Peter C. Doherty, Laureate Professor, Doherty Institute – University of Melbourne

A graduate of the University of Queensland School of Veterinary Science, Peter Doherty shared the 1996 Nobel Medicine Prize for his immunology research and was the 1997 Australian of the Year. Since then, he has gone in to bat for evidence-based reality, relating to areas as diverse as childhood vaccination, global hunger and anthropogenic climate change.  So far, he has published 6 “lay” books on science with the latest, “The Incidental Tourist”.

Kristie L. Ebi, Professor, Centre for Health and the Global Environment – University of Washington

Kristie L. Ebi, Ph.D., MPH has been conducting research and practice on the health risks of climate variability and change for nearly 25 years, focusing on understanding sources of vulnerability; estimating current and future health risks of climate change; designing adaptation policies and measures to reduce risks in multi-stressor environments; and estimating the health co-benefits of mitigation policies. She has supported multiple countries in Central America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific in assessing their vulnerabilities and implementing adaptation policies and programs. She has been an author on multiple national and international climate change assessments, including the fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment and the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. She has edited fours books on aspects of climate change and has more than 200 publications.

Michael Bonsall, Professor, Department of Zoology and Fellow of St Peters College – University of Oxford

Michael Bonsall is Professor of Mathematical Biology at the Department of Zoology and Fellow of St Peters College, University of Oxford. He is an Associate Head of Maths, Physical and Life Sciences Division. He completed his undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral training at Imperial College London. He has wide ranging research interests focussing on ecology, evolution, and epidemiology. He has interests in vector-borne disease control and the applications of optimal control. Mike has held national and international research grants and has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles in international journals including Nature, Science, PNAS, Translational Psychiatry, Royal Society Journal Interface, Journal of Theoretical Biology. 

Weizhong Yang, Professor, Executive Head, School of Population Medicine & Public Health

– Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Peking Union Medical College

Prof. Yang Weizhong, Executive Head, School of Population Medicine & Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Peking Union Medical College Vice President and Secretary General of Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, Former Deputy General Director of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 1982, he has been engaged in infectious disease surveillance, prevention and control, immunization planning management, and public health management in Sichuan Provincial Epidemic Prevention Station, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Chinese Preventive Medicine Association. In recent 10 years, as the first author or corresponding author, he has published more than 50 papers in international and journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Vaccine, Public Health, PLoS ONE, Emerging Infectious Disease, BMJ, PLoS Medicine, Health Affairs, BMC Infectious Diseases etc. He edited the Early Warning for Infectious Disease Outbreak: Theory and Practice published by Elsevier He was the editor-in-chief of the Lancet Infectious Diseases Volume (Chinese Version), and the deputy editor of the Vaccine. (Chinese Version).

Xiaoming YANG, Researcher, PhD supervisor – Chairman of the Board, China National Biotec Group Company Limited (CNBG)

Prof. Xiaoming YANG has been serving as the Chairman of the Board at CNBG since Mar. 2015. He oversees the corporate strategy, governs the high-level operations and integrates the internal and external resources to promote the organic growth and expansion of the company. Before his current position, he held several senior positions in Sinopharm, including the Chief Engineer of Sinopharm, the President of the CNBG, and the General Manager of WIBP. He serves as member of leadership team in several leading organization and programs, including Chief Scientist of Vaccine Project in the National 863 program, General Director of the National Combo Vaccine Engineering Technology Center, Vice-Chairman of Vaccine Committee of Chinese Pharmacopoeia Commission (ChPC), Executive Director of the Chinese society of immunology, Member of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council-Vaccine Research Committee, Chairman of Board of Biologicals at Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, Vice President of China Medicinal Biotechnology Association and a member of Vaccine committee.

Kerrie Mengersen, Distinguished Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences – Queensland University of Technology

Distinguished Professor Kerrie Mengersen holds a Chair in Statistics at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She is the Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers, and Director of the QUT Centre for Data Science. Professor Mengersen's research interests include Bayesian methods; modelling and computation at the interface of statistics, machine learning and AI; and engagement in challenging real-world problems in health, environment and industry.

Lidia Morawska, Distinguished Professor, School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences – Queensland University of Technology

Lidia Morawska is Distinguished Professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and the Director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at QUT, which is a Collaborating Centre of the World Health Organization on Research and Training in the field of Air Quality and Health. Lidia also holds positions of Adjunct Professor, Institute for Environmental and Climate Research (ECI), Jinan University, Guangzhou, China, of Vice-Chancellor Fellow, Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), University of Surrey, UK, and is a co-director of the Australia-China Centre for Air Quality Science and Management She conducts fundamental and applied research in the interdisciplinary field of air quality and its impact on human health and the environment, with a specific focus on science of airborne particulate matter. She is a physicist and received her doctorate at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland for research on radon and its progeny.  An author of over eight hundred journal papers, book chapters and refereed conference papers, Lidia has been involved at the executive level with a number of relevant national and international professional bodies, is a member of the Australian Academy of Science and a recipient of numerous scientific awards.

Prof. Sotiris Vardoulakis, Global Environmental Health and Leader, Environment, Climate and Health Research Group – The Australian National University

Sotiris Vardoulakis is Professor of Global Environmental Health and Leader of the Environment, Climate and Health Research Group at the Australian National University. Previously, he was Director of Research at the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh, Head of the Environmental Change Department at Public Health England, and held academic positions at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at the University of Birmingham (UK). His main research interests include climate change, air pollution and health, sustainable cities, exposure assessment, environmental epidemiology, health impact assessment, occupational hygiene, and public health communication and policy.

Professor Archie Clements, Pro Vice Chancellor, Faculty of Health Sciences - Curtin University, Australia

Professor Clements is the Pro Vice Chancellor, Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University. Prior to his position at Curtin, Professor Clements was the Director of the Research School of Population Health and Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. The Research School of Population Health comprised of five academic units, including the flagship National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH). He has worked previously at Imperial College London and University of Glasgow, and has a PhD from the University of London. His research background is in the epidemiology, control and elimination of infectious diseases, focussing mainly on the Asia-Pacific region during the last decade. He has particular expertise in spatial epidemiology, operational research and community-based intervention studies and has been an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow.