Dr Marie-Aline CHARLES is a doctor and epidemiologist, a former intern and assistant chief of clinic in diabetology at the Hôpitaux de Paris. After a Masters in Public Health, she spent 3 years at the National Institute of Health in a diabetes epidemiology unit. On her return to France, she became a researcher and then research director at INSERM, where she set up and directed until 2024 a research team on early pre- and post-natal determinants of development and health within the Centre de Recherche en Epidémiologie et Statistiques (CRESS, Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Inrae). After initial experience in coordinating a regionally recruited cohort of children, she became director of the joint Ined-Inserm Elfe unit, which coordinates the first national cohort of children in mainland France, in which more than 18,000 children were included in 2011. She helped found the French Society on the Developmental Origins of Health (SF-Dohad), which she chaired from 2018 to 2021. She is co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institut de recherche en santé publique (Iresp).

Xavier Coumoul is professor of toxicology and biochemistry at Université Paris Cité, and as such is co-director of the university’s toxicology – ecotoxicology specialism. His research focuses on characterising the modes of action of environmental contaminants. He heads the Inserm HealthFex research unit and co-directs the Inserm METATOX team, which focuses on various pathologies including cancer and the formation of metastases, chronic liver diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. Metabolic deregulation is one of his team’s most studied modes of action. He has authored over a hundred peer-reviewed articles in the field of cellular and molecular toxicology. He is also an expert on environmental health for the university and INSERM, having taken part in two INSERM collective expert reports on pesticides, and has appeared in numerous media. He has also held positions of responsibility at the university (board of directors and vice-president), as well as being heavily involved in educational innovation.

After studying at the Polytechnic School, Bruno Falissard pursued medical studies and specialised in child psychiatry in 1991. He is professor of biostatistics at the Paris-Saclay Faculty of Medicine and director of the CESP (Centre de recherche en Epidémiologie et Santé des Populations). His research activities focus on methodology and epistemology of research in psychiatry.

In 2015, he was elected President of the IACAPAP (International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied professions, end of mandate in 2018) and member of the French National Academy of Medicine.

In 2019, he received the international award of the AACAP (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry).

Marie Claude Geoffroy, PhD, is a researcher at the Douglas Research Centre, associate professor of psychiatry and associate member of the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University. She holds the Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Promotion and Youth Suicide Prevention and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. A clinical psychologist, she has published over 120 articles in leading journals such as Lancet Psychiatry and JAMA Psychiatry. Dr Geoffroy uses a multidisciplinary approach including epidemiology, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, randomised controlled trials and collaboration with people with lived experience. As leader of the Papageno suicide prevention research team, she is committed to generating knowledge that can better inform suicide prevention efforts and inspire hope. She acts as a consultant to a number of governmental and non-governmental organisations, providing information on suicide prevention and mental health promotion strategies.

John Kaldor is a NHMRC Leadership Fellow and UNSW Scientia Professor. He holds a doctorate in Biostatistics from the University of California. Berkeley, and began his research career at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. For over 30 years he has built and led internationally recognised research programs at UNSW on the epidemiology and prevention of infectious diseases.

His research has covered a wide range of projects, including the development and implementation of public health surveillance systems, investigations of infection-related cancer, cohort and cross-sectional investigations of risk factors for infectious disease transmission, and interventional trials of disease prevention strategies.

With over 900 peer reviewed scientific publications that have been cited collectively over 30,000 times, Professor Kaldor has been a highly influential contributor to public health knowledge. His work has guided policy in disease control, particularly in relation to the prevention of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted infections, viral hepatitis and neglected tropical diseases. Professor Kaldor has also served on numerous policy and advisory committees in Australia and Internationally. He has had close working relationships with public health programs in a number of countries of the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Cambodia, Indonesia,  Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Solomon Islands.

I have been a university lecturer in geography at the Université de La Réunion for 26 years, after a spell at the CNRS and the Université de Rouen, and my research has often combined geography and urban sociology.  I have held various positions and offices locally (Vice-President of the Conseil des Études et de la Vie Universitaire, President of the Academic Council of the Université de La Réunion, Regional Delegate for Research and Technology for La Réunion and Mayotte, member of the Conseil Économique, Social et Environnemental Régional and then of the Conseil de la Culture, de l’Education et de l’Environnement) and nationally (Strategic Orientation Council and then Board of Directors of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, expert for the Haut conseil pour l’évaluation de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur, member of the interministerial mission for the prefiguration of research platforms in overseas France). I currently represent France Universités on the Working Group on the Future of Research in the French Overseas Territories.

Dr Patricia MARTIN, who holds an MD and an Mph, is a French-Malagasy doctor and public health expert specialising in immunisation, tropical medicine and the management of health emergencies.

