Professor of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine

 Dr. Elizabeth Barnett is Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine and Chief of the Section of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Boston Medical Center. Her clinical and research interests include travel medicine and parasitic infections, vaccines and vaccine safety, immigrant and refugee medicine, and general pediatric infectious diseases. She is an Associate Editor of the American Academy of Pediatrics Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases (Red Book), a Medical Editor of Health Information for International Travel (Yellow Book), and, with Patricia Walker, the editor of the textbook Immigrant Medicine. She is a GeoSentinel site director.

Dr. Yen-Giang Bui is the current Chair of the Professional Education Committee of ISTM.

She serves on various expert committees both in Travel Health and in Immunization at the provincial and federal level in Canada. She is the Vice-Chair of the Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel, Public Health Agency of Canada, where she contributes to various working groups, and leads the working groups on yellow fever and rabies.

Dr. Bui holds a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, a Certificate in Travel Health and a Certificate of Knowledge in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers' Health.

She has been a consulting physician at the Department of Public Health of the Montérégie, Québec, Canada since 2001 in Infectious Diseases, and in the past has provided primary care to asylum seekers in Montreal for many years.

Dr. Bui has been directly involved in capacity building and knowledge transfer to Travel Health practitioners in Québec for the last 20 years. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she provided support to public health practitioners, vaccinators and community organizations in her region through regular updates, and training in motivational interviewing techniques to decrease vaccine hesitancy.

Dr. Bui is a clinician at the Travel Health Clinic of the CISSS Montérégie-Centre and maintains a strong interest in post-resettlement challenges facing immigrants such as barriers to preventive care, high-risk travelers (VFRs), infectious diseases, mental health issues etc.

Lin H. Chen, MD, FACP, FASTMH, FISTM, is Past President of the International Society of Travel Medicine (2019-2021). She is Director of the Travel Medicine Center at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Chen is a graduate of Harvard University and Jefferson Medical College and trained at New England Deaconess Hospital (Internal Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) and Yale-New Haven Hospital (Infectious Diseases). She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians (ACP), the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), and International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM).

She has directed the ISTM Travel Medicine Review and Update Course, served on the Research Committee and the Executive Board as a Counsellor. She served on the ASTMH Certificate Examination Committee, Education Committee, Nomination Committee, and also on Work Groups of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Her editorial roles include the Journal of Travel Medicine, Current Infectious Disease Reports, Travel Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and Infectious Diseases: A Geographic Guide. She has authored chapters in CDC’s Health Information for International Travel (Yellow Book) for over a decade. She served on past scientific program committees of International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases and ISTM Conferences. She is a site director for the GeoSentinel Surveillance Network and Global Travel Epidemiology Network. Her clinical research focuses on travelers’ health, including vector-borne diseases, immunizations, emerging infections, and cross-border healthcare.

Dr. Aisha Khatib is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. She trained in family and emergency medicine from the University of Toronto and McGill University and completed an Infectious Diseases fellowship in Clinical Tropical Medicine at the University of Toronto. She holds certification in Travel Medicine from the University of Otago in New Zealand, and a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the Gorgas Course in Peru. She worked as a Travel and Rugby Doctor in New Zealand for five years before returning to Canada. She is currently the Clinical Director of Travel Medicine at Medcan and a member of CATMAT, the Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel, an external advisory body to the Public Health Agency of Canada. She is also Past-President of the Alberta Association of Travel Health Professionals, Co-Chair of the ASTMH Update Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers' Health, and Past Chair of the ISTM Responsible Travel Interest Group. Her recent research focused on the safety of air travel during the pandemic, as well as climate change and travel.

Davidson Hamer, MD is a Professor of Global Health and Medicine at the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine, the co-lead of the climate change and emerging infectious diseases research core at the BU Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases, and an attending physician in infectious diseases and Director of the Travel Clinic at Boston Medical Center. Dr. Hamer is a board-certified infectious disease specialist and medical epidemiologist with particular interests in maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition (MNCH&N) in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), emerging arboviral diseases, tropical medicine, travel medicine, infection control, and antimicrobial resistance.

