local governments and community-based organizations to institute a city-wide Health in All Policies strategy. In Nairobi, Kenya, Corburn co-leads a project with civil society organizations and the University of Nairobi that is successfully using participatory approaches to upgrade slums, particularly the Mathare informal settlement. Corburn also works in Brazil and with partners in France and India on similar urban health equity projects.

Corburn received the United Nations Association Global Citizen Award in 2013 for his work helping deliver infrastructure and public health improvements to slum dwellers.

Professor Corburn is currently also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the International Council for Science (ICSU)’s Urban Health Research Initiative and is an advisor and reviewer for UN-Habitat, the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control, the California Air Resources Board, the California Endowment, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, and the European Research Council.

Professor Corburn received a Ph.D. in Urban Environmental Planning and a Masters in City Planning from MIT, and completed a post-doc in epidemiology at Columbia University’s School of Public Health.

Mette Mogensen

Architect Maa, R & D Director And Head Of Section, Building Management Cowi A/S

Mette gives advice on culture and athletics building projects and city planning issues and facilitates processes within the field of urban development. Appointed jury member in Architect Association and member of the Architect Association's Competition Committee. Author on books on sports facilities and on Women, Architecture and sport studies. Mette is an architect from The Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture.

Dr Tim Townshend

Acting Head of School of Architecture, Newcastle University

Tim Townshend is currently Acting Head of School, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University.

During the past 20 years, Tim has developed a national/international profile in urban design research. He has published on a wide range of topics addressing the impact of the design of the built environment in relation to contemporary social concerns. Since 2006 he has been working on a series of projects addressing aspects of health and well-being. In 2010 he co-edited the interdisciplinary volume, Obesogenic Environments: Complexities, Perceptions and Objective Measures with contributions from authors in USA, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands and UK; and in 2012 co-authored Local Variations in Youth Drinking Cultures, a major new report published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, looking at alcohol consumption, young people and where and how they spend their leisure time.

Tim’s work always attempts to maximise its impact and aims to be policy relevant – he has been a consultant on a number of national reports and his work has been cited in local and national government policy documents. Among other local/regional roles he is a co-founding member of the North East Obesogenic Environment Network (NEOeN) www.neoen.org.uk.

Antony Duttine

Technical Advisor in Global Health for Handicap International

Antony Duttine is the Rehabilitation Technical Advisor in Global Health for Handicap International, based in their Washington DC office. A British physiotherapist by background, Antony has worked with HI since 2009 initially in Afghanistan and thereafter in their Lyon headquarters and their UK office prior to his current role in the US. Within his current work, Antony is heavily involved in advocating for the improved inclusion of rehabilitation services within the global health landscape and development agendas. Antony spent two years in Namibia for the Ministry of Health and Social Services as a VSO volunteer prior to joining HI and worked for the NHS as a physiotherapist in Gloucestershire for five years. Antony holds a Masters in Development Management, part of which included study at HCRI. His Master’s thesis explored the provision of physiotherapy services for survivors of torture living in the Manchester area.

Antony has written pieces for the Huffington Post, WHO Bulletin and for the consultations on the post millennium development goals discussion and been an author on journal articles relating to the Haiti Earthquake and on physiotherapy in global health. He was a member of the French delegation at the 2011 High Level Meeting on non-communicable diseases and has presented on global health and rehab issues at numerous forums including at the UN High Level meeting on Disability and Development, the Global Forum on Human Resources for Health and the 2nd International Allied Health Professions Conference.

Jonty Roland

All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health

Jonty leads the APPG on Global Health’s programme of policy reviews, research and events. The APPG has some 60 MPs and Lords as members, and coordinates action on UK policy as it relates to global health. It is co-chaired by Lord Nigel Crisp and Meg Hillier MP. Jonty has a background in health policy and management research in the UK and abroad, with a particular interest in how health systems in low, middle and high-income countries can learn from each other. Jonty joined the APPG from the NHS Confederation, prior to which he worked in the health systems of Botswana and the Philippines, as well as for the UK’s Audit Commission.

Sohier Elneil

All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health

Miss Sohier Elneil is a Consultant Urogynaecologist and Gynaecologist at University College Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. She started her career in the field of Urogynaecology in the early 1990’s when she became involved with patients who suffered vesico-vaginal fistulas and female genital mutilation in the developing world. Despite surgery, many of them went on to suffer further problems with incontinence, chronic pelvic pain and pelvic floor problems. This formed the basis of a career that started with gynaecology and went onto sub-specialisation in the field of urogynaecology. Her research interest led her on to do her PhD at the University of Cambridge to study the physiology and pharmacology of sensory bladder dysfunction in women. This was with a view to determine whether the pathophysiology could be elucidated, and hence form the focus for new drug therapies. This naturally led on to her current interest in the neurology of the bladder and its surrounding organs at a cellular level, and the role they play in both neurogenic and non-neurogenic bladder dysfunction.

Sohier is an invited speaker at many national and international meetings run by the International Federation of Gynaecologists and Obstetrics (FIGO), the European Association of Urology (EAU), International Continence Society (ICS), International Urogynaecology Association (IUGA), Pan African Urological Surgeons Association, University College London, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Surgeons, and many others. Miss Elneil is the Training Programme Director for Urogynaecology at University College London Hospitals. She is the Chair of the Board of Trustees of FORWARD UK (the UK-based FGM charity) and Chair of the Board of Directors of Fistula Foundation (the USA-based fistula charity), as well elected Chair of the ICS Fistula Committee and Chair of the IUGA Neuro-urogynaecology committee. She is a member of the ICS Standardization Committee and EAU Chronic Pelvic Pain Committees. She is the author/editor of the FIGO and partners Fistula training manual, which forms the basis global fistula training. She feels privileged and honoured to have been chosen to help run and devise strategy within these groups which are striving to improve continence and pelvic floor management in women; in order that they and their families can all live better lives and contribute fully to their culture and society.

Anand Rudra

Development specialist with over 24 year’s hands-on experience in urban development and public health. Anand is a key player in USAID India’s efforts on water management and urban health. Anand has helped to conceptualize and design assistance for the urban and health mission efforts in incorporating the impact of partnerships (as a cross cutting theme) & capacity building initiatives, including planning activities and providing guidance in subsequent implementation. Anand has experience in strategic programmatic support on cross cutting urban development initiatives to South Asia missions. His work involves working closely with host mission government institutions, international donors, national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community based organizations (CBOs) and sector professionals. Has a successful track record that demonstrates self-motivation, entrepreneurial ability, creativity and initiative to achieve goals.

Dr Ana Diez Roux

Professor and Chair of Epidemiology and director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health

Ana Diez Roux, MD Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Epidemiology and director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She is also a research professor in the Survey Research Center in the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. She will join Drexel University as Dean of the School of Public Health in February 2014.

Dr. Diez Roux has been an international leader in the investigation of the social determinants of health, the application of multilevel analysis in health research, and the study of neighborhood health effects. Her research areas include social epidemiology and health disparities, environmental health effects, urban health, psychosocial factors in health, and cardiovascular disease epidemiology. Recent areas of work include social environment-gene interactions and the use of complex systems approaches in population health. She has led large NIH and foundation funded research, training, and mentoring programs in the United States and in collaboration with various institutions in Latin America. She has been a member of the MacArthur Network on Socioeconomic Factors and Health and is a Co-Director of the Network on Inequality, Complexity and Health.

Diez Roux has served on numerous review panels and advisory committees including most recently the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC) of the National Center for Health Statistics, the Committee on Health and Wellbeing in the Changing Urban Environment of the International Council for Science (ISCUS) and the Editorial Board of the Annual Review of Public Health. She was awarded the Wade Hampton Frost Award for her contributions to public health by the American Public Health Association. She is an elected member of the American Epidemiological Society, the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Diez Roux received an MD from the University of Buenos Aires, a master’s degree in public health and doctorate in health policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Professor Simon Capewell

University of Liverpool

Simon trained in general, respiratory and cardiovascular medicine in Newcastle, Cardiff, and Oxford, then in public health in Edinburgh and Glasgow. He was appointed as the first Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the University of Liverpool in 1999.

Simon manages a research programme mainly involving cardiovascular disease (CVD) and food policy. Joint funding totalling over £20 million, with well over two hundred & seventy peer-reviewed papers, many in top journals.

His recent research includes programmes funded by MRC, NIHR, EU and BHF examining:

• why CVD death rates have recently halved in the UK, USA , Poland & elsewhere, and why CVD rates are increasing in China and many other developing countries, and
• the development of effective and cost-saving cardiovascular prevention strategies: building on empirical evidence, policy analyses, and quantitative modelling in high middle and low income countries.

Simon is a Trustee for the UK Faculty of Public Health, for UK Health Forum, and for Heart of Mersey, a large regional CVD primary prevention charity. He contributes to policy development and service work, and has recently chaired/participated in a dozen national /international committees (including Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, British Heart Foundation, NICE, UK Faculty of Public Health, European Society of Cardiology and WHO).

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore

University of Liverpool

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore is an honorary consultant physician at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and holds an honorary chair at the University of Liverpool. After training in Cambridge, London and the USA, he moved to Liverpool as a consultant in 1980, where he has enjoyed working ever since. His specialty interest is liver disease. He is the immediate past-president of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) and is currently president of the British Society of Gastroenterology. He is chairman of Liverpool Health Partners, an organisation created between the University and the teaching hospitals in Liverpool to promote an Academic Health Science System in order to foster academic innovation, education and service development in the region. He has particular interest in health harms related to alcohol misuse and the role of regulation in reducing this. He chaired a RCP Working Party in 2001, producing the report “Alcohol - can the NHS afford it? A blueprint for a coherent alcohol strategy”. He chairs the UK Alcohol Health Alliance in which relevant agencies work together in a coherent and focused framework. He has also been appointed as Chair of the European Alcohol and Health Forum Science Group and is a member of the Climate and Health Council. He is also a member of the National Quality Board. He is a member of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Merseyside.

Professor Lawrence D. Frank

Professor in Sustainable Transportation and Health, University of British Columbia and President, Urban Design 4 Health, Inc.

Dr. Frank is Professor in Sustainable Transportation and Public Health at the University of British Columbia and President of Urban Design for Health, Inc. based in Seattle WA and Vancouver BC. He specializes in the interaction between land use, travel behaviour, air quality; and in the health, energy use, and climate change impacts of urban form policies. He has been studying the effects of neighbourhood walkability on travel patterns and sustainability for 20 years and has led over $18 million in funded research and published over 100 peer reviewed articles and the two leading books – Heath and Community Design and Urban Sprawl and Public Health on these topics. Dr. Frank has written several of the leading papers and has helped to pioneer our understanding of the many ways in which our environments impact our physical and mental health and wellbeing. Dr. Frank works directly with local, regional, provincial or state, and federal agencies to help translate results from leading edge research into practice based tools that provide direct feedback on the health and environmental impacts of alternative transportation and land development proposals.

Professor Anne Ellaway

University of Glasgow

Professor Anne Ellaway leads the Neighbourhoods and Health programme at the MRC/CSO Social & Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow. Her work focuses on understanding the ways in which the local social and physical environment influences health and the ability to lead a healthy life. She is one of the principal investigators in the GoWell research project which is following 15 communities in Glasgow and exploring how these places, and the health of their residents, change over time as a result of regeneration.

Dr Michael Ni

Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Hong Kong

Dr Michael Ni is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University Of Hong Kong School Of Public Health. After obtaining his medical degree, Dr Ni trained in internal medicine at Queen Mary Hospital and pursued postgraduate studies at the Harvard School of Public Health. He obtained his Membership of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom in 2011, and is the recipient of the American College of Chest Physicians Prize.

Dr Ni is Programme Director for the FAMILY Cohort, a territory-wide cohort study on individual- and household-level health, happiness and family harmony. He maintains active local and international collaborations in chronic disease epidemiology, psychiatric epidemiology, lifestyle and life course epidemiology.

Dr Chinmoy Sarkar

University of Cardiff

Dr Chinmoy Sarkar works as a principle morphometric and statistical analyst in the UK Biobank - Built Environment Project at the School of Medicine, Cardiff University. His present research focus lies in the interdisciplinary domains of environmental epidemiology, healthy transport, public health policy as well as spatial design analyses and planning for healthy cities. His previous research had examined the associations between detailed neighbourhood-level built environment and individual health outcomes of respondents from the Caerphilly Prospective study. Drawing upon the data layers of UK Ordnance Survey spatial database and employing the state-of-the-art spatial and network analysis techniques, the study objectively quantified various facets of urban built environment with the potential to influence individual's health (broadly categorized under dwelling level, land use, street network accessibility, physical environment and area-level deprivation metrics), also termed as spatial Design Network Analysis for Urban Health (sDNA-UH). His upcoming book - Sarkar, Webster and Gallacher (April 2014) Healthy Cities: Public Health Through Urban Planning. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar conceptualizes Healthy Cities in terms of empirically defined spatial health niches - a framework that has the potential to incorporate and integrate multiple level spatio-temporal health determinants existing at the different hierarchies as well as demonstrates the methodology behind sDNA-UH.

His ongoing research in the UK Biobank - Built Environment Project has an ambitious aim of scaling-up his Caerphilly research through the automated construction of built environment morphological metrics for half a million cohort members UK Biobank spatially distributed all over the UK. The objective is to develop more robust and causal models of associations between built environment and health and testing them on one of the world's largest epidemiological cohorts. His is very interested in comparative built environmental epidemiology of large scale cross-country cohorts as well as public health and urban policy in developing countries like India and China. He is also conducting a series of empirical studies aiming to decipher associations between active transport and objectively measured attributes of the built environment in the boroughs of Greater London.

Daniel Black

Daniel Black & Associates

Daniel Black was originally trained in economics, then urban design/planning, while his professional career has spanned a range of technical built environment disciplines including transport planning, community engagement, building construction and environmental assessment methods. He now specialises in the integration of health and sustainability into the development process. He works closely with high-end developer, Clipper Development Partners, as well as the World Health Organisation (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments at the University West of England in Bristol. He is a panel member on: the £6m Liveable Cities research programme; the Town and Country Planning Association's Climate Spatial Futures Initiative and the Planning for Climate Change Coalition; and the Bristol Green Capital Land Use Planning Group. In 2013 he led a consortium bid and won a major research grant from the Technology Strategy Board to test the feasibility of quantifying the costs of forecast climate hazards to businesses. In 2012 he was commissioned to carry out an integrated impact assessment - PRISMAPPRAISAL - of a major urban extension of 5,700 homes in the North Fringe of Bristol. In 2011 he was commissioned by BRE Global to review their environmental assessment method for large-scale development, BREEAM for Communities. You can find more information here: www.db-associates.co.uk

Professor Gabriel Scally

University of the West of England

Prof Gabriel Scally is Professor of Public Health & Planning at the University of the West of England and Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments. He was a Regional Director of Public Health from1993 until 2012 when he left the Department of Health.

Born and brought up in Belfast, Gabriel studied medicine and went on to train in general practice and public health. Current posts include Associate Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and member of the Governing Council of the World Federation of Public health Associations. Gabriel is also a Trustee of the Soil Association.

Associate Professor Marcus Grant

University of the West of England

Marcus Grant is Associate Professor WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments in the Department of Architecture and the Built Environment at the University of the West of England. He is also Deputy Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments.

Marcus holds a first degree in ecology and is a chartered landscape architect and urban designer. Marcus has been examining issues of sustainable development and urban health for over twenty years in both consultancy and academia. Marcus is an associate fellow of the National Institute for Health Research and is director of a health integration team in Bristol called SHINE – ‘Supporting Healthy Inclusive Neighbourhood Environments’. Marcus is a co-author of ‘Shaping neighbourhoods – for local health and global sustainability’, a reference and toolkit for the planning and design of healthier and more sustainable places.

Stephen Michael Woods

UK Healthy Cities Coordinator

Stephen is the UK Healthy Cities Network Co-ordinator he joined Healthy Settings Unit within the School of Health at the University of Central Lancashire in December 2010 as the North West Tobacco Control Co-ordinator Prisons and Criminal Justice Setting.

Previous to this Stephen was the Assistant Director for the Anglia Heart and Stroke network leading on the strategic development of stroke services. He has an extensive background in the field of public health having held the posts of Assistant Director and Delivery Programme Manager for the Cumbria and Lancashire Public health networks. Before joining the network Stephen was the Sexual health Network Lead for Cumbria and Lancashire.

Professor Mark Dooris

University of Central Lancashire

Mark is Professor in Health and Sustainability and Director of the Healthy Settings Unit within the School of Health at the University of Central Lancashire. Mark and his team are engaged in research, evaluation, teaching, training, network development and programme delivery. They currently co-ordinate the UK Healthy Cities Network and the UK Healthy Universities Network and lead a pan-regional prison health and wellbeing programme within the North West of England.

Mark studied at Oxford University and Southbank Polytechnic, has completed the National Public Health Leadership Programme and undertook his Doctorate at Deakin University (Australia) – entitled ‘Healthy Settings: Past, Present and Future’. He has a background in health promotion, public health, community development, healthy cities and environmental and sustainable transport policy – and has worked in a range of roles within the health service, voluntary sector and local government.

Mark was a member of the evaluation team for Phases III and IV of WHO’s European Healthy Cities Programme and has undertaken wider consultancy work relating to Healthy Cities, community participation and sustainable development. He has published widely and is a member of the Editorial Board for Critical Public Health. He was co-chair of the UK Health for All Network from 1992-1994 and chaired the International Union of Health Promotion and Education’s Global Working Group on Healthy Settings from 2007-2011.

Dr Anil Namdeo

Newcastle University

Dr Anil Namdeo is a Chartered Environmentalist, a Chartered Scientist and a Senior Lecturer in Transport and Sustainability at Newcastle University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and a member of several professional bodies including Institution of Environmental Sciences, Institute for Air Quality Management and Environmental Protection UK. Dr Namdeo holds a first degree in Civil Engineering with post graduate degree in Environmental Science and Engineering. He obtained his PhD from Nottingham University on emission and dispersion modelling of air pollutants from motor vehicles. He has special interest in traffic emissions, air quality and health. Dr Namdeo has been involved in several research projects on environmental and sustainability assessment of many land-use and transport policies (including road user charging). These include projects funded by EPSRC (SOLUTIONS, ReVISIONS, SECURE, 4M and Global SECURE) and British Council (with Indian and US institutions). He has been actively engaged in international research and has close links with academics and researchers in India, China and the USA.

Professor Carlo Signorelli

University of Parma

Full Professor of Hygiene, and Public health, School of Medicine, University of Parma, Italy. Director Post-Graduate School in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine. University Degrees: Medicine and Surgery, Law and Political Sciences; Doctoral degree: Doctorate in Public Health (Univ. Milan, 1990) -Post-graduate Specialization School in Hygiene and preventive medicine with distinction (Univ. "La Sapienza" of Rome, 1999) -MSc Epidemiology (LSHTM, Univ. London, 1989) -PhD (LSHTM, Univ. London, 1994).

Other positions: Lecturer, School of Economics "Luigi Bocconi", Milano -School of Architecture, Politechnic University of Milan, Italy - School of Business University of Castellanza (VA). - More than 750 publications. Member Hygiene Council (2006-), Member International Forum Hygiene-IFH (2009-), Incoming President of the Italian Society of Hygiene & Public Health (SItI). Areas of interest and research fields: Public Health, Epidemiology, Environmental Health, Health Organization, Vaccination Policies. Since 2009 Provincial Councellor for Environmental policies (Lecco, IT).

Catalina Chamorro

University of Catalonia

Biology degree, University of Barcelona, 1979. Postgraduate course in food technology, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, 1985. Professional experience: In local administration, in the context of Public Health, since 1985: Chief of Public Health Section of El Prat de Llobregat town council, 1985 - 2005. Chief of Public Health Section of Diputació de Barcelona, 2005 – 2008. Chief of Public Health Service of Diputació de Barcelona, since 2008. Representative of Catalan Municipalities in some commissions:

• for the reorganization of Public Health in Catalonia
• to establish the framework agreement between the Catalan Public Health Agency and local organizations
• in the inter-administrative coordination group of the Catalan Food Security Agency
• in the interdepartmental commission of AIDS, 2002-2003.

Coordinator of the Catalan Healthy Cities Network. 1994 - 1998. Member of the Board of the Public Health Society of Catalonia and Balearic Islands. Member of the Spanish Epidemiology and Health Administration Society. Member of the Spanish Environmental Health Society.

