Who's Who
Scientific Steering Committee
Co-Chairs
• Ulisses Confalonieri, National School of Public Health, FIOCRUZ, BrazilProfessor Ulisses Confalonieri is a professor at the National School of Public Health of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) of the Brazilian Ministry of Health and a Professor at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro. He was trained in parasitology, internal medicine, epidemiology and veterinary medicine. At FIOCRUZ, Confalonieri coordinates the Program on Global Environmental Changes and Health. His current research focuses on the effect of changes in climate variability and change, ecosystem, biodiversity and land cover changes on human population health, especially on infectious diseases. He has been, inter alia, a convening lead author for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and convening lead author for the Health Chapter of the IPCC´s Fourth Assessment Report (2004-2007).
• Mark Rosenberg, Queens University, Canada
Professor Mark W. Rosenberg is a Professor of Geography and cross-appointed as a Professor in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1980. Among his more recent honors, Professor Rosenberg was an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury (NZ) in 2001. In 2006, Professor Rosenberg became the first winner of the Queen’s University Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision in the Social Sciences and Humanities. In 2008, he was made an Honorary Professor in the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute for Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research. From 2000 to 2008, Professor Rosenberg was the Chairperson of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Health and the Environment (CHE). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal on Aging and a North American Editor of Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy. His research covers a wide range of topics including health and the environment, access to health care services, vulnerable populations. These topics are examined within frameworks for planning health care human resources and services and the implications for public policy at the local, national and international scales. Professor Rosenberg’s research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Members
• Alonso Aguirre, George Mason University, USA
Dr. Alonso Aguirre is Executive Director of the Smithsonian-Mason Global Conservation Studies Program based at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia and he is Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Previously he was Senior Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance in New York also holding different appointments at the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, Columbia University and Tufts University. After obtaining his D.V.M., he received a M.S. in wildlife ecology and epidemiology and a Ph.D. in wildlife biology and protected areas management from Colorado State University where he served as Assistant Professor years later. He acted as Wildlife Epidemiologist for NMFS Protected Species Investigations heading a pioneering the epidemiology program for the endangered Hawaiian monk seals and sea turtles. He authored the books New Directions in Conservation Medicine, Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice and Helminths of Wildlife: A Global Perspective and published over 160 professional papers, monographs and scientific reports. He also served as co-editor and now as review editor of the new Springer journal EcoHealth. He also is a co-editor of the Journal of Wildlife Diseases and European Journal of Wildlife Research. Dr. Aguirre has served as the Wildlife Disease Association Latin American Section Chair, President Elect of the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians and Chair of the World Association of Wildlife Veterinarians. Currently he is executive member of NOAA Oceans and Human Health Initiative. He also served as a reviewer of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. In 1998, he won the Harry Jalanka Memorial Medal from Finland and he received from CEPANAF (State Commission of Natural Parks and Wildlife) the 2010 Award in Conservation for his contributions in conserving protected areas. He has been technical advisor for the Center for Environmental Russian Policy, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Office International Des Epizooties, Diversitas, Smithsonian Institution, Institut für Zoo-und Wildtierforschung (Berlin), Institut Français de la Biodiversité (Paris), PAHO, Smithsonian Institution and UNDP among others. He has advised governments of several countries in the Americas, Southeast Asia and Western Europe. Dr. Aguirre has briefed the Mexican and US Congress, Administration, and federal agency leaders. His work has been the focus of extensive media coverage including Bioscience, Conservation In Practice, E-Magazine, Environmental Health Perspectives, the New York Times, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Newsweek. National Public Radio, CBS, LTV and other international magazines, TV and radio shows.
• Colin Butler, Australian National University, Australia
Dr. Colin Butler is an Associate Professor of Public Health at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, Australia. He is also founding director of the Benevolent Organisation for Development, Health and Insight (BODHI). He is a graduate in medicine from the University of Newcastle (Australia) and holds an MSc in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a multidisciplinary PhD from the ANU. His research interests include global environmental change and human well-being, including climate change, justice, food security, resource depletion and ecosystem change. He is interested in human population dynamics and in ways to reduce the likely consequences of limits to growth, which if unchecked may include large-scale population displacement, mental stress, and conflict. He is a co-editor of EcoHealth. He was involved in several dimensions of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, including as co-ordinating lead author for the chapter on future human well-being.