Dr. Hamer has been involved in travel medicine for thirty years and from 2014 to 2021, Dr. Hamer served as the principal investigator and, since September 2021, as the Surveillance Lead, of GeoSentinel, a global surveillance network of 70 sites in 30 countries that uses returning travelers, immigrants, and refugees as sentinels of disease emergence and transmission patterns throughout the world. At Boston Medical Center, he is the PI for several studies of enhanced screening, diagnosis, and management of migrants with Chagas disease and he is part of two national US Chagas disease consortia.

Dr. Hamer is currently the Scientific Program Chair for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Section Editor for the Journal of Travel Medicine (sentinel surveillance in travelers) and the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (global health and Chagas disease). He also serves as the Secretary-Treasurer for the GeoSentinel Foundation. He has nearly 500 publications that cover a range of topics within the fields of global health (MNCH&N), travel medicine, COVID-19, and the epidemiology of disease in returning travelers.

Founding Director, Travelers' Health Clinic; Professor Emeritus of Infectious Diseases, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Founding Director, Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine, Lima, Peru;  Past-President American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Clinical Group. Co-Editor, Textbook of Travel Medicine Editions 1-3; Associate Editor, Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal; Section Editor, Journal of Travel Medicine. Associate Editor of the Sanford Guide, overseeing parasitic drugs and all vaccine content. From 1997-2022, Dr. Freedman served as Managing Senior Director, Shoreland Travax overseeing all medical content.

 He was Secretary-Treasurer of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) from 2005-13.  During the 2016 Zika epidemic he served as one of 12 members of the World Health Organization International Health Regulations (IHR) Emergency Committee on Zika.

 From 1995-2000 he served as Chair of the Expert Committee on Antiparasitic Drugs for the US Pharmacopeia. For 18 years until 2013 he was Director of the global GeoSentinel Surveillance Network which he co-founded and which currently maintains the largest database of ill travelers available.  

Dr. Dipti Patel is a consultant in occupational medicine and travel medicine. She is Director of the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC), and the Chief Medical Officer at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). She is also an Honorary Lecturer in Population Health, Health Services Research and Primary Care within the School of Health Sciences at Manchester University.

 She is a member of the UK Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention, the Travel Subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, and the WHO International Travel and Health Guideline Development Group.

Dr. Talbot is an infectious diseases and tropical medicine-trained internist, who has had extensive experience in international and domestic infectious disease control through outbreak investigation, clinical projects, research, and consultation. She trained at Duke University and with the Epidemic Intelligence Service during which she was stationed in Botswana with the CDC then at the World Health Organization in Geneva before coming to Dartmouth where she is a Professor of Medicine in the Section of Infectious Diseases and International Health at the Geisel Medical School at Dartmouth. Since 2003, Dr. Talbot has been New Hampshire’s Deputy State Epidemiologist, where she is engaged in leadership for COVID-19 pandemic response, including policy/guideline development, clinician education, outbreak response, and vaccine and treatment allocation. Since January 2020 she has been a consultant to Gates MRI toward identification of TB treatment monitoring biomarkers.

Gerard Flaherty, Professor of Travel Medicine and International Health, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Galway, Galway, Ireland

 MD, PhD, BSc (Hons.), MB, BCh, BAO, FRCPI, MRCPI, Cert. Travel Med. (RCSI), Dip. SEM (GB & I), FFSEM (RCPI & RCSI), FAcadMEd, DTM RCPS (Glas), FFTM RCPS (Glas), FACTM, FFTM (ACTM), MFSEM (UK), MMedSc, Dip. HSc. (Clinical Teaching), MSc Int Trav Health (Sheffield), MECOSEP, MMEd (Dundee), Diop. sa Ghaeilge, Cert. Traffic Med, Cert. Ornith., Cert. Bird Behavior, FIFA Dip. Foot. Med., PG Cert Sc. Healthcare Simulation and Patient Safety, FISTM, AFAMEE, FRGS, FIPC, MRSTMH.

 Prof. Gerard Flaherty graduated from the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 2000 with a first-class honors degree and gold medals in each of the 8 final year subjects. As an undergraduate, Gerard gained an intercalated BSc degree in Anatomy and received numerous international academic distinctions, including the Duke Elder Prizer in Ophthalmology from the Royal College of Ophthalmology (UK), and the Annual Undergraduate Prize of the Faculty of Radiology (UK). He gained Membership of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 2002 and Fellowship in 2011. He holds a Diploma in Travel Medicine from the RCPSG (Glasgow). He has completed 3 Master degrees, including a Masters in International and Travel Health (Sheffield) and Masters in Medical Education (Dundee). His two higher doctoral theses (MD, PhD) were based on his original research in travel medicine. He was elected to the role of President-elect of the International Society of Travel Medicine in May 2021 and President in May 2023. He previously served as ISTM Counselor (2015-19).

 He is a Fellow, examiner, former board member and education convener of the Faculty of Travel Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He was also the recipient of the Cameron Lockie Prize for Travel Medicine in the UK and the Donald MacLeod medal in Sports Medicine, which was presented to him by HRH The Princess Royal. He is Past President, Research Officer and current NECTM Lead of the Travel Medicine Society of Ireland. He was Chair of the Northern European Conference on Travel Medicine (NECTM) 2012 scientific committee, which the Travel Medicine Society of Ireland hosted in Dublin, and Vice-Chair of the NECTM 2014 scientific committee in Norway. He also served on the international scientific committee for the 2015 NECTM, 2016 RCISTM, 2018 NECTM, and 2022 NECTM conferences in London, South Africa, Stockholm, and Rotterdam, respectively. He was Co-Chair for the 2021 CISTM17 virtual conference, held virtually in May 2021.

 He was elected to the Executive Board of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) in 2015 and has held several leadership positions, including membership of the Examinations Committee, the Older Traveler Interest Group Council, and Chair of the Publications Oversight Committee (2019-21) and Nominating Committee (2021-23). He is the current NECTM representative on the ISTM Liaison Committee. He also chairs the CISTM19 Oversight Committee.

 He is also a member of the Asia Pacific Travel Health Society, and he has presented at the joint ACTM/APTHS webinar in August 2022. He holds an Adjunct Professorship in Travel Medicine and International Health with the International Medical University in Malaysia since 2014 and an Adjunct Professorship in Travel Medicine at Mahidol University, Thailand. Gerard’s research interests in travel medicine include risk assessment in the pre-travel consultation, travel health behavior, travelers with pre- existing medical conditions, high altitude medicine, mental health issues and travel, older travelers, technology and artificial intelligence in travel medicine, and education in travel health. He has 20 years of clinical experience in travel medicine. He has completed tropical medicine courses and expeditions in Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal, Russia, Cuba, Peru, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Ghana, Morocco, and South Africa.

 Gerard’s previous academic position as Professor of Medical Education and Immediate Past Undergraduate Medical Program Director at NUI Galway and Head of International Students for the School of Medicine gave him responsibility for design, delivery, and assessment of the undergraduate medical curriculum, including the special study module program. He is also a Past Chair of the Curriculum Review Committee and has sat on numerous committees at school and university levels, including the university examination appeals committee. He serves as Academic Integrity Advisor for the School of Medicine, College representative on the University Discipline Committee and on the University, Society Coordinating Group. He received a President’s Award from NUI Galway for Teaching Excellence in 2008. He has been awarded a Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Educators (UK). He served on the executive committee of AMEE between 2017 and 2020. He has been awarded Associate Fellowship of AMEE. He was appointed to the role of Professor of Travel Medicine and International Health in 2021. He has over 250 publications and research presentations to date, including a textbook, and 8 textbook chapters. He has delivered invited lectures to various institutions and organizations in over 20 countries. He serves as Section Editor (non- communicable diseases) for the Journal of Travel Medicine. He is a regular reviewer for multiple travel medicine and medical education journals, including Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, Tropical Diseases, Travel Medicine and Vaccines, and Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease (TMID). He was a recent Guest Editor for a special travel medicine issue of the TMID journal.

 Gerard has worked with Croí, the West of Ireland Cardiac Foundation, for many years as a volunteer expedition physician on fundraising high-altitude treks to the Himalayas and Africa. He was instrumental in establishing the National Institute for Prevention and Cardiovascular Health, on whose Advisory Council he serves as Director of Academic Affairs and Fellowship. In addition to acting as Founder and Program Director (2013-2020) for the Masters in Preventive Cardiology program at NUI Galway, Gerard was responsible for the medical management and supervision of participants enrolled on the Croí MyAction preventive cardiology program. In his leisure time, Gerard travels, golfs, walks in forests, cares for bonsai trees, treks mountains, and bird-watches. He has been awarded Certificates in Ornithology and in Bird Behavior. He is fluent in English and Gaelic and speaks French and German with moderate proficiency.

Dr. Henry Wu is a Distinguished Physician and Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Emory University. Dr. Wu directs the Emory TravelWell Center, Emory’s center dedicated to the prevention, treatment and surveillance of infections related to travel and migration. He previously served at CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer and Medical Epidemiologist at the Meningitis and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Branch. Dr. Wu’s interests include emerging infectious diseases, tropical medicine and vaccine hesitancy.

Professor Leo Visser studied medicine at the University of Leuven in Belgium. He specialized in Infectious Diseases at the Leiden University Medical Center, where he obtained his PhD (1997). He was appointed as Professor in Infectious Diseases and Travel Medicine in 2014. For many years, Professor Visser is involved in clinical care, research, teaching and training in internal medicine and infectious diseases, with the emphasis on vaccinology, vaccine-preventable and tropical infectious diseases, travel medicine and global health. Professor Visser holds a position as Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases and LUMC travel clinic at the LUMC. The travel clinic is member of the Leiden Vaccine Group and is a centre of expertise for travel medicine and vaccination research in The Netherlands.

Professor Visser holds several positions at national and international committees and scientific organizations. Currently, Professor Visser is a member of the European Expert Committee for Travel Medicine. In the past he was, amongst others, member of the steering committee of the European Network on the Surveillance of Imported Infectious Diseases (www.tropnet.eu), chair of the National Coordination Centre for Travellers' Health Advice (LCR), and former President of the International Society of Travel Medicine. His current research activities involve the safety and immunogenicity of alternative vaccination routes and vaccine responses in the more vulnerable individual with chronic diseases, advanced age, or immunosuppressed in particular those following solid organ transplantation or receiving immunobiologicals.

Mary-Louise Scully MD is the Director of the Travel and Tropical Medicine Center of the Sansum Clinic in Santa Barbara, California. Her practice encompasses pre-travel preparation, post travel illnesses, as well as, general Infectious Diseases, including HIV. She holds a Certificate of Knowledge in Tropical Medicine from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). She served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Travel Medicine and also served 8 years as the Chair of the Professional Education Committee (PEC) of ISTM, and remains an active member of PEC. Her special interests include vaccines and vaccine preventable illnesses. 

Dr. Mackell completed her undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania. She went south to the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, for medical school, then west to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), for pediatric training.

Dr. Mackell has traveled extensively and has worked as a pediatrician in numerous Latin American and Asian countries. She studied tropical medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC, and at Cayetano Heredia Institute of Tropical Medicine in Lima, Peru, and earned a certificate in tropical medicine and clinical travelers’ health. She practiced pediatrics and travel medicine in northern California and then northern Arizona for over 25 years.

She is an active member and Fellow of the International Society of Travel Medicine, director of the virtual Travel Medicine Review and Update course, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the ASTM&H.

 Dr. Mackell has authored several text chapters and articles on various topics in pediatric travel medicine. In addition, she has lectured extensively on travel medicine and international adoption. In 2022, she started a new chapter, retiring from general pediatric practice, and is now teaching travel medicine and public health and traveling frequently with surgical groups internationally to provide cleft lip and palate care.

Dr. Aluisio Segurado received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of São Paulo, where he is currently Full Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Medicine. In the same institution he also acts as President of Hospital das Clinicas Central Institute Board and President of the International Relations Committee. Dr. Segurado has been involved in clinical studies related to infectious diseases and tropical medicine throughout his academic career and is currently conducting a cohort study to investigate the natural history and viral kinetics of ZIKV in Brazil as part of the ZikAlliance Research Consortium under the sponsorship of the European Commission. His research focuses on human retroviral infections (HIV/AIDS, HTLV) with particular interest on vulnerability to viral acquisition, disease progression and response to interventions.

Dr. Salim Parker is a general and travel medicine practitioner based in Cape Town, South Africa and is an honorary research associate at the University of Cape Town. He is an executive member of the South African Society of Travel Medicine and serves on the ISTM’s Liaison Committee. Additionally, Dr. Parker is the current ISTM executive board member. He has extensive Mass Gatherings experience, having accompanied pilgrims on the Hajj to Saudi Arabia for the past 20 years. He is the co-author, amongst others, of the CDC Yellow Book Hajj Travel chapter.

Dr. Prevatt is a pediatric Consultant with ID special interest at the Whittington Hospital in London, UK. She holds Diplomas in Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and the CTH from ISTM.

 Natalie undertook the first fellowship in Travel Medicine at the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases to address the needs of children travelling from the UK to the tropics. She was the pediatric module lead for LSHTM's East African diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene for several years running and now sits on the Royal College of Pediatrics ETAT+ committee, the UK international child health committee, and is the incoming chair of the ISTM pediatric special interest group.

 She has recently written the pediatric HIV and Downs Syndrome travel guidelines and coauthored a book chapter on travel vaccination in Europe, now in its second edition.

Dr. Kohl is a general pediatrician who recently retired from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She practiced pediatrics and travel medicine throughout her career. When not helping trainees understand the power of statistics in daily medical practice, she can be found sailing in the Caribbean and along the East Coast of the United States.

A/Prof Mike Starr. Prof Starr is a General Pediatrician, Infectious Diseases Physician and Consultant in   Emergency Medicine at The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne (RCH). He's head of the RCH Travel Clinic. He's one of the authors of the Manual of Travel Medicine. He's a Fellow of the ISTM and a past Chair of the ISTM Pediatrics Interest Group.

Kristina Angelo, DO, MPH&TM is an infectious diseases physician with expertise in travelers’ health and tropical medicine. She is a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, in the Travelers’ Health Branch. She also practices both travel medicine and infectious diseases at Emory University hospitals and clinics. She is the project officer for GeoSentinel, a global disease surveillance system that reports on travel-related illnesses. She has a particular interest and subject matter expertise in infectious disease epidemiology, the clinical practice of tropical medicine, pre-travel vaccination, mass gathering medicine, and outbreak response.

Steve Schofield has worked with the Canadian military for more than 20 years. His focus is communicable disease control and prevention. In this role, he advises on how to protect deploying troops including through use of vaccines and countermeasures to prevent insect bites. Steve has been allowed to play with people way smarter than him, including for some 20 years with the Canadian Committee to Advise in Tropical Medicine and Travel (CATMAT), and has spent shorter stints on working groups for the Canadian National Advisory Committee on Immunization and the Unites States Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

 In a past life, he obtained a PhD from Imperial College which involved chasing things like tsetse flies in Zimbabwean national parks. He still sometimes chases insects and their ilk, including on his rural property, where he practices what he preaches to avoid being bitten by the Borrelia-infected ticks that have moved in over the last few years. He lives in Dunrobin just outside of Ottawa, where he is on the lowest rung of the houseful pecking order, i.e. below the three family dogs, two teenaged boys and his partner, Monica.