Dr Sohel J. Ahmed

University College London

Dr Ahmed is a postdoctoral researcher at the Development Planning Unit (DPU) in the University College London (UCL), London, UK. In May 2013, he joined DPU, UCL for conducting research in the ‘Epidemiology, Ecology and Socio-Economics of Disease Emergence in Nairobi’ research project in which the DPU is one of several collaborating institutions. He graduated as an Urban and Rural Planner from Khulna University, Bangladesh. He then obtained his Masters in Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (specialising in Urban Planning and Management) from ITC at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. In 2010, he was awarded a PhD in Urban Studies from the School of the Built Environment at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. He started his career as a Lecturer in Urban and Rural Planning in Khulna University, Bangladesh in 2001. Since then, he was also engaged in various capacities in a number of multi-disciplinary projects in the UK and abroad. His primary research interests revolve around urbanization, land-use change, social and spatial equity, and other GIS applications for Planning and Decision Support.

Professor Eric M. Fèvre

University of Liverpool

Professor Fèvre holds the Chair of Veterinary Infectious Diseases at the University of Liverpool's Institute of Infection and Global Health in the UK, while being physically based at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. He leads a research programme on zoonotic diseases, with a focus in both rural and urban areas. He obtained his BSc in Biology/Geography from the University of Bristol (UK), his MSc in Applied Parasitology and Medical Entomology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and his PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine. He worked for many years on the epidemiology of zoonotic trypanosomiasis in East Africa, before expanding his work to cover several other zoonotic diseases in endemic areas. He held a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship from 2009-2012, during which his team undertook detailed studies of zoonotic disease transmission at the livestock-human interface in Kenya, and is currently running a large, interdisciplinary research programme on zoonoses and disease emergence in urban settings. His group's website is at www.zoonotic-diseases.org.

Fiona Reynolds

Salford City Council

Fiona Reynolds, a Consultant in Public Health, doesn’t like exercise so she cycles to work a couple of times a week – this is transport, not the dreaded ‘E’ word. Originally setting out to be a journalist, Fiona started working in Public Health in 2000 as a newspaper job, offering such highlights as being Barbara Cartland’s body double, failed to be enticing, surprisingly. Since then, she has enjoyed a varied career but the work she really enjoys is focusing on wider determinants and particularly transport issues.

Professor Gérard Salem

University of Paris-Nanterre

Pr. Gérard Salem is 60 years old. After completing a B.A. and M.A. in geography (University of Paris 1 – Sorbonne), he went on to receive a Ph.D. in African Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Additionally, he completed a Master of urbanism at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (with a focus on urbanization and national and regional development), and a master of epidemiology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. As a researcher with ORSTOM, he worked from 1980-1988 in Senegal, as part of a primary health care program, and then he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Montreal from 1989-1992 where he taught Geography of Africa and Medical Geography. Since 1997 he is a Professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre where he is Director of the Master’s program in Medical Geography and of the research program “Space, Health and Territories.” Simultaneously, he is since 2009 visiting researcher at IRD, and visiting professor at University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar. - His domains are thus the environment, geography of health, and social geography in general, with a particular interest in urban geography in all geographic areas. He has also a strong experience of collaboration with decision makers in the fields of urban planning and public health. He has published more than 200 articles, chapters and books. Every year he takes frequent professional trips to Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa.

Helen Ramsden

Greater Manchester Travel Choice

Helen Ramsden has responsibility for leading Greater Manchester’s ambitious Travel Choices agenda, which includes managing the delivery of the Travel Choices and Commuter Cycle programmes, both funded by LSTF. Previously, Helen has led on a number of award-winning sustainable transport and behaviour change programmes, playing a significant role in delivering the London2012 Travel Demand Management programme.

Linda Reid

Detective Chief Inspector with Greater Manchester Police

I am currently a detective chief inspector with Greater Manchester Police, and have been a police officer for twenty five years in London and Manchester. I have held a number of roles and responsibilities, and have specialised in public protection, including safeguarding vulnerable adults, domestic abuse and child protection.

I have also worked in export shipping, as an HR Manager and as a teacher at GCSE and A level.

I have two grown up daughters and live in West Yorkshire. My hobbies include walking, theatre and music, and socialising with friends and family.

I am studying for a PhD with Manchester Business School in the area of leadership and service improvement.

Maddalena Buffoli

Polytechnic University of Milan

Since 2013 Researcher at Politecnico di Milano. University Degrees: 2000: Degree of Architecture at the Polytechnic of Milan. 2004: PhD in Maintenance, Rehabilitation of the Building and Urban Systems (XVI cycle). 2004-2013: Research assistant at Politecnico di Milano and lecturer at the School of Architecture in the courses Environmental Health and Technologies for Construction and Sustainable Development. Since 2002 member of the Architects Council of the Province of Brescia.

She was involved in many research studies at the Department of architecture, built environment and construction engineering (ABC) on topics concerning public health, Urban Health, Environmental hygiene, energy efficiency policy and technology in buildings, hospitals designs, Sustainable development and Environmental Impact Analysis. She has published various papers on the above mentioned topics and has been teaching in many seminars.

Nick Vaughan

Transport for Greater Manchester

Nick Vaughan has spent all his working life as a transport planner, with almost 25 years at TfGM and its predecessors. Since April 2011, when TfGM took on a responsibility for the strategic co-ordination of cycling, Nick has led on cycling, and the successful LSTF Commuter Cycle and Cycle City Ambition Grant bids.

Professor Rainer Fehr

University of Bielefeld

Rainer Fehr, Prof. Dr.med., MPH, Ph.D. (epidemiology) received his academic education in Germany, Great Britain, and the USA. He worked at the University of Hamburg; at the Hamburg State Ministry of Health; at the NRW Institute for Public Health (lögd NRW); and the NRW Institute of Health and Work (LIGA.NRW), incl. being director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Regional Health Policy and Public Health. At the NRW Center for Health (LZG.NRW) he was a member of the directorate, retiring in December 2012.

His track record includes academic teaching; participation in multiple (international) projects; reviewing and consulting, e.g. for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission (EC). He is a member of the Environmental Health group, Department of Public Health, University of Bielefeld. His research emphasis is on Human ecology perspective on health, especially Urban health and Integrated health programs; Health monitoring & surveillance; Assessments of health and risks.

Professor Simon Bell

Associate Director of the OPENspace Research Centre, University of Edinburgh

Simon Bell was originally a forester and took a master degree in landscape architecture. He worked for 20 years in the British Forestry Commission, where he specialised in forest landscape planning and design and also outdoor recreation planning and design. He has also worked in the USA, Canada, Europe and Russia as a consultant on large scale forestry and recreation planning and design projects. In 1999 he moved into academia as a researcher, where together with Professors Catharine Ward Thompson and Peter Aspinall he founded the OPENspace Research Centre at Edinburgh College of Art, now part of the University of Edinburgh. OPENspace has since developed a reputation for research into the relationship between people and the landscape and access to outdoor environments, most recently in the area of landscape and health and quality of life. Simon was the social science coordinator in the FP6 project PLUREL where he led the part devoted to quality of life indicators, developing a simulation model. Research and practice led him to projects in the Baltic States and thus to Estonia where he has been teaching and researching since 2005, taking over as head of department in 2009. He teaches courses about outdoor recreation planning and design and other larger-scale landscape issues and supervises many master and PhD students from a wide range of countries. In 2012 he was elected president of ECLAS, the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools. Simon Bell has written many papers and books. Two of these, “Elements of Visual design in the Landscape” and “Design for Outdoor Recreation” have become standard texts all over the world. OPENspace has also produced two edited books about research into landscape, outdoor activity and health.

Professor Billie Giles-Corti

University of Melbourne

Professor Billie Giles-Corti is Director of the McCaughey VicHealth Centre for Community Wellbeing, University of Melbourne. For two decades, she and a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and post-graduate research students have been studying the impact of the built environment on social and health and wellbeing outcomes. A leading public health researcher in Australia and recognized internationally for her research on the health impacts of the built form, Professor Giles-Corti has published over 200 articles and reports. She is an NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, an Honorary Fellow of both the Planning Institute of Australia and the Public Health Association and in 2008, was a Fulbright Senior Scholar. She is currently works on research projects across Australia, in Canada, and the UK, including an evaluation of the impact of relocating low income families into social and affordable housing in the athletes village as part of the London Olympic Legacy.

Luca Carlo Sala

Director of Prevention Department, Biella

Luca Carlo Sala was born on July 13th 1956 in Varese. He gets his degree in Medicine Veterinary, after a classical baccalaureate, at the University of the Studies in Milan.

From 1981 up to 1986 Luca works as Responsible at the Centre for the qualitative improvement of milk at the Institute Zooprofilattico Sperimentale of Lombardy and Emilia.

In 1986 he enters to work for the Local Health Unit of Gallarate first and then in Varese as Veterinary, as collaborator and cohadiuvator working for Animal Health and Hygiene of his products.

From 1992 up to 1999 he is in charge of the Regional Veterinary office. Working in planning and organisation of regional plans for control and eradication of infectious diseases. He collaborates with the National Health Ministry, department of food, nutrition and public health veterinary.

During these years he starts collaboration, until 2009, with WHO/FAO Centre for Collaboration for Public Veterinary Health of the ISS of Roma. Member of the Scientific and technical committee of the Regional Veterinary Epidemiologic Observatory of Lombardy and of the Local Health Authority of Varese.

Since 1999 Luca is working for the Local Health Authority of Biella, as Director of the Veterinary Service for Animal health unit and as coordinator of all the Veterinary Services. Since 2011 he is director of prevention department of the local authority of Biella. From 2004 up to 2011 professor of “Veterinary Epidemiology”, degree “Techniques of prevention on environments and work places”, University degli Studi di Torino. An author of more than 70 scientific papers both at national and international level.

Dr Marie-Paule Kieny

Assistant Director-General, Health Systems and Innovation, World Health Organization

Dr Marie-Paule Kieny was appointed Assistant Director-General at the World Health Organization (WHO) in October 2010 and is now leading the Health Systems and Innovation cluster. Prior to this, Dr Kieny directed the WHO Initiative for Vaccine Research since its inception in 2001. Major successes under her leadership were the development and licensing of new vaccines against meningitis and against pandemic influenza in developing countries through pioneering the transfer of technology and know-how. Vaccines against poverty-related diseases and those that disproportionately affect poor and marginalized populations are continuing priorities since her first role in WHO with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases in 2001.

Before coming to WHO, Dr Kieny held top research positions in the public and private sectors of her home country, France. The positions included Assistant Scientific Director of Transgene S.A. from 1981 to 1988, and Director of Research and Head of the Hepatitis C Virus Molecular Virology Group at the Institute of Virology, Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM) from 1999 to 2000.

She received her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Montpellier in 1980, where she was also awarded a University Diploma in Economics, and her Diplôme d’Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches from the University of Strasbourg in 1995. Dr Kieny has published over 250 articles and reviews, mainly in the areas of infectious diseases, immunology and vaccinology.

Dr Kieny was awarded the coveted Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite, au titre du Ministère de la Recherche (2000); the Prix Génération 2000-Impact Médecin (1994); and the Prix de l'Innovation Rhône-Poulenc (1991).

Professor Sophia Ananiadou

Assistant Director-General, Health Systems and Innovation, World Health Organization

Sophia Ananiadou received her PhD in Natural Language Processing (NLP) from the University of Manchester. She is Professor of Computer Science in the School of Computer Science, University of Manchester and has led the National Centre for Text Mining (www.nactem.ac.uk) since 2007. She researches into semantic text mining and semantic search techniques for applications in domains such as systems biology, public health, chemistry and social sciences. She is also developing large-scale resources (terminological resources and annotated data), and interoperable text mining platforms. Her current projects include semantic search for Europe PubMedCentral, supporting evidence-based public health reviews in collaboration with NICE, mining the history of medicine and extraction of semantic metadata for the automated measurement of open source software. She has been a three times recipient (2006-2008) of the IBM UIMA innovation award for her work in interoperable platforms for text mining and was also awarded the Daiwa Adrian prize (2004). She has authored over 250 publications.

Professor Ian Jacobs

Vice President, Dean and Head of FMHS, University of Manchester

Professor Ian Jacobs is Vice President, Dean and Head of the School of Medicine, Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, The University of Manchester and the Director of MAHSC (Manchester Academic Health Science Centre). Alongside this leadership role, he directs a laboratory and clinical research team focused on genetics, proteomics, imaging and biomarkers in detection and screening for gynaecological cancers and holds awards >£25m from MRC, CRUK and DH. He is PI on several large multicentre clinical trials including the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS) involving 202,000 participants in 13 collaborating UK centres and the UK Familial Ovarian Cancer Screening Study (UKFOCSS).

Ian moved to Manchester to take up his new post in April 2011 having previously been Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences at UCL from 2009-11, Director of the Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre at UCLH/UCL (2006-10) and Research Director UCL Partners Academic Health Science System (2009-11). He qualified at Cambridge University and the Middlesex Hospital, obtained accreditation in obstetrics and gynaecology working at the Royal London and Rosie Maternity Cambridge and specialist accreditation as a surgical gynaecological oncologist at Bart’s and The Royal Marsden. He completed an MD Thesis at QMUL, the CRUK McElwain Fellowship at Cambridge University and an MRC Travelling Fellowship at Duke University, North Carolina. Ian was head of Department of Gynaecological Oncology and then Obstetrics and Gynaecology at QMUL from 1996 to 2004 and set up and directed the UCL Institute for Women’s Health between 2004 and 2009.

In 2005 he established the Uganda Women’s Health Initiative, which he Chairs and which conducts a series of projects in Uganda including a cervical screening programme. He has been President of the British Gynaecological Cancer Society (2001-2004) and of the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (2005-2007). He is Medical Advisor to the Eve Appeal (Gynaecology Cancer Research fund), which he founded in 1985, a Patron of Safehands for Women, a consultant to Becton Dickinson, non-Executive Director of Abcodia Ltd and holds an NIHR Senior Investigator Award.

Dr Caroline Sanders

University of Manchester

Caroline Sanders is a medical sociologist with a background in nursing. Her main expertise is in qualitative research focused on service user and carer experiences of living with and managing long-term conditions. She has a particular interest in e-health and the use of ICT based interventions in community settings. Her work has focused on inequalities and barriers to adoption of such interventions. She is currently leading qualitative research to inform experience-based design of mHealth and telehealth interventions for both physical and mental health problems, and was recently co-investigator for the largest trial of telecare/telehealth: the UK Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) Project.