• Manuel Cesario, University of Franca, Brazil
Professor Manuel Cesario is a Medical Doctor (UGF, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) specialised in Community Health (Université Paris VII, France), holds a PhD in Human Ecology/Community Health/Sustainable Development (University of Edinburgh, Scotland), and was Visiting Research Associate at the University of Oxford (England), where he explored the development of early warning systems for disease emergence due to socio-environmental changes in Amazonia. He coordinated the Task Force convened by IHDP to provide inputs for the ‘Global Environmental Change and Human Health’ ESSP’s Project, and is also a Member of the IHDP Advisory Group on Health. Professor Cesario sits at IUFRO’s Steering Committee for the Forests and Human Health Task Force, and is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London. Presently, Manuel Cesario is Professor of Environmental Change and Sustainability, at the University of Franca’s Graduate Programme on Health Promotion, where he leads the Advanced Observatory on Health and Environmental Change.
• Carlos Corvalán, PAHO/WHO, Brazil/USA
Dr. Carlos Corvalán is a PAHO/WHO Senior Advisor on Risk Assessment and Global Environmental Change, based in Washington DC. He joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1993 and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) in 2008. He is editor and author of the WHO book Decision-making in environmental health – from evidence to action, the WHO report Climate change and human health – risks and responses and of the WHO report Ecosystems and human well-being – health synthesis, which was WHO’s contribution to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He also co-authored WHO’s report on Preventing diseases through healthy environments. For many years he has been giving workshops to representatives from ministries of health and other government officials and experts to promote awareness and action related to protecting health from climate and other environmental changes. Corvalan has a Masters in Public Health from Sydney University, Australia, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Health from Nijmegen University, in the Netherlands.
• Michael Depledge, Peninsula Medical School, UK
Professor Michael Depledge holds the Chair of Environment and Human Health at the Peninsula Medical School (Universities of Exeter and Plymouth), Devon, UK. He is a Commissioner of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and Visiting Professor at the Department of Zoology, Oxford University (since 2007). He is also Strategic Advisor to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Westminster. He was educated at Westfield College, University of London where he gained a First Class Honours degree in Biological Sciences, (1975) and a PhD in the toxicology of marine organisms (1978). In 1982 he became Lecturer in Physiology at the medical school of the University of Hong Kong and in 1987 was appointed to the first Chair of Ecotoxicology in Europe at Odense University, Denmark. In 1994 he returned to the UK to take up the Chair of Marine Biology and Ecotoxicology at the University of Plymouth. He was the founding Director of the Plymouth Environmental Research Centre in 1996. In Sept. 2002, he was invited to become the Chief Scientific Advisor of the UK Government’s Environment Agency. After a 4 year term, he became Senior Science Advisor at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (until Sept. 2007). He is currently chairman of the Science Advisory Group for Environment and Climate Change in DG-Research, European Commission (Brussels). Since 1990 he has been an expert advisor on marine pollution to the United Nations, and since 2001 he also serves as an expert advisor to WHO. He was awarded a DSc degree by the University of London (1996) and the Norwegian Society of Pharmacology and Toxicology’s Poulsson Prize (2009). He is currently setting up the European Centre for Environment and Human Health on the Peninsula Medical School campus in Truro, Cornwall.
• Kristie L. Ebi, IPCC WG2 TSU, USA
Kristie L. Ebi is Executive Director of the Technical Support Unit for Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability) of the IPCC. Prior to this position, she was an independent consultant. Her research focuses on the impacts of and adaptation to climate change, including on extreme events, thermal stress, foodborne safety and security, and vectorborne diseases. She has worked with the WHO, UNDP, USAID, and others on implementing adaptation measures in low-income countries. She was a lead author on the “Human Health” chapter of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, and the “Human Health” chapter for a U.S. assessment of the impacts of climate change. She has edited fours books on aspects of climate change and has more than 80 publications. Dr. Ebi has a M.S. in toxicology and a Ph.D. and MPH in epidemiology, and two years of postgraduate research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
• Francesca Grifo, Union of Concerned Scientists, USA
As the senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at UCS, Dr. Francesca Grifo acts to mobilize scientists and citizens to defend the integrity of government science from political interference.
