Speakers in Plenary

Dr. Björn Olsen, MD, is professor of Infectious Diseases at Uppsala University, and Senior Physician at Uppsala University Hospital. His research is mainly focused on the study of zoonotic infections, primarily from birds, and the drivers behind outbreak, epidemic and pandemic threats. In 1983, he founded the bird observatory Stora Fjärderägg, in the Northern Baltic Sea. Dr. Olsen is the author of the book Pandemi (2010, in Swedish), a description of how pandemics develop for the general public. He is co-founder of the Zoonosis Science Center at Uppsala University and editor-in-chief of the open access journal Infection Ecology and Epidemiology.

Dr. Peter Daszak is the president of EcoHealth Alliance - a US-based organization that conducts research and outreach programs on global health, conservation and international development. Dr. Daszak’s research has been instrumental in identifying and predicting the impact of emerging diseases across the globe. His achievements include identifying the bat origin of SARS, identifying the underlying drivers of Nipah and Hendra virus emergence, producing the first ever global emerging disease ‘hotspots’ map, developing a strategy to find out how many unknown viruses exist that could threaten to become pandemic, identifying the first case of a species extinction due to disease, and discovering the disease chytridiomycosis as the cause global amphibian declines.

Dr Daszak is Editor-in-Chief of EcoHealth, a member of the editorial board of One Health, and is a member of the IOM’s Forum on Microbial Threats, the NRC Advisory Committee to the US Global Change Research Program, and the Supervisory Board of the One Health Platform. He has authored over 300 scientific papers. Dr. Daszak is a regular advisor to WHO, OIE and FAO, and is actively involved in the WHO Expert group on Public Health Emergency Disease Prioritization.

Dr. Maria Lapinski, Professor, Department of Communication and Michigan AgBio Research; Director, College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Health, Environment, and Risk Communication Center (HERCC).

Dr. Lapinski served as the Associate Dean for Research for the College of Communication Arts and Sciences for 6 years and in that role facilitated interdisciplinary research partnerships and supported faculty research including leading the college’s grant support office. Most recently, she was an affiliate faculty at University of Waikato, in Hamilton, New Zealand.

Her research examines the impact of messages and social-psychological factors on health and environmental risk behaviors with a focus on culturally-based differences and similarities. To this end, Dr. Lapinski has conducted collaborative research projects with her students and colleagues in a number of countries in Asia, the Pacific Rim, Central America, and Africa. Most recently, she has been studying the role of financial incentives in social normative systems through a series of studies on the Tibetan Plateau.

Dr. Eric Fèvre, Professor of Veterinary Infectious Diseases at the Institute of Infection and Global Health (IGH), University of Liverpool, UK

Dr Fèvre is jointly based at the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya, where he manages field-orientated projects researching disease transmission and control at the interface between animals and human beings. His research team, the Zoonotic and Emerging Diseases group (www.zoonotic-diseases.org; Twitter: @ZoonoticDisease) is a 25-strong grouping of epidemiologists, ecologists, biologists, veterinarians and medical practitioners interested in the biology and control of (re-)emerging diseases. The group conducts field studies to acquire a wider understanding of pathogen epidemiology to inform policy on optimal and cost-effective methods of disease control. Prof. Fèvre is the Chair the World Health Organization Working Group on zoonotic Neglected Tropical Diseases (zNTDs), is a member of the WHO Expert Committee on Human African Trypanosomiasis. In Kenya, he is a member of the Zoonoses Technical Working Group (ZTWG), the advisory body to the Government of Kenya National Zoonotic Disease Unit.

Dr. Paul Richards, Professor Emeritus of Technology and Agrarian Development at Wageningen University,The Netherlands

Dr Richards is adjunct professor at Njala University in central Sierra Leone. He was formerly a professor in the Department of Anthropology, University College London for many years, and previously taught anthropology and geography, at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London and the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Professor Richards is the author of the book Ebola - How a people´s science helped end an epidemic (2016), in which he draws on his extensive firsthand experience of the outbreak in Sierra Leone.