Christina Greenaway is an infectious disease physician and clinician researcher at the Jewish General Hospital and at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology at the Lady Davis Research at McGill University.  She practices clinical infectious diseases at the Jewish General Hospital, which serves a diverse multicultural population and her primary clinical interests are tuberculosis and tropical diseases. Her research program focusses on identifying and addressing infectious disease health disparities among immigrants with a specific focus on tuberculosis, viral hepatitis and vaccine preventable diseases in this population.   She has developed screening and clinical guidelines for migrants in Canada and Europe.   She is a long standing member of ISTM and is a GeoSentinel Site Director at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal.  She was Co-Chair of the ISTM Task Force on Migration (2019-2022) and course co-director of an ESCMID run course entitled “Migration and Health: a world on the move” in Montisola, Italy, Sept 26-30, 2022 that was co-sponsored by ISTM.

My research focuses on measuring the burden and improving the care of parasitic diseases such as strongyloidiasis and tegumentary leishmaniasis in vulnerable populations, with a focus on migrants and immunocompromised individuals. I am currently conducting studies on Strongyloides knowledge and awareness among Canadian physicians to build educational tools that will improve Strongyloides screening in the high-risk population. I am also studying the prevalence of Strongyloides in the immunocompromised population in non-endemic countries and the best screening strategy in that population. In collaboration with Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru, I am studying the response to Strongyloides stercoralis treatment in the HTLV-1 population. I am also interested in the management of tegumentary leishmaniasis in travellers and migrants. One of the ultimate goals of my research is to increase knowledge and awareness of neglected tropical diseases such as strongyloidiasis and tegumentary leishmaniasis among physicians in non-endemic countries. Another is to determine the most cost-effective strategies for Strongyloides screening in the high-risk population and the best treatment in the immunocompromised population and HTLV-1 co-infected, to inform evidence-based preventive clinical care and management guidelines.

I have been working in the field of tropical medicine for more than 17 years. I have a Diploma Thai Board in Internal Medicine as well as Diploma Thai Board in Travel Medicine from Thai Medical Council and the Diploma of Travel Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, United Kingdom.

I am the co-founder of the only Residency Training Program in Travel Medicine one of its kind in the world. I am also a Site Director of GeoSentinel Surveillance Network based in Bangkok, Thailand. I have done many research works on tropical/travel medicine and has more than 50 published paper listed in PubMed. I actively participate in all academic activities of DTM&H, MCTM course as well as the Residency training course. I also take care of patients/travelers in the Travel Clinic and in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

Counsellor, ISTM Executive Board. Codirector GeoSentinel Madrid site (MAD)

Graduated from St Bartholomew´s and the Royal London School of Medicine in London in 1997, and obtained an intercalated degree (BMedSci) in Medical Science in 1996. Following house officer and senior house officer training in London and obtaining the MRCP (UK), completed specialist training in Internal Medicine and a Master´s degree in Tropical Medicine and International Health in Madrid, Spain. Since 2007 has worked as a clinician at the National Referral Unit for Tropical Diseases, Infectious Diseases Department, Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid, with special research interests focusing on emerging and neglected infections and travel and migrant health.

Shigeyuki Kano MD, PhD (Gunma Univ., Japan), Honorary PhD (Mahidol Univ., Thailand) is currently Director of the Department of Tropical Medicine and Malaria, Research Institute, National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM), Japan.

After he got his M.D. and Ph.D., he served as Associate Professor in the Department of Parasitology, Gunma University School of Medicine, until 1998, and then moved to the NCGM.

Prof. Kano’s research in travel medicine, tropical medicine and parasitology, has involved genetic, epidemiological and clinical studies particularly on malaria, and its control in the context of international health.

He is also playing important roles as Head of the Parasitology Laboratory, Institute Pasteur du Laos, Visiting Professor of Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Thailand, and College of Public Health, University of the Philippines Manila.

He is an Editorial Member of International Society of Travel Medicine and also Counselor of Asia Pacific Travel Health Society. From November 2022, he is serving Vice-President/President-elect of International Federation for Tropical Medicine until 2027.

Christina Coyle, M.D., M.S. is board certified in Infectious Disease and has been practicing for over twenty years. She is the director of the Infectious Disease Service at Jacobi Medical Center and oversees an active Tropical Medicine Clinic there in the Bronx, NY. She is a Professor of Medicine and Pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and has extensive experience with tropical medicine, travel medicine, parasitology, and immigrant health. She is widely recognized as an expert on larval tapeworms, neurocysticercosis, and echinococcus, serving on both national and international committees for these pathogens. She currently serves as an Editor for Clinical Infectious Disease (CID).

Thi Mui Nguyen is a highly accomplished individual with a diverse range of achievements in the field of healthcare. Holding an MBA, as well as being a pharmacist, she has been recognized for her contributions to the industry through various awards and honors. In 2015, Thi Mui was the recipient of the Canadian General Governor Award for Caring, and in 2009, she received the Hygie Award from the province of Quebec. As a distinguished speaker n health prevention and continued education, Thi Mui has shared her expertise with audiences at various institutions including Laval University and Montreal University. Additionally, she has served as the President of the Vietnamese Association in Montreal during different periods between 1980 and 2015. Furthermore, Thi Mui has also served as a preceptor at International equivalent pharmacist. Her dedication and commitment to healthcare have made a significant impact in her community and beyond. 

Dr. Shlim is the author of over fifty-five original research papers and has written over twenty chapters in textbooks on travel medicine. He is an editor of the CDC’s Health Information for International Travel, and a co-author of the chapter on rabies in that book. He is a past president of the International Society of Travel Medicine, and the current chairman of The Medicine and Compassion Projectâ.

He pioneered travel medicine research on travelers’ diarrhea, typhoid fever, hepatitis, altitude illness, trekking deaths, and rabies. He also helped discover the diarrhea causing protozoal pathogen Cyclospora.

 Dr. Shlim is the co-author, with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, of Medicine and Compassion, a book that offers advice from a Tibetan Buddhist lama on methods of training in compassion for health care professionals. His new memoir, A Gentle Rain of Compassion, was published in September 2022.

Scott grew up in Boulder, Colorado and attended medical school at the University of Colorado.

He went to public health school at Harvard University where an interest in Tropical Public Health was further developed, leading to a yearlong study as a Fulbright Scholar in Cali Colombia, where he studied improved diagnostic technologies to understand the epidemiology of leishmaniasis, and onchocerciasis (River Blindness), a leading infectious cause of blindness worldwide.

 He completed residency then a Fellowship at Stanford University in Medicine then Infectious Disease & Geographic Medicine.

 He taught at Stanford Medical School and directed a course in Human Biology entitled “Parasites & Pestilence” for over 20 years. He was presented the Bloomfield award in recognition of excellence in teaching of clinical medicine at Stanford School of Medicine.

 Since 1999, he has organized local then regional then Kaiser Nationally sponsored Travel Medicine Conferences to prepare travelers for safe international trips. He served as Chief of Infectious Disease & Geographic Medicine at Kaiser Redwood City before retiring in 2023 after the COVID pandemic. He concluded his tenure on a high note, serving as a subject matter expert and on the regional task force for COVID and Influenza vaccination.

 He has served locally on the San Mateo County Mosquito Abatement District Board as trustee and board member since 2012 for his town of Hillsborough. He currently serves on the Professional Education Committee as Co-Chair in the ISTM (International Society of Travel Medicine), organizing webinars and Update Courses. He continues working in the clinical sector for the International non-profit organization since the tsunami in 2004 with MENTOR-Initiative leading training workshops about Malaria and Vector-borne diseases as well as Emergency Responses, in Indonesia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Haiti, and Myanmar.

 He has appeared on The Doctors Show (CBS), Animal Planet, Discovery Channel and National Geographic (and even the Tyra Bank’s Show in New York!) about several unusual parasitic diseases in humans including leishmaniasis, tapeworm, leprosy and hookworm.