Dr Patricia MARTIN has a solid academic background, with a degree in General Medicine from the University of Antananarivo. She also holds a degree in Vaccinology and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Bordeaux and specialises in Tropical Medicine.

Since January 2024, she has been in charge of the neglected tropical diseases neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) for the World Health Organization Organization (WHO) at the Madagascar country office, where she supports the Ministry of Health in the operationalisation of the master plan to combat NTDs at all levels. This includes activities to lymphatic filariasis, with the aim of eliminating it by 2030.

From 2020 to 2023, Dr Patricia Martin played a key role in coordinating the vaccination against Covid-19 in Madagascar and oversaw numerous public health initiatives across Africa and Asia.

Her expertise extends to setting up epidemiological surveillance systems, a field that she has further developed at the international level, which she has further enhanced through her role as coordinator of integrated epidemiological surveillance in the Central African Republic, from 2018 to 2020. Her achievements in this role include introduced an electronic real-time data collection system. She also contributed to the fight against polio and the management of plague epidemics in Madagascar, and is a member of the WHO Madagascar One Health task force Madagascar.

A general practitioner since 1992, Dr Laurent MUSANGO holds a Master’s degree in Public Health (1996), a DEA in Health Policies and Systems (2001) and a PhD in Health Sciences/Health Economics (2005). Provincial Director of Health from 1994 to 2003, Dr MUSANGO has been heavily involved in health system reforms in Rwanda. He was one of the pioneers and initiators of the development and implementation of the Health Insurance Policy and performance-based financing in Rwanda. He was also Dean of the School of Public Health at the National University of Rwanda from 2004 to 2007. From October 2007 to September 2016, Dr Laurent MUSANGO was Regional Adviser for Health Financing and Social Protection at the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the African Region (AFRO).

Dr MUSANGO has conducted and participated in several research studies and published various scientific articles in numerous international journals. He is also a member of several professional and research associations.

He was World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Mauritius from 2016 to 2022, and has held the same position in Madagascar since May 2022.

After obtaining her Doctorate in Medicine at the University Hospital of Nantes, specialising in Endocrinology, Metabolic Diseases and Nutrition, Estelle Nobécourt focused on the care of patients with metabolic diseases. She was for 4 years Head of Clinic-Assistant in the hospitals of the APHP and then returned as MCU-PH to the University Hospital of Nantes.

In parallel to her involvement in the care and management of metabolic patients, she is involved in clinical and fundamental research. She completed a science thesis on HDL-C dysfunctions in Australia and then a post-doctorate in Science on factors influencing the development of the embryonic pancreas at the Cochin Institute in Paris.

PU-PH in Reunion Island between 2016 and 09/2024 then Professor at Nancy hospital, she is particularly interested with her research colleagues and physicians in the prevention, screening and early management of type 2 diabetes and Obesity and their complications. She is also involved in the understanding and management of patients with Dunnigan’s lipodystrophy complicated by diabetes. To carry out her projects, she is attached to the CIC-EC, INSERM Unit 1410 in Reunion and the UMR DéTROI, INSERM Unit 118. She continues to collaborate with Australian teams, in particular those of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne.

Professor Julien Périard is Deputy Director of the University of Canberra Research Institute for Sport and Exercise (UCRISE), where he also leads the Environmental Physiology Research Laboratory. His integrative research examines the physiological mechanisms that mediate health and performance during exercise in adverse environments (heat and altitude), and the adaptations that stem from chronic exposure to these environments. His work also involves the development of extreme heat policies for sport and exercise, and examines how regular exercise across the lifespan can build resilience against rising global temperatures. He has worked with both amateur and professional athletes from various disciplines, along with National (e.g. Australian Institute of Sport) and International Federations (e.g. FIFA, World Athletics and World Triathlon). Julien has authored over 120 research publications, including an invited review for Physiological Reviews. Julien has also edited a textbook on Heat Stress in Sport and Exercise. He currently serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport and has served as Guest Editor for the British Journal of Sports Medicine and Scandinavian Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. 

Dr Michel Samson obtained his PhD in 1993 from the University of Paris XI (France). He studied as a postdoctoral researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Brussels, Belgium), supported by prestigious grants (EMBO, European Community, etc.). He spent two years as a visiting researcher at Genentech (California, USA). He is now a team leader and exceptional class research director (DRCE) with Inserm at the University of Rennes (France). Since September 2019, he has been Director of the 350-strong Irset (Institut de recherche en santé, environnement et travail) – U.1085 Inserm/Univ Rennes/EHESP. He studies inflammation, cell death and fibrosis in liver pathologies. He has published over 110 articles in leading journals (Nature, Cell, J Exp Med, Hepatology, J Hepatol., etc.), with over 11,000 citations and an H-index of 47. Since January 2022, he has also been Director of France Exposome, a national research infrastructure created by the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. He is involved in a number of national and international research governance bodies.