Frouke de Groot graduated in 2007 as a veterinarian and started working in a companion animal practice in the west of the Netherlands. In 2012, she joined the Royal Dutch Veterinary Association as a policy adviser and manager. Her key role was to detect and interpret relevant veterinary developments and translate these into policy advice for the board. After two years, she joined the Ministry of Economic Affairs. In this policy advisory role she is responsible for governmental policy on One Health and zoonotic diseases, including Q-fever. She is closely involved in the work on human health in relation to animal husbandry and the Global Health Security Agenda.

Dr. Beth-Anne Griswold Coller, PhD, Executive Director, Global Clinical Development, Merck and Company, Inc. and former Senior Vice President for Research and Development at Hawaii Biotech Inc., has more than 23 years of post-doctoral viral vaccine research and development experience. Dr. Coller received her Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where she studied the molecular virology of picornaviruses. She then joined Hawaii Biotech where her efforts focused on development of vaccines based on recombinant subunit approaches. In 1999, Dr. Coller joined GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals in Rixensart, Belgium where she was the project manager for the dengue vaccine project and led the Preclinical Virology Group which was responsible for preclinical development of all viral vaccine projects.

In September 2004 Dr. Coller rejoined Hawaii Biotech and was ultimately responsible for all Research and Development activities. In August 2010, Dr. Coller joined Merck to support dengue vaccine development and since then has expanded her responsibilities. She is currently the Product Development Team Leader for the Ebola and Dengue vaccine programs at Merck.

Dr. Pierre Formenty, DVM, Team Lead Viral Haemorrhagic Fevers, Health Emergencies programme, WHO and Manager of the WHO Emerging and Dangerous Pathogens Laboratory Network (EDPLN), a Network of high security diagnostic laboratories for early detection and rapid containment of outbreaks due to emerging and dangerous pathogens.

Dr. Formenty is a field epidemiologist specialized in public health and in medical virology with special focus on viral haemorrhagic fevers. He has more than twenty-seven years' experience in international public health, tropical medicine and animal health.

Since 1996, Dr. Pierre Formenty has participated with WHO in field control activities of more than 40 major outbreaks of international importance. During these missions, he supported outbreak response activities for the following diseases: Chikungunya, Cholera, Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever, Dengue, Ebola, Lassa fever, Marburg, Monkeypox, Nipah, Plague, Rift Valley Fever, SARS-CoV and Yellow Fever.

Dr. Timothy A Bouley, Global Health and Environmental Specialist World Bank Group (WBG).

Dr. Bouley founded and currently leads the climate and health program, working to integrate the dual considerations across WBG sector and region. He has also been a core member of WBG teams that have built the Operational Framework for One Health and Global Partnership for Oceans. Separately, he has advised, designed, or worked to implement dozens of other projects involving infectious disease, air pollution, AMR, nutrition, fisheries, aquaculture, livestock, climate change, biodiversity, and forests. He is a regular author and reviewer of WBG reports and independent journal articles; sits on the board of half a dozen environmental health initiatives that span the private sector, philanthropy, and academia; and is a review editor of EcoHealth.

Trained as a medical doctor and environmental scientist, he previously worked with World Health Organization’s climate change and health cluster, as a researcher at UCSF, in health systems in India and Rwanda and held a post-graduate fellowship at the US National Academy of Sciences. He holds degrees in biology, bioethics, geography, and medicine from Tufts, Harvard, Oxford, and Duke.

Dr. Johanna Takkinen, Head of the European Center for Disease Control Food- and Waterborne Diseases and Zoonoses (FWD) Programme.

Dr Takkinen is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine with a special degree in food- and environmental hygiene from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in the University of Helsinki. While doing practice mainly with large animals, she has worked in different food-, water- and environmental laboratories since 1983, first as a laboratory technician and later as a Head of food laboratory in Porvoo, Finland. In 1999, Dr. Takkinen joined the European Intervention Epidemiology Training programme (EPIET) in the Robert Koch Institut in Germany, and moved to work at the National Public Health Institute in Finland in 2002. She was recognised de facto Diplomate for Food Science in the European College of Veterinary Public Health in 2005 and in the same year, she finished her Master of Public Health studies for the Nordic School of Public Health in Gothenburg, Sweden.

As a Head of the ECDC FWD programme covering 21 bacterial, viral, parasitic and prion diseases, Dr. Takkinen has a deep interest to understand and explore the epidemiology of these diseases in a holistic way, applying “One Health” approach, so that important gaps in the prevention and control can be identified and appropriately addressed.

Dr. Bassirou Bonfoh, Director General Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire, Director Afrique One-ASPIRE

Dr. Bonfoh holds a DVM and a PhD in biology. He worked for 5 years in West Africa as a livestock development program coordinator for Vétérinaires Sans Frontières. He went for a 4 years' epidemiology postdoctoral fellowship at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) on health risks and determinants of dairy sector development. He subsequently led research group on "Avenues of extensive pastoral production system" in the Horn Africa, West Africa and Central Asia in the framework of the Swiss National Competence in Research North-South (NCCR North-South), where he contributed to validate the One Health concept on risk analysis and zoonosis control at human, animal and environment interface (e.g. brucellosis in Kyrgyzstan). Since 2009, he is Managing Director of Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire (CSRS) where he leads the North-South science diplomacy. He is also the Director of the consortium Afrique One.

From 2005 to 2007 he directed the methodology work stream for the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. He has a continuing interest in health inequalities and is pursuing a programme of research in Cambridge on this topic. He had an academic career lasting twenty seven years before moving into the National Health Service to lead the Research Team at the Health Development Agency and then moving on to NICE.

Dr Hannah Akuffo, Senior Research Advisor, Swedish International Development Agency, Sida

Dr Hannah Akuffo is an Adjunct Professor at Karolinska Institutet and a Senior Research Advisor in the Unit for Research Cooperation at the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) with responsibilities for research, research training and research capacity strengthening support to regional and global organizations working in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Dr. Akuffo’s research has focused on neglected tropical diseases in particular leishmaniosis. She has been chaired the work of WHO’s Tropical Disease Research Board and of European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, EDCTP.

Dr. Charlie Weller, Head of Vaccines Priority Platform and Epidemics, Wellcome Trust, UK

Dr. Weller joined the Wellcome Trust in 2014 as a Senior Portfolio Developer, where she oversaw the Immunology portfolio, led the funding response to the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2015 and contributed to strategy development in preparedness for future epidemics, prior to taking the lead on vaccines and epidemics. Dr. Weller has over 16 years of research experience in both academic and pharmaceutical environments, ranging from host pathogen interactions to cellular and molecular immunology.

Before joining the Wellcome Trust, Charlie was a laboratory head at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research engaged in target identification and validation within the respiratory disease area, focusing on innate immune responses in respiratory exacerbations. Prior to this, Charlie investigated mast cell localization and function in health, respiratory disease and parasite infections as a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College London. She holds a BSc in genetics at Birmingham University, and a PhD in Immunology at Imperial College London.

Dr. Jim Gallarda, Senior Program Officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA

Dr. Gallarda has over 25 years of industry experience in development of commercial infectious disease and oncology-related companion diagnostics. During his tenure at Abbott Laboratories and Roche Molecular Diagnostics, he oversaw multiple teams developing immunodiagnostic & PCR systems for HIV-1, HIV-2, HCV, HBV and West Nile Virus. While at Roche Molecular, Dr. Gallarda obtained an MBA and eventually led its global business for Genomics & Oncology. Afterwards, he moved into Novartis Pharmaceuticals as a diagnostic lead overseeing development of a companion diagnostic for tyrosine kinase inhibitors in chronic myeloid leukemia. He now serves as a diagnostic lead for the Foundation’s efforts in tuberculosis, and has oversight for investments in next generation sequencing and other molecular applications in global health.

Dr. Marianne Elvander, Professor and former State Epizootiologist at the National Veterinary Institute from 2006 until her retirement in 2016. Dr. Elvander has focused her research on infectious diseases in food producing animals with special emphasis on viral infections and epizootic and zoonotic diseases. Prior to her position as State Epizootiologist she worked for the European Commission, and has also served on as vice-chair on the board for the European Food Saftey Authority (EFSA). Dr. Elvander is elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry.