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.

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. 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.

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.

Lin H. Chen MD, FACP, FASTMH, FISTM, is Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Travel Medicine Consultant in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  She directed the Travel Medicine Center at Mount Auburn Hospital, for over 2 decades. She is a Past President of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM), a former member of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and co-chair the Beth Israel Lahey Health Vaccine P&T.  She is a section editor of the CDC Health Information for International Travel, Up-To-Date, DynaMed, and co-editor of Routledge Handbook of Infectious Diseases: A Geographical Guide.

 She has been actively engaged in several professional societies, including the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) and Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), along with ISTM.  At ASTMH, she served on the Education Task Force and on the CTropMed Examination Committee, and also was a Councilor in the American Committee on Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers’ Health (Clinical Group).  She has been an invited speaker to several IDWeeks and has participated in advocacy for the organization.  At ISTM, she has served on the Executive Board and committees on education/courses, research, and scientific programs. Prior to her 2024 ACIP appointment, she chaired the ISTM Development and Planning Committee. 

 Dr. Chen served as a site director for the GeoSentinel Surveillance and Research Network as well as the Global Travel Epidemiology Network.  Her clinical research has focused on vector-borne diseases, vaccines, and emerging infections.

Steven 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.

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.

Dr. Christopher Sanford is a family medicine physician who specializes in travel and tropical medicine. He has practiced and taught at the University of Washington since 2000; he joined UW’s Family Medicine Residency in 2009.

He is lead editor The Travel and Tropical Medicine Manual, 5^th Edition (Elsevier, 2016) with co-editors Drs. Elaine Jong and Paul Pottinger.  His layman’s guide to travel health, Staying Healthy Abroad: A Global Traveler’s Guide, was published by University of Washington Press in 2018.  He writes the chapters on travel medicine for The Merck Manual (both Professional and Home Editions); he has also published over a dozen chapters for texts and several articles on topics within tropical medicine, infectious disease, disaster medicine, and travel medicine.

He is co-host of the weekly podcast, The Germ and Worm Travel Health Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and elsewhere. 

He is Chair of a biennial University of Washington CME course, Update, Travel Medicine & Global Health. During this two-and-a-half day conference, experts speak on a variety of topics within travel and tropical medicine, and global health, including public health in low-resource settings.

He is the founding director of the University of Washington Dept. of Family Medicine Global Health Fellowship, which accepted its first fellow in 2012.

His overseas work has included work at clinics and hospitals in the Peruvian Amazon and Ethiopia. His research interests include threats to health in cities in low-income nations, disaster medicine, public health, and medical education in low- resource settings.

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 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.

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.

Edward T. Ryan, MD is a Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Professor of Medicine-Harvard Medical School, and Director of Global Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Ryan’s scholarly efforts include over 260 peer-reviewed publications, and 100 editorials, chapters and reviews.

He also serves in a number of editorial capacities, and has served on expert and advisory committees and working groups for the World Health Organization (WHO), the Institute of Medicine-National Academy of Sciences-Engineering-Medicine, the U.S. CDC, the U.S. NIH, the Wellcome Trust, and PATH (formerly the Program for Appropriate Technologies in Health). Dr. Ryan is a previous President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH), and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the ASTMH, and the American Academy of Microbiology, and is an elected member of the Association of American Physicians (AAP).

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.

Alfonso Rodriguez-Morales MD, MSc, DTM&H, DipEd, FRSTM&H(Lon), FFTM RCPS(Glasg), FACE, FISAC, HonDSc is a  Senior Researcher and Faculty, Faculty of Medicine, Fundación Universitaria Autónoma de las Américas, Pereira, Colombia. Researcher and Faculty, Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Peru. Non-Resident Faculty Researcher, Gilbert and Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine, Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon. Dr. Rodriguez-Morales is an expert in tropical and emerging diseases, particularly in zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, including COVID-19 and mpox, and their occurrence among travelers and migrants. President, Latin American Society for Travel Medicine (SLAMVI) (2023-2025). Past-President, Colombian Association of Infectious Diseases (ACIN) (2021-2023). Member, Committee on Tropical Medicine, Zoonoses, and Travel Medicine, ACIN. Member of the Council, International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) (2020-2026). Editor-in-Chief, Travel Medicine and Infectious Diseases. He is member of the Technical Working Group of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the Global Research Agenda on Health and Migration and the 3rd Global Consultation on the Health of Migrants and Refugees (co-organized by WHO, UNHCR and IOM) (2023). H index 59 (Scopus).

