Confronting Urgent Threats to Human Health & Society: COVID-19 and Climate Change

Keynote Address: Crises, Fast & Slow

Bill Gates

Bill Gates is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Along with co-chair Melinda Gates, he shapes and approves grantmaking strategies, advocates for the foundation’s issues, and helps set the overall direction of the organization.

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The state of the COVID-19 pandemic: Virus emergence, the impact of the pandemic, & US and global preparedness and response

Session keynote: Anthony S. Fauci, MD

Dr. Fauci was appointed director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984, and oversees an extensive portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis and malaria as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika.

Moderator: Sanjay Gupta, MD, FACS

Dr. Gupta is an associate professor of neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine and associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital. In his role at CNN — where he has won multiple Emmy Awards as chief medical correspondent — Dr. Gupta covers important health stories in the United States and around the world.

Panelists:

Chikwe Ihekweazu, FFPH

Dr. Ihekweazu, now Director General at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist and has over 20 years’ experience working in senior public health and leadership positions in several national public health institutes.

Nicole Lurie, MD, MSPH

Dr. Lurie, now Strategic Advisor to the CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, is a physician, professor of medicine, and public health official. During the administration of President Barack Obama, she was Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Susan R. Weiss, PhD

Dr. Weiss is a microbiologist and a Professor of Microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research considers the biology of coronaviruses, including SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2.

Climate change and human health: Navigating environmental, societal, and individual impacts

Session keynote: Sir Andrew Haines, MBBS, MD, FRCGP, FFPHM, FRCP, FMedSci

Sir Andrew Haines is a Professor of Environmental Change and Public Health with a joint appointment in the Department of Public Health, Environments and Society and in the Department of Population Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Moderator: Richard J. Jackson, MD, MPH

Dr. Jackson is Professor emeritus at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. For nine years he was Director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health.

Panelists:

Georges C. Benjamin, MD

Dr. Benjamin is a public health official who has served as Executive Director of the American Public Health Association since 2002, and previously as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Jane Lubchenco, PhD

The Honorable Dr. Jane Lubchenco is a Distinguished University Professor and Marine Studies Advisor to the President at Oregon State University. She is a marine ecologist and environmental scientist by training, with expertise in oceans, climate change, and interactions between the environment and human well-being.

Jacqueline Patterson, MSW, MPH

Jacqueline Patterson, now Senior Director of the Environmental and Climate Justice Program at the NAACP, has worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator, advocate and activist working on women‘s rights, violence against women, HIV&AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice.

President’s Forum:

Responding to global crises: Future directions in science and policymaking to address complex threats to society

Welcoming Remarks: Victor Dzau, MD

Session keynote: Ursula von der Leyen

Ursula von der Leyen is the President of the European Commission, where she has led the way in introducing a European Green Deal and led efforts to fight the COVID-19 crisis, launching Europe’s recovery and shaping the global response to the pandemic.

Moderator:

Judith Rodin, PhD

Dr. Rodin was the first female leader of an Ivy League Institution. A research psychologist by training, she was one of the pioneers of the behavioral medicine and health psychology movements.

Panelists:

Sir Jeremy J. Farrar, MBBS, DPhil

Jeremy Farrar is Director of the Wellcome Trust – a politically and financially independent global charitable foundation that exists to improve health by helping big ideas to thrive.

Niall Ferguson, MA, DPhil

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard.

Adrienne L. Hollis, PhD, JD

Adrienne Hollis is the Senior Climate Justice and Health Scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists. In that role, she leads the development, design, and implementation of methods for accessing and documenting the health impacts of climate change on communities of color and other traditionally disenfranchised groups.

Jim Yong Kim, MD, PhD

Jim Yong Kim is Vice Chairman and Partner at Global Infrastructure Partners, a fund that invests in infrastructure projects across several sectors around the world. From July 2012 to February 2019, Kim served as the 12th President of the World Bank Group.

Congresswoman Donna E. Shalala, PhD

Congresswoman Shalala is the longest-serving Secretary of Health and Human Services in U.S. history, and now serves Florida’s 27th District as an advocate for women’s rights, civil rights, increased access to healthcare, better education and public schools, and a clean and sustainable environment.