Professor John Harris

University of Manchester

John Harris FMedSci., FRSA., FSB., B.A., D.Phil., Hon. D.Litt. Member, Academia Europaea, is Director of The Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation and of the Wellcome Strategic Programme in The Human Body, its Scope Limits and Future, University of Manchester, where is he is Lord Alliance Professor of Bioethics. Books Include: The Value of Life, Routledge 1985. Wonderwoman and Superman, Oxford University Press 1992.,Clones Genes and Immortality. Oxford University Press, 1998. John Harris Ed. Bioethics. Oxford Readings in Philosophy Series, Oxford University Press. 2001. Justine C. Burley and John Harris Eds. A Companion To Genethics: philosophy and the genetic revolution. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. 2002. (Blackwell’s Companions to Philosophy series), On Cloning, Routledge. London, 2004. Enhancing Evolution was published by Princeton University Press in 2007.

Professor Carole Goble

University of Manchester

Carole Goble is a full professor in Computer Science at the University of Manchester, UK. She has an international reputation in e-Science, Semantic Web, Distributed computing, and Social Computing, with many applications to BioMedical Informatics, Biodiversity, Astronomy, e-Social Science, Chemistry and Scholarly Communications. She is part of the leadership team of the infrastructure underpinning the MRC-funded HERC, part of the UK's Farr Institute, and of the EU IMI Open PHACTS, a PPP with industry which has delivered an open integrated knowledgebase for pharmacological research. In 2010 she co-founded the Software Sustainability Institute UK, and since 2001 she has directed the myGrid project, which produces: the widely-used open source Taverna workflow management system; the myExperiment, social web site for sharing scientific workflows; the SEEK Systems Biology data and model management platform used by several ERANet life science programmes; and the Biocatalogue of web services for the life sciences which contributes to the EU's BMS Cluster project BioMedBridges. She is the UK's representative of the EU ESFRI ELIXIR Board and deputy director of ELIXIR-UK.

Dr David Haley

Manchester Metropolitan University

As Senior Research Fellow in MIRIAD at Manchester Metropolitan University, Haley is Director of the Ecology in Practice research group. His affiliations include: Visiting Professor, Zhongyuan University of Technology; Vice Chair of The Chartered Institution for Water and Environmental Management, Art & Environment Network and member of the Natural Capital Steering Group, Director, Board of Trustees, INIFAE [International Institute For Art and the Environment], and Lanternhouse International; editor for Cultura21, ecoart Scotland, and MAiA journal. He is, also, an associate of the Global Centre for the Study of Sustainable Futures and Spirituality, and a member of UK Man and the Biosphere Urban Forum.

Emma MacLennan

Founder and Director of EASST, the Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport

Emma MacLennan is the Founder and Director of EASST, the Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport. EASST is a UK-registered charity working in Eastern Europe to facilitate cross-border projects on road safety and sustainable transport. EASST's focus is countries with high road casualty rates, particularly the South Caucasus, Central Asia and the Eastern Partnership region of the EU. EASST works with local partner organisations, making their efforts more effective by sharing know-how and resources across borders. She also organises the FIA Foundation Road Safety Scholarship Programme and is Advisor to the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Moldova.

Dr Jeremy Carter

Research Fellow at the University of Manchester

Jeremy Carter is a Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. He is Co-Director of the Centre for Urban Resilience and Energy. His research focuses on environmental planning and management including urban climate change adaptation and resilience, spatial planning, and scenario planning. He is currently working on two climate change adaptation projects; EcoCities and Climate Proof Cities. He coordinates the Greater Manchester’s Natural Capital Group and is a member of the Northwest Climate Change Partnership and the Town and Country Planning Association’s Planning and Climate Change Coalition. He has worked with Europe’s Committee of the Regions to support their submission to the European Commission on the EU Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.

Dr Melanie Lombard

Lecturer in Global Urbanism at the University of Manchester’s Global Urban Research Centre

Melanie Lombard is Lecturer in Global Urbanism at the University of Manchester’s Global Urban Research Centre. She has a first degree in Government from the London School of Economics, and a Masters in Planning Policy and Practice from London South Bank University. Her PhD at the University of Sheffield’s Department of Town and Regional Planning focused on the construction of place in low-income settlements in Mexico. More recently, she has explored urban land conflict in cities of the global South, with a focus on Mexico. She is interested in connecting the built environment to social processes through exploring everyday activities that construct cities.

Steve Jordan

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service

Steve has been a serving firefighter for 15 years and is currently an operational watch manager with Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service. For the past 11 years Steve has been working with Operation Florian, a UK based fire and rescue service humanitarian aid charity, assisting with capacity building and the development of fire services around the world. During this time he has worked in Bosnia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Paraguay and Ecuador. Currently, he is the project manager for the charity’s activities in Macedonia. Steve has a MA in International Development from the University of Manchester Institute of Development Policy and Management.

Keith Trotter

Group Manager of Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service (TWFRS)

Keith has 29 years of operational service in the UK Fire and Rescue Service. Currently he is Group Manager of Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service (TWFRS). Keith has experience in incident management, especially of wide area flood operations. He has undertaken Fire Safety Charity work in the Mitiyana region, Uganda concentrating on fire safety, basic first aid, and road safety. This programme has had a massive impact on safety in schools. Operational specialisms include Incident Command, Swift Water Rescue, Management of Flood Incidents, Hazardous Materials and Environmental Protection, Fire Investigation, and Technical Rescue. Keith has presented at numerous regional and local seminars on preparedness and operational response to extreme weather events.

Professor Mala Rao OBE, MBBS, MSc, FFPH, PhD, Hon FFSRH

NHS Professor of International Health, University of East London and Honorary Consultant, Public Health England

Mala Rao is NHS Professor of International Health, University of East London and Honorary Consultant, Public Health England. Until recently she was also Honorary Adviser to the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad and the lead technical adviser to DFID's team in Madhya Pradesh, India. She was the founding Director of the Public Health Foundation of India's first Indian Institute of Public Health, a role she undertook under the aegis of the UK Global Health Strategy.

Prior to that, she was Head of Public Health Workforce and Capacity at the Department of Health, London for 5 years, having led the public health capacity building strategy for England. She was previously a Director of Public Health in the UK NHS for many years. during which she established the first cancer network in England. Mala led the 2008 publication of the landmark UK Public Health Skills and Career Framework and was one of the main architects of the newly created specialty of sexual and reproductive healthcare in the UK. She led the establishment of regional Teaching Public Health Networks across England in 2006, to develop the roles of Higher and Further Education as health promoting organisations and to promote health through wider interdisciplinary learning. She has championed the involvement of professions such as urban planning and plumbing in health improvement and climate change action. In 2013, she was a keynote speaker at the 'Building Australia's Future' conference in Brisbane.

She has lead several influential reviews and evaluations at the invitation of the Government of India, WHO, DFID and other organizations, and written extensively on the health impacts of urbanisation and led the 2010 WHO South East Asia Region's Review of the Health of the Urban Poor, which informed its regional consultation on urbanisation and health.

Mala has been active in raising awareness of the links between climate change, sustainable development and health. She instigated, part-wrote and co-edited the book, ‘The Health Practitioner’s Guide to Climate Change’ published in 2009, referred to as a 'wake up call' for the health professions by the then President of the Royal College of Physicians and highly commended by the BMA 2010 book awards. She also led the writing of the health chapter in the Government of India's 2010 Assessment of the Impacts of Climate Change and has contributed to a number of authoritative books on climate change.

More recently, she has been deeply committed to exporting NHS values and services to and showcasing its best practice in India and has contributed significantly to strengthening the India-UK strategic health partnership.

She was the Royal Society for Public Health ambassador to India and is the recipient of a number of awards in India for an outstanding contribution to public health. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours in 2013, for her contribution to public health in the UK and overseas.

Dr Martin Yuille

Co-Director of the Centre for Integrated Genomic Medical Research

Martin Yuille is Reader and Joint Director of the Centre for Integrated Genomic Medical Research in the Institute of Population Health at the University of Manchester - Manchester Academic Health Science Centre. He is Honorary Principal Scientist at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust.

He has worked on research infrastructure in general and biobanking in particular since 2000. He led the MRC Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre’s work on the UK DNA Banking Network. He has been the Associate Coordinator of the European biobanking network project – Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Infrastructure. He has developed infrastructure for biobanking in a number of UK and EU translational research projects. He has contributed expertise to emerging biobanking infrastructures in other EU Member States and internationally in the US, the Middle East and Far East.

Current infrastructure projects include two funded by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board (TSB) which supports public-private research preparatory to innovation. The two TSB projects are: STRATUM which has been preparing a national biobanking roadmap; and ACROPOLIS which is constructing a cross-institutional research collaboration platform. He is PI at the University of Manchester in FP7 REQUITE, IMI U-biopred and IMI EMTRAIN.

He received his education in biochemistry as an Open Scholar at University College, Oxford and his doctorate in the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Edinburgh as an MRC Scholar. His post-doctoral experience was at universities including Stanford and Cambridge. He has a research interest in haematological oncology and genetics.

Dr Alasdair Gaw

Lead Specialist in Stratified Medicine- Technology Strategy Board

Alasdair has over 20 years senior leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry, latterly addressing the challenges in translational medicine for drug development. Alasdair has been involved in several national and international precompetitive academic/industrial consortia to aid patient stratification and to identify new surrogate endpoints for novel therapies, and is currently industry chair of the MRC/ABPI supported COPD-MAP consortium. His current role is to develop future capability and capacity within the stratified medicine landscape and create opportunities for UK based companies to partner and grow their business. The Technology Strategy Board is investing £50m through the Stratified Medicine Innovation Platform which partners across government and the research field with the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, Arthritis Research UK, Department of Health, Scottish Government Health Directorate, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the National Institute for Health Research to deliver stratified medicine for patient benefit and future UK economic growth.

Professor David L. Heymann

Chairman of Public Health England

Professor David L. Heymann is currently Chairman of Public Health England, UK; Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Head of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, London. Previously he was the World Health Organization's Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment, and Representative of the Director-General for polio eradication. From 1998 to 2003 he was Executive Director of the WHO Communicable Diseases Cluster during which he headed the global response to SARS, and prior to that was Director for the WHO Programme on Emerging and other Communicable Diseases. Earlier experiences at WHO included Chief of Research Activities in the WHO Global Programme on AIDS. Before joining WHO, Prof. Heymann worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa on assignment from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where he participated in the first and second outbreaks of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, and supported ministries of health in research aimed at better control of malaria, measles, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. He is a fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (United States) and the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom). In 2009 he was appointed an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for service to global public health.

Dr Raj Sharma

Scentific Director – Respiratory Products, GSK

PhD Respiratory Pharmacology gained at Royal Brompton London, Post doctoral research in asthma and Cystic fibrosis. Worked in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years in a variety of roles including clinical development, medical affairs and project leadership with a focus on evidence generation for newly developed medicines. Currently focused on looking at evidence needs for healthcare professionals and new methodologies to conduct clinical research including generation of data in the ‘real world setting ‘to complement more traditional controlled trials.

Dr Junling Gao

Fudan University, Shanghai

Dr Gao is working at Department of Health Education and Health Promotion, School Of Public Health Fudan University. My research interests are health communication, social capital and chronic disease self-management. Several research papers have been published in international academic journals, such as Tobacco Control and Preventive Medicine.

I am now programme director for two projects, one focuses on the association between workplace social capital and health among Chinese employee. Anther one is extension research of diabetes self-management.

Professor Hua Fu

Fudan University, Shanghai

Professor Hua Fu completed his Ph.D. degree at Department of Occupational Health, Shanghai Medical University (1988-1990) and a Post-Doctoral Training of Cancer Epidemiology at IARC (Lyon, France) (1993-1994).

His current main research works are: several WHO projects related to ageing and health; smoking and health (grant from China Medical Board); self management of Chronic Diseases (grant from China Medical Board); community-based intervention of diabetes (Grant from Shanghai Health Bureau); community-based intervention of cardiovascular diseases; and Occupational stress. Since 1995, he has published more than 50 papers and several books as a chief editor. He is also PI of The National Best Course on Preventive Medicine.

Councillor Roz Gladden

Deputy Mayor Cabinet Member for Adult Health and Social Care

COUNCILLOR ROZ GLADDEN is the Deputy Mayor of Liverpool, and Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health.

Roz is a Councillor for Clubmoor ward. Her vision for Liverpool is to see the citizens access the best services to help them to live happy, healthy, independent lives.

To do this she believes we must ensure that both the health sector and the City Council collaborate to ensure that good quality, accessible health and care packages enable all our service users and family care-givers live longer within their own home and community before needing critical, long term residential care.

Since taking control in Liverpool in 2010, Roz has spearheaded a three year comprehensive transformation of the Council’s adult Social Care services which has seen some closures but also investment to ensure a service which is sustainable and fit for the 21st century.

Roz is the North West elected Member Lead for Adult Social Care and meets regularly with other Lead Councillors for Care Services in the North West and the UK to lobby Government on care policy and funding.

Mrs Angela Spencer

University of Manchester

Angela Spencer is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Manchester. Her research is focused on investigating inequalities in cervical cancer prevention by considering whether uptake of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination will follow the same pattern as cervical screening. She has previously worked in Public Health in NHS Bury, leading on cancer screening programmes. Her background is as a Public Health Analyst working in a number of primary care trusts in the North West.

Professor John Watson

Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England

Professor John Watson MB BS, MSc, FRCP, FFPH - is Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England and based at the Department of Health in London. He was previously a Consultant Clinical Epidemiologist and Head of the Respiratory Diseases Department at Public Health England’s Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control in London. He is an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Epidemiology and Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Visiting Professor in the Research Department of Infection and Population Health at University College London. He qualified from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, London, in 1979 and subsequently trained in clinical respiratory medicine and infectious disease epidemiology. His responsibilities span health protection with a particular focus on anti-microbial resistance, immunisation policy and emergency preparedness and response.