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.

Dr. Legua was born in Peru and did medical school at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH).  Subsequently he did his residency training in Infectious and Tropical Diseases at Hospital Cayetano Heredia (HCH) for UPCH.  Upon finishing his residency, he underwent a Master of Sciences in Clinical Tropical Medicine training program in the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, University of London, UK.  He has worked as Principal Professor of Medicine within UPCH and as attending physician in the Departamento de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Tropicales y Dermatológicas of Hospital Nacional Cayetano Heredia where he combined academic activities with clinical service.  Dr Legua has been part of the faculty for the Gorgas Courses in Clinical Tropical Medicine, a collaborative initiative between the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA and UPCH, since the beginning in 1996, where he is member of the core faculty and coordinator for lectures. Now he is also Adjunct Professor within the William C. Gorgas Center for Geographic Medicine, University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham, USA.  Dr Legua has been invited as professor for the Twelfth International Short Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine 2018,  Department of Infectious Diseases,  Christian Medical College,  Vellore, India, and also for the Advanced Module: “Clinical Management of Tropical Diseases”, Postgraduate Teaching Program “International Health” of the Institute of Tropical Medicine and International Health, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany since 2019.  Dr. Legua is a member of the Peruvian Academy of Medicine and of several Latin-American Scientific Societies and is co-author of 47 publications.

Dr. Muhi (he/him) is a General (Internal) Medicine physician, Infectious Diseases specialist and Head of Travel Medicine and Immigrant Health at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service (Royal Melbourne Hospital). He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, where he leads clinical research on the treatment and prevention of the neglected tropical disease, Buruli ulcer. He is also an educator at the University of Melbourne, where he holds several academic teaching appointments, including Academic Lead of the Research Scholar program at the RMH Clinical School. He also leads a private practice in Travel Health & Tropical Medicine.

Dr Muhi is the Melbourne Site Director of the GeoSentinel network; a worldwide communication and data collection network for the surveillance of travel-related disease. He has been recognised as a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine, including Fellowship of the Faculty of Travel Medicine. He also advises on various committees at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine and the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases. Dr Muhi will Chair the Scientific Program Committee for the 2026 ‘Southern Cross’ Australasian Travel and Tropical Medicine Conference in Brisbane, Australia.

Dr. Wasin Matsee is an accomplished Assistant Professor at the Travel Medicine Research Unit, Department of Clinical Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand. His medical journey began with a Doctor of Medicine degree from Chiang Mai University, followed by specialized training, earning a Master of Clinical Tropical Medicine and a Diploma of the Thai Board of Travel Medicine from Mahidol University.

 Dr. Matsee is deeply involved in travel medicine, serving both as a study physician and attending physician at the Thai Travel Clinic at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases. His extensive research focuses on travel-related diseases, vaccine studies, and clinical tropical medicine. Dr. Matsee's expertise is further recognized through his active involvement in various professional societies such as the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the International Society of Travel Medicine, GeoSentinel Surveillance Network, and the Thai Society of Travel Medicine.

He has also contributed significantly to educational efforts, providing training and guidance to residents, infectious-disease fellows, and international visiting elective doctors. Dr. Matsee's contributions extend to the global health community, where he has been a member of the Guideline Development Group for the World Health Organization's International Travel and Health updates.

Dr. Matsee continues to expand his research and professional footprint with ongoing projects, including studies on health problems among travelers. His work and insights into the impacts of environmental factors like heat and air pollution on health make him a key speaker on these subjects, particularly in relation to international travelers.