Rainer Sauerborn MD, Dr. med. (Heidelberg) M.Sc. in Maternal & Child Health (London University), MPH & Dr. P.H. (both at Harvard University)

After two years of training in general medicine in Germany and Scotland, RS headed the Nouna health district in Burkina Faso from 1979 to 1982. Subsequently he trained as a paediatrician at Heidelberg University and the University of London.  He decided to become a public health researcher and studied the field at the Harvard School of Public Health. After a 6-year stint as Coordinator of the Health Office at the Harvard Institute for International Development (1990-6), he became the director of the Institute of Global Health, formerly Inst. of Tropical Hygiene and Public Health. Until 2004, his research focus was on improving the quality of and access to health care in low-income countries.

For the past 15 years, he has worked on the nexus of climate change and health particularly focusing on populations in the global South. Translating science to policy, he served on the Scientific Advisory Board on Global Environmental Changes for the German Federal Government (2000-2004) and was a lead author of the health chapter of the 5^th IPCC report (2009-2014). He (co)developed 6 MOOCs for different audiences on the topic. He was a guest professor at Umeå University (2009-2014), Sweden, at Paris Descartes (2015-2016), Paris and Harvard Scholl of Public Health (2017).

Since his successor, Humboldt professor Till Bärnighausen took over the leadership of the institute in 2017, he led a new large North-South research consortium on “Climate Change and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa” funded by the German DFG and the Swiss National Fund. He is now “Senior Professor for Climate Change and Global Health” at the Institute of Global health of Heidelberg University.

Dr Mary Schubauer-Berigan is Head of the Evidence Synthesis and Classification Branch and of the Monographs programme of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Her scientific staff leads evaluations of the epidemiological and experimental evidence base to identify the preventable causes of human cancer. She has been Responsible Officer for monographs on night shift work, opium consumption, and occupational exposure as a firefighter. Previously, Mary led multidisciplinary teams conducting epidemiology studies of the health effects (mainly cancer) of occupational exposures to beryllium, carbon nanotubes, nuclear work, radon, cosmic radiation, and circadian disruption at NIOSH in the USA. Mary has co-authored over 150 publications on the above topics. Her research on lung cancer from beryllium exposure in workers was used by OSHA in 2017 to support a more protective exposure limit for workers. Mary received a PhD in epidemiology from the Medical University of South Carolina and a MS in biology from the University of Minnesota.

Prof Fiona Walsh is a professor of microbiology at Maynooth University and heads the Antimicrobial Resistance One Health Research Centre. She graduated from Edinburgh University with a PhD in medical microbiology and returned to work in the department of clinical microbiology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland as a Health Research Board research fellow investigating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in hospital pathogens. She then moved to work for the federal department of agriculture in Switzerland to investigate the environmental impact of antibiotics used in plant agriculture and selection of AMR of human relevance. In 2014, she established her research group in Maynooth University to investigate AMR from a one health perspective across environmental, animal and human health. Her research group is particularly interested in the transmission of plasmid mediated AMR across different systems and how the microbiome can enhance or mitigate these events. Prof Walsh’s group have published 70 peer reviewed publications and she has been recognised as a leading expert in her field by being listed in the World’s Top 2% Scientist Rankings. In 2023, she founded and is the director of the Antimicrobial Resistance Research Centre at Maynooth University.

Dr. Desiree LaBeaud is a physician-scientist, epidemiologist, and professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. She received her MD from the Medical College of Wisconsin and trained at the Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital during her pediatric residency and pediatric infectious disease fellowship program. She earned her master’s degree in Clinical Research and Epidemiology at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. LaBeaud studies the epidemiology and ecology of domestic and international arboviruses and emerging infections, with an interest in the vector, host, and environmental factors that affect transmission dynamics and spectrum of disease. Her research is community-engaged and seeks to define and then disrupt the underlying structural determinants of health.

She studies the human health impacts of climate change including research focused on innovative solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis. Her current field sites include Kenya, Grenada, Brazil, and Pakistan. She currently heads a clinical research lab focused on better understanding the risk factors and long-term health consequences of arboviral infections and the most effective means of prevention. She has also recently launched a nonprofit, the Health and Environmental Research Institute- Kenya (www.heri-kenya.org) which is an initiative focused on Kenya to inspire community education, new research, policy change and grass roots activism in environmental health issues.