Dr Mark Fidock

VP, Personalised Healthcare and Biomarkers, AstraZeneca

Mark has over 24 years of experience in Pharmaceutical Research and Development and has been appointed as VP, Head of PHB Laboratories at AstraZeneca. His accountabilities include the leadership of the platform laboratory capabilities in order to deliver decision making biomarkers and companion diagnostics that support the AstraZeneca's clinical portfolio.

Mark joined AZ from a CRO where he was responsible for the Biomarker and Translational Sciences business unit. His responsibilities included leadership of 120 scientists, customer engagement, ensuring the unit delivered both quality data and revenue contributions. Prior to this Mark was Director of Translational Medicine within Clinical Research, Pfizer with responsibilities for approaches in Personalised Medicine and delivery of Proof-of-Mechanism Biomarkers for early Clinical Drug Development. His responsibilities for leading platform technologies included mass spectrometry, transcriptional profiling, flow cytometry, imaging and immunoassays.

Mark has been on various external scientific review committees serving a 5 year tenure for the BBSRC Biochemistry and Cell Biology grant review panel. Mark earned a first class B.Sc (Hons) degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology from the University of East Anglia.

Dr Carme Borrell

Head of the Health Information Systems Service Public Health Agency, Barcelona

Carme Borrell, MD, PhD, is a specialist in preventive medicine and public health and in family medicine. She is Head of the Health Information Systems Service of the Public Health Agency of Barcelona and Associate Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. She also serves as Editor-in-chief of the Spanish journal of public health, Gaceta Sanitaria. Having expertise in the study of social determinants of health, she has lead many international projects and published many scientific articles. Now she is leading the European Union 7th framework project SOPHIE (http://www.sophie-project.eu/).

Dr Dajun Dai

Assistant Professor of Geosciences Georgia State University

Dr. Dajun Dai is an Assistant Professor of Geosciences at Georgia State University. He also holds a secondary appointment at School of Public Health at Georgia State University and is affiliated with Emory Center for Injury Control at Emory University. Dr. Dai specializes in Geographic Information Sciences (GIS). He is interested in spatial epidemiology using GIS techniques, quantitative methods (artificial intelligence and statistical models) in GIS, transportation, and urban studies.

Professor Jiang Li

School of Public Health Fudan University

Associated professor, School of Public Health, Fudan University, China involved in Secondary prevention of non-communicable disease and Health promotion and health education in old people.

Has worked as a Post-doc fellow at the Institute of Medical Informatics, Biometrics and Epidemiology of University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany where he was involved in developing and implementing epidemiological methodology to evaluate prevention campaigns of skin cancer, and independently designing plans of research projects and performing data management and analysis.

Mr Martin Bortz

Medical Student University of Heidelberg, Germany

Martin Bortz is a medical student and Doctoral Candidate at the Institute of Public Health, Medical School University of Heidelberg in Germany. In collaboration with Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), he conducted research on urban health disparities and measurements in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has been an Intern at the WHO Centre for Health Development in Kobe, Japan.

Dr Scott Weaver

Director for Data & Research Services Georgia State University, USA

Dr. Scott Weaver is Director for Data & Research Services for the Center of Excellence for Health Disparities Research and Research Faculty within the Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Public, Georgia State University. He is also an affiliated faculty member of the Partnership for Urban Health Research at Georgia State University. He is involved with several projects pertaining to urban health, including projects to develop an Urban Health Index and Urban Health Index toolkit funded by the WHO Centre for Health Development. His research interests include racial/ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities, urban health, social determinants of health, adolescent risk behaviors and substance use, and quantitative methods.

Andrew Gwynne MP

Shadow Health Minister

Andrew is 39-years old, moarried with three children; and lives locally in Denton, where he grew up. He received his education at Egerton Park High School, Tameside College, North East Wales Institute and Salford University.

He served as a Labour Councillor on Tameside MBC between 1996 and 2008, representing the Denton West Ward.

He is also a member of Unite the Union (previously Amicus and before that, the AEEU), the GMB, the Co-operative Party and Christians on the Left (formerly the Christian Socialist Movement).

Between June 2009 and May 2010, Andrew served as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Rt Hon Ed Balls MP, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

He also served as the PPS to the Home Secretary, the Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP from July 2007 – June 2009 and to the Rt Hon Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC, between November 2005 and July 2007.

Andrew is currently a Shadow Health Minister, a post he has held since the October 2011 Opposition front bench reshuffle. He has previously served as a Shadow Minister for Transport, covering passenger transport, between October 2010 and October 2011.

Andy Hull

Director of More Independent Liverpool Liverpool NHS

Andy Hull joined Liverpool PCT as Director for Stakeholder Engagement in March 2008 and is currently spearheading the 2020 Decade of Health and Wellbeing Campaign which aims to make Merseyside more Equal, Well and Green by 2020. With NHS responsibility for neighbourhood management he has worked with local communities in Liverpool to enable voices to be heard in the Design and Delivery of services. He believes passionately in community development and that services and experts should be "on tap not on top"

Previously he held the position of Head of Public Protection at Liverpool City Council achieving Customer Service Excellence status for all services.

Since 2003, Andy has been the Chair of Smoke Free Liverpool. The Movement which has played such an instrumental role in driving forward the National smoking in enclosed public places legislation and reducing the numbers of smokers in Liverpool by over a quarter since 2005. He is now the Director for the More Independent; the Liverpool arm of the National Dallas (Delivering Assisted Living Lifestyles at Scale) programme which aims to make Life Planning and Life Enhancing Technologies (LETs) part of all of our lives enabling joy, independent living and an improved quality of life for all.

Passionate about equality and enabling older people to live full, rich and independent lives Andy has an ambitious vision of how the partnership in Liverpool can help raise aspirations, improve Health and Wellbeing and reduce Health Inequalities across the Liverpool City Region.

Kimberly Libman PhD, MPH

City University of New York

Dr. Libman’s work examines how urban governance and intersectoral collaboration shape food environments and health inequality in New York City, London, and Cape Town. She led two World Health Organization-funded case studies investigating the determinants of intersectoral action for the prevention and treatment of diet-related non-communicable diseases in these cities.

Dr. Libman has published in the Journal of Urban Health, Housing Policy Debate, Housing, Theory & Society, Environmental Education & Communication, and the Journal of Urban Affairs. With Susan Saegert, and Desiree Fields, she is the 2009 recipient of the Journal of Urban Affairs Best Article of the Year Award.

Riikka Elina Rantala

Technical Officer, World Health Organization Centre for Health Development

Riikka Elina Rantala has been a Technical Officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) Centre for Health Development in Kobe, Japan, since 2011. Her work focuses on urban health governance and and health equity, and she currently coordinates the centre’s work on intersectoral action for health. Previously, she worked as a Health and Human Rights Officer at the WHO Regional Office for South East Asia, focusing on the promotion of right-based approaches in the region. Before joining the WHO, she worked for the Embassy of Finland in Zambia, and for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. She has an MA in International and Development Economics from the Hochschule fur Technik und Wirtschaft in Berlin.