Dr. Grifo came to UCS in 2005 from Columbia University where she directed the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation graduate policy workshop and ran the Science Teachers Environmental Education Program. Prior to that, she was director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation and a curator of the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Dr. Grifo edited and contributed to the books Biodiversity and Human Health and The Living Planet in Crisis: Biodiversity Science and Policy. In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Grifo was the manager of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups Program at the National Institutes of Health. She was also a senior program officer for Central and Eastern Europe for the Biodiversity Support Program, a consortium of the World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund. She also served as an AAAS Fellow in the Office of Research at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Dr. Grifo earned a doctorate in botany from Cornell and a bachelor's degree in biology from Smith College.
• Agnes Kijazi, Tanzania Metereological Agency, Tanzania
Dr. Agnes Kijazi has worked as a meteorologist in the Tanzania Meteorological Agency for about 10yrs. During that period she was involved in various activities of the Agency including weather and climate analysis and forecasting, Climate and health projects write up, climate research, editorial board of scientific research journal etc. Dr. Kijazi has attended various workshops and international conferences and presented scientific papers in those conferences. She is a member of American Meteorological Society (AMS) for meteorology and oceanography of Southern Hemisphere committee. From February 2010 to date she is the Acting Director General of Tanzania Meteorological Agency and Permanent representative of Tanzania with WMO. Dr. Kijazi earned a WMO Class II Certificate from IMTR (Nairobi, Kenya), a B.Sc. in meteorology from the University of Nairobi (Kenya) and an M.Sc. in Environmental and Geographical Science and a PhD in Oceanography both from the University of Cape Town (South Africa). She has published in various peer-reviewed journals including the Climate Research Journal and the International Journal of Climatology.
• Sari Kovats, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Dr. Sari Kovats is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Epidemiology in the Department of Social and Environmental Health Research in the Faculty of Public Health and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She has a PhD in epidemiology from LSHTM. Her areas of interest are in health issues related to climate and climate change, and particularly the methods used to attribute health effects to weather, climate and long term climate change. She has published widely on the health impacts of heat waves and associated public health responses, the role of temperature and rainfall in the transmission of food borne and water borne disease, and the health impacts of flooding. She has contributed to several of the IPCC assessment and technical papers, includng as Lead Author in the Human Health chapter in the Fourth Assessment Report. Sari is a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Change and Health at LSHTM.
• Elisabet Lindgren, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Dr. Elisabet Lindgren is a physician with a PhD in Natural Resources Management from Stockholm University. Lindgren is specialized in health consequences of climate change (mainly infectious diseases; vulnerability; adaptation assessments) since 15 years, and has focused on these issues both through her scientific work and by bridging the gap between science and policy. She has e.g. contributed to the IPCC reports as co-author (TARIII) and reviewer (AR4); to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report (co-author); and was main author of the Health report in the Swedish national climate change assessment. In 2007 she was elected member of the Swedish government’s Scientific Council on Climate change. She is temporary advisor to e.g. the WHO, the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control, and other EU and governmental agencies and ministries. She is now a Senior Researcher with the Division of Global Health at Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
• Andy Morse, University of Liverpool, UK
Dr. Andy Morse is a Reader in the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, U.K. His background by Ph.D. is in Atmospheric Physics from the University of Manchester, U.K. and has publications and research experience across a range activities within the discipline. He is most recognised for his work on the climate impacts on health, where he works mostly on infectious diseases, concentrating on Africa. He was co-awarded the 2006 World Meteorological Organisation Norbert Gerbier-MUMM International award for the research within the EC FP5 DEMETER project that integrated climate impact models within a probabilistic ensemble prediction system at seasonal lead times. He co-led a wide range of impacts work in the EC FP6 ENSEMBLES project and led the health impacts in FP6 AMMA where both seasonal forecast and climate projections were utilized; he currently coordinates QWeCI a FP7 project on health impacts of weather and climate in Africa.