Obtained medical degree from the University of Pretoria in 1983 followed by Diplomas in Primary Emergency Care and Anesthesiology from the South African College of Medicine and a Diploma in Travel Medicine from the University of Glasgow and Certificate in Travel Health from the International Society of Travel Medicine. Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow, Scotland and the Faculty of Travel Medicine of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine, Australia.

 Senior Honorary Lecturer in the School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand and instrumental in the development of WITS’s Travel Medicine Course developed in conjunction with James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.

 Member of the WHO Expert Roster on Travel Health, Geneva, Switzerland, Site Director GeoSentinel, Johannesburg, South Africa, Founding member of Travel Doctor Corporate, Director of the Travel Doctor in South Africa, Medical Director of International Health Management Consultants, Geneva, Switzerland

 Currently involved in providing comprehensive travel health risk management to several multi- national companies, taking care of approximately 5 500 corporate travelers and national employees globally.

 Editorial Board Appointments (Past and present):

Associate Editor - The Southern African Journal of Epidemiology & Infection

Elected Member of Editorial Board of Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, Elsevier

Review Committee Member - International Travel and Health (ITH), WHO

Editorial Board Member - Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease

 South African Society of Travel Medicine: Founding & Executive Committee Member

International Society of Travel Medicine: Travel for Work Council Member

Lived and worked in South Africa, Malawi and the UK and travels extensively to service the needs of corporate clients and as invited speaker at national and international conferences.

 Conducted Health Risk and Infrastructure audits in all of Sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of The Gambia, Togo, Benin, Niger, Somalia and Lesotho, in Afghanistan and parts of the Middle East and South-East Asia over a period spanning 25 years.

 Considers every malaria death in a non-immune traveler a personal failure.

Dr. McCarthy is the President of the International Society of Travel Medicine. She is past Chair of Canada’s Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel, as well as the Clinical Group of the American Society of Tropical Medicine. She is a course director of the Asian Clinical Tropical Medicine Course that takes place every 2 years in Thailand and Cambodia.

 Anne spent her early career in the Canadian Military, serving 20 years. During this time she deployed to Rwanda, Haiti and Cambodia, which provided real life clinical experience with many tropical diseases and drove home the need to prevent these illnesses in military members and travelers.

 She is Professor of Medicine at University of Ottawa and Infectious Disease Physician at the Ottawa Hospital, where she is an Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Clinician. She is also a Site Director for the GeoSentinel Surveillance Network and member of CanTravNet.

 Her research includes medical education, and clinical studies related to infectious disease, travel medicine, malaria, migrant health, and global health.

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.

Gerard Flaherty, Professor of Travel Medicine and International Health (formerly Professor of Medical Education), School of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health, University of Galway, Galway, Ireland

Adjunct Professor, Mahidol University, Thailand, and International Medical University, Malaysia

 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 Behaviour, FIFA Dip. Foot. Med., PG Cert Sc. Healthcare Simulation and Patient Safety, FISTM, AFAMEE, FRGS, FIPC, MRSTMH, Dip. CWT.

 Gerard Flaherty is the Immediate Past President of the International Society of Travel Medicine. His research interests include pre-travel risk assessment, travel health behaviour, travel health benefits, travellers with pre-existing chronic medical conditions, metabolic effects of travel, high altitude medicine, mental health issues and travel, older travellers, technology and artificial intelligence in travel medicine, and travel health education. He has over 20 years of clinical experience in travel medicine and has completed tropical medicine courses and expeditions in Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal, Russia, Cuba, Peru, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Ghana, Morocco, and South Africa. He has over 250 publications to date. He was the founder and Programme Director (2013-20) of the Masters in Preventive Cardiology programme at University of Galway/National Institute for Prevention and Cardiovascular Health. 

Camille Kotton is the clinical director of the Transplant and Immunocompromised Host Infectious Diseases Program in the Infectious Diseases Division at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

Dr. Kotton’s clinical interests include cytomegalovirus, vaccines, donor-derived infections, zoonoses, and tropical medicine in the transplant setting. She is a member of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and is involved in national decisions regarding COVID-19 and other vaccines. She has a long-term interest in travel medicine for immunocompromised patients.

Dr. Jeff Goad is a tenured Professor of Pharmacy Practice at Chapman University School of Pharmacy.  For 30 years, Dr. Goad has maintained an active practice in Travel Health clinics and immunization services. He coordinates and teaches travel medicine, immunization, epidemiology, and parasitology courses. He is a national faculty and advisory board member for the American Pharmacists Association Pharmacy-Based Immunization Training Program and developer of >span class="apple-converted-space"> APhA Travel Medicine Advanced Competency Training Course.  He has presented at over 350 pharmacy and medical conferences and published more than 90 articles and book chapters.  Dr. Goad is President of >span class="apple-converted-space"> >span class="apple-converted-space"> Chair and co-founder of >span class="apple-converted-space"> Pharmacist Professional Group.

David R. Shlim, M.D. first visited Nepal in 1979 to work as a volunteer doctor for the Himalayan Rescue Association, at an aid post at 14,000 feet.  After three stints near the base of Mt. Everest, he moved to Kathmandu in 1983 to begin what became a fifteen-year career as the Medical Director of the CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Center in Kathmandu, the world’s busiest destination travel medicine clinic.  The clinic pioneered diarrhea research in travelers to Asia.  Empiric self-treatment of TD was originated in Nepal to help trekkers in remote areas treat their own diarrheal illness.  During his time in Nepal, the CIWEC Clinic administered over 1000 courses of post-exposure rabies immunoprophylaxis to travelers and expatriates.

 Dr. Shlim is the author of more than fifty original research papers, more than two dozen chapters in textbooks, and is a past president of the International Society of Travel Medicine.  He was an editor of the CDC’s Yellow Book from 2007 to 2023.  He is the co-author of the rabies section in the Yellow Book. In 2023, he received the first Jay Keystone award for best educator in travel medicine.

 He is the co-author, with Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, of a book on how to train in compassion entitled Medicine and Compassion.  He is also the author of an award-winning memoir entitled A Gentle Rain of Compassion.  Since 1998, he has lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he practices travel medicine.

Dr Oula Itani is an Infectious Diseases physician at the Medical Center of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, where she started working after training in travel medicine and tropical diseases. Aside from her clinical work in the travel clinic for pre-travel counselling and post-travel management, she also participates in France’s largest rabies center, where roughly 1400 patients are seen yearly for post-exposure prophylaxis.  

Scott Norton, MD, MPH, MSc, is Adjunct Professor of Dermatology and of Preventive Medicine & Biometrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, MD. He has a background in tropical dermatology, zoonotic diseases, and population health. During his military career, Dr. Norton served as Chief of Dermatology at Walter Reed Medical Center. He later served as the Chief of Pediatric Dermatology at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC. He is a consultant in dermatology and tropical medicine for the Peace Corps and other public service organizations and is co-author for 3 chapters for the CDC Yellow Book: Health Information for International Travel

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.

Dr. Sapha Barkati is an Associate Professor and the training program director of Infectious diseases and Medical Microbiology at McGill University. She completed a master’s degree in virology at Université de Montréal and a postdoctoral fellowship in tropical medicine and parasitology at McGill University. Dr Barkati is the associate director-education of the J.D MacLean Centre for Tropical and Geographic Medicine at McGill University and the director of this site within the GeoSentinel network. Since2018, she has become an established international faculty of the Gorgas Diploma Course, Instituto De Medicina Tropical “Alexander Von Humboldt” at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru. She is the chair of the ISTM Migration and Refugee Interest Group Council. Her main interest is the epidemiology of tropical and parasitic diseases in vulnerable individuals, including Indigenous population, migrants and immunocompromised hosts.