Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Director General, World Health Organization (WHO)

Message to Delegates

Professor Denise Eldemire-Shearer

Director, Mona Ageing and Wellness Centre, University of the West Indies

The leading authority on ageing and an unwavering advocate for the elderly, Professor Denise Eldemire-Shearer has worked with the UWI for more than twenty (20) years. In addition to being a medical doctor, she is Professor of Public Health and Ageing. She is also Director Mona Ageing and Wellness Centre in Jamaica.

Professor Eldemire-Shearer has focused on ageing as her main area of research in which she has done extensive work. Currently she is examining the responses needed in the primary health care system to deal with an ageing population and is therefore very sensitive to the ethics involved in such research.

Professor Eldemire-Shearer has also done work in the epidemiology of ageing in Jamaica, intergenerational transfers and economic contributions, and has also had responsibility for developing postgraduate training in public health, of which research has been an important part and has supervised many students at both the Masters and PhD. Levels.

Feature Lecture: Ageing in the Caribbean yesterday, today and tomorrow

Dr. Hugh Montgomery

Director of UCL Institute for Human Health and Performance, Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at University of London (UCL)

Dr Hugh Montgomery is Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at University College London (UCL), where he also directs the Centre for Human Health and Performance. He also works in the field of Artificial Intelligence as applied to Health, working one day a week for DeepMind Health, part of Alphabet/Google.

Hugh is also a geneticist. He discovered the first ‘gene for human fitness’ – one which also changes the chance of surviving critical illness by five-fold. His research looks into why one person may live and one may die when they look almost identical and suffer the same disease. Montgomery is interested in whether survivors are born, or made.

He chaired the last two Lancet Commissions on Human Health and Climate Change, and has written and lectured extensively on the subject. He was appointed to the post of Leader by London’s Sustainable Development Commission, attended many of the international ‘COP’ negotiations, and led the children’s climate education Project Genie. Hugh has patented a treatment for cancer wasting and prevention of injury in stroke; a new technology for patient hydration; a novel mask for the removal of pollutants; and a new asthma inhaler.

Feature Lecture: Matters of Survival: The Human Impacts of Climate Change

Dr. Joy St John

Executive Director, Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA)

Dr Joy St. John is dedicated and reliable, with a track record of achievements in public health systems management and development and health diplomacy. Her firm but fair style has assured her a place in networks of practise across the world.

Executive Director of CARPHA from July 2019. The Executive Director provides leadership and Direction to CARPHA in executing the functions laid out in the Inter- Governmental Agreement.

Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization from October 2017 to April 2019, with direct responsibility at the World Health Organization for Climate and other Determinants of Health (CED) (first Barbadian to be Assistant Director General.

Former Chief Medical Officer of Barbados (first Barbadian to hold that office) for over 12 years-Top Public Health Advisor to the Minister of Health and responsible for the oversight of the management of the Health Sector.

Feature Lecture: The Region’s Response to COVID-19

Dr. Campbell- Lendrum

Head, Climate Change and Health Unit World Health Organization (WHO)

Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum is the Head of the climate change and health unit at World Health Organization (WHO) Headquarters. His training is on the ecology of infectious disease and public health, and he has worked on climate change and health for 20 years. During that time, Diarmid has played key roles in the development of the first quantitative estimates of the overall health impacts of climate change, resolutions of the World Health Assembly, the first three WHO global conferences on health and climate, and the expansion of WHO’s climate change and health programme, which has now provided direct support to over 30 low- and middle-income countries.

Diarmid is author of over 100 journal papers, reports, and book chapters on the ecology and control of infectious disease, and on the health implications of global environmental change.  He is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Extreme Events, of the health chapters of the 5th and 6th IPCC Assessment reports, and of the first health report to the UN Climate Negotiations.

Feature Lecture: Protecting health from climate change in the Caribbean. Do we already know enough?

Professor Asha Badaloo

Professor, Nutritional Metabolism, Tropical Metabolism Research Unit, Caribbean Institute for Health Research, University of the West Indies, Jamaica

Professor Asha Badaloo has worked at the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit, Caribbean Institute for Health Research University of the West Indies, Jamaica for over 30 years achieving Professorship in Human Metabolism. Her area of work focusses on research involving the use of stable isotope tracer technique to explore metabolism of proteins and amino acids, and glutathione mainly in childhood malnutrition but in other physiological and pathological states.

The overall objective of her research is to explore mechanisms to inform intervention. In addition to roles of diet and physical activity, Professor Badaloo more recently extended her area of research to include the use of isotopic methodology for accurate measurement of adiposity, energy expenditure and breast-milk intake in studies investigating risk factors for childhood obesity and risk for sarcopenia in the elderly.

Feature Lecture: Probing in vivo Metabolism using Stable Isotope Tracer Technique.