• Úrsula Oswald-Spring, National University of Mexico, Mexico
Professor Úrsula Oswald Spring is a full time professor and researcher at the National University of Mexico, in the Regional Multidisciplinary Research Centre (CRIM) and the first MRF-Chair on Social Vulnerability at United National University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS). She was elected in 1998 President of the International Peace Research Association, and between 2002 and 2006 she was General Secretary of Latin-American Council for Peace Research. From 1992 to 1998 she was also the first Minister of Environmental Development in Morelos. She has written 48 books and more than 320 scientific articles and book chapters. She founded the Peasant University of the South in Mexico and is adviser of women and environmental movements. Since 2009 she has coordinated the water research in Mexico to establish a national network of water researchers, including scientists, government officials and representatives of private enterprises.
• German Poveda, Universidad National des Colombia, Colombia
Professor Germán Poveda is currently at the School of Geosciences and Environment, Universidad Nacional de Colombia at Medellín, Colombia. As a scientist working in the developing world, his research agenda is quite broad, and includes diagnostics, and modeling the impacts of climate change and hydro-climate variability (ENSO) on human health, mainly malaria and dengue, in Colombia and tropical South America, but also on water resources, hydrological extremes, agriculture, and hydropower generation. He makes part of the IPCC, and serves as chair of Colombia’s IGBP. Since 2001 he makes part of international scientific steering committee of the “Large Scale Atmosphere-Biosphere Experiment in Amazonia” (LBA); he is member elected of the Colombian Academy of Sciences occupying Chair # 7 (out of 40). He has been selected as a visiting fellow at CIRES, University of Colorado, USA, and at the Center for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK. He has recently been selected as the Lead Author of Chapter 27 on Central and South America for the 5th IPCC Assessment Report (due in 2014).The scientific production of Professor Poveda can be found at http://www.docentes.unal.edu.co/gpoveda/.
Ex Officio
• Zafar Adeel, United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH)Dr. Zafar Adeel has experience in a variety of water and environmental issues, including monitoring and control of water pollution, water management in dry areas, solutions to industrial environmental problems, modeling of environmental systems and environmental policy formulation. He is also keenly involved in development of and liaison with international networks of water experts. He serves as Director at UNU-INWEH, where he has the overall responsibility for the direction, organization, administration and programmes of the institute, as well as Chair of UN-Water. Dr. Adeel is an environmental engineer with post-graduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and Iowa State University.
Corresponding Members
• Tony McMichael, Australian National University, AustraliaProfessor Tony McMichael is a medical graduate and environmental epidemiologist at the Australian National University, Canberra, where he heads a research program on the health risks and impacts of environmental and climate change, at local, national and international levels. He is Honorary Professor of Climate Change and Health at the University of Copenhagen, and is Immediate Past President of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. He has contributed to the scientific work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1993, including chairing the chapter team assessing human health risks. He previously participated in the international Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He is a senior advisor to the World Health Organization in its implementation of international research, risk assessment and policy development on climate change risks to wellbeing, health and survival, and also chairs the WHO-based Tropical Disease Research Program’s high-level reference group on the infectious disease risks resulting from the interaction of environmental change, climate change and agricultural practices.
• Andy Haines, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Professor Sir Andy Haines MD, MB BS, FRCP, FRCGP, FFPH, FMed Sci, became Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in January 2001. His research interests are in epidemiology and health services research. He was one of the first academics to recognise that climate change could have implications for public health and has published widely on climate and health issues. He was a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the second and third Assessment Reports in 1996 and 2001. He has recently chaired the Task Force on Climate Change Mitigation and Public Health which was funded by a consortium of funding bodies led by the Wellcome Trust to provide estimates of the public health impacts of climate change mitigation strategies in the electricity generation, household energy, transport and food/agriculture sectors.
