Dr Sarah McGuinness, MBBS MPHTM PhD, is an infectious diseases physician based in Melbourne, Australia with a special interest in travel medicine. She leads the Travel Medicine service at The Alfred Hospital and is a Senior Research Fellow at Monash University. Sarah is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Travel Medicine and chairs the Digital Communications Committee of the International Society of Travel Medicine. She’s also a member of the ISTM Travel Unravelled podcast team. Her research focuses on reducing preventable infections in travellers and other at-risk populations.

Associate Professor Luis Furuya Kanamori MBBS, MEpi, MPH, PhD, FACTM is a clinical epidemiologist and research synthesis methodologist.

 A/Prof Furuya Kanamori leads the Travel Medicine and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Theme, and the Clinician-Epidemiologist Hub at University of Queensland HERA program on Operational Research and Decision Support for Infectious Diseases. He is Director of Research of the Clinical Research & Evidence Synthesis at the Travel Medicine Alliance in Australia.

 A/Prof Furuya Kanamori’s applied research on travel medicine and vaccine preventable diseases has influenced key changes in clinical and public health guidelines (e.g., WHO, ATAGI, Australian Immunisation Handbook, UptoDate).

 In addition to his academic roles, A/Prof Furuya Kanamori is editorial board member for J Travel Med and Clin Infect Dis, and chairs the Research and Awards Committee of the International Society of Travel Medicine.

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.

Miguel M. Cabada MD MSc FASTMH is a physician scientist expert in tropical and travel medicine. He is an Associate Professor at the Division of Infectious Diseases of University of Texas Medical Branch. He went to medical school in Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) in Lima – Peru and then pursued training as a post-doc in tropical medicine research at the Alexander von Humboldt Tropical Medicine Institute in UPCH working in the jungle and highlands of Peru for 5 years. He completed his internal medicine residency in Jackson Memorial Hospital-University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and infectious diseases fellowship at University of Texas Medical Branch. He holds a master’s degree in clinical research from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences from University of Texas Medical Branch

Dr. Cabada splits his time between Galveston where he does clinical work on general infectious diseases and Cusco-Peru where he does community-based studies and translational research. Dr. Cabada is the founding Director of the UPCH-UTMB Collaborative Research Center in Cusco – Peru based at the Tropical Medicine Institute of UPCH. This facility is a training site in tropical medicine and global health research for medical students and fellows. Dr. Cabada is heavily involved in mentoring trainees at different levels of their careers. He heads a research program on epidemiological and translational aspects of neglected tropical diseases, travel medicine, and emerging viral infections. His focus is on helminths affecting the local population with an emphasis on the epidemiology, impact, novel diagnostics, treatment responses, and control of fascioliasis. He has led multidisciplinary research teams in the highlands and jungle of Peru and has a network of collaborators around the country to study neglected tropical diseases. Dr. Cabada is involved in the Latin American Society of Travel Medicine, International Society of Travel Medicine, and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene where he participates in scientific committees, training activities, and leadership positions. He has also served as a consultant for the Peruvian Government on Fasciola hepatica treatment and control.

Anu Kantele is Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland, and Senior Medical Officer at Helsinki University Hospital (HUH). She acts as head of Aava Travel Clinic in Helsinki, and founder and director of the Meilahti Vaccine Research Center, MeVac at HUH. Currently, she serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), holding the position of Professional Affairs Officer. She has received her MD and MD PhD as well as her specialist degrees in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases from the Helsinki University. Her research interests include antimicrobial resistance (AMR), travellers’ diarrhoea, returning travellers, and vaccinations. Kantele has authored over 200 scientific articles in international peer-reviewed medical journals, many of them in the field of travel medicine.  She heads a research group with 10 PhD students and three postdocs and acts as principal investigator in FIMAR, a Finnish Academy Center of Excellence for AMR research. 

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.

Bradley A. Connor, M.D. is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College and Attending Physician at the New York Presbyterian Hospital.  He is the founder and Medical Director of the New York Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine.

He is the author of over 200 peer reviewed medical publications and serves on the editorial boards or as a reviewer for over 25 medical journals. He co-chaired the 2016 Travelers’ Diarrhea Consensus Conference and authored the sections on Travelers’ Diarrhea and Persistent Diarrhea in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Health Information for International Travel “Yellow Book” and CDC website. He is co-editor of the textbook Travel Medicine, now in its 4th edition.

A founding member and Past President of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM), Dr Connor was one of the original seven sites of GeoSentinel, the global emerging infectious disease surveillance and research network of the CDC and ISTM and founded the GeoSentinel Foundation, a not-for-profit organization devoted to the support of GeoSentinel and global infectious disease research.

Dr. Connor has served as a consultant to the White House Medical Unit (WHMU) since 1999 and is an advisor in Travel Medicine for the U.S. Olympic Swim Team.

Dr. Connor is the Founder and President of The Connor Group, an international medical care coordination service that connects patients to leading physicians worldwide, arranging and expediting elite medical care. He has served as a physician to high-profile individuals, including a former U.S. President, touring bands such as Harry Styles, Phil Collins and Genesis, Bruce Springsteen, and for over 20 years has served as the Medical Director for the Rolling Stones.

 Dr. Connor received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He completed both his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center Hospitals in San Antonio completed a gastroenterology fellowship at the New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical College and Rockefeller University.

He is a Fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA-F), Fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America (FIDSA) and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow) FFTM, FRCPS.

Dr. Garry received his B.S in Life Sciences with a minor in Chemistry from Indiana State University in 1978. He then carried out doctoral studies in Microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Dr. Marilynn R.F. Waite and received his Ph.D. in 1978. His dissertation was entitled: "Intracellular sodium and potassium and the regulation of gene expression in virus-infected and virus-transformed chick cells." He carried out postdoctoral research in virology at UT Austin under the mentorship of Dr. Henry R. Bose, Jr. In 1983 Dr. Garry was appointed Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1985 he was Visiting Professor of Pathology at the University of Southern California working with Dr. Suraiya Rasheed. Dr. Garry spent 1991 as a Visiting Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Hamburg working with Dr. Gebhard Koch. Since 1993 he has been Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Tulane Medical School. Dr. Garry has published over 100 papers in the area of retrovirology. Research in the Garry Laboratory focuses on a number of aspects of retroviral pathogenesis. Investigations have found that HIV induces a number of defects in plasma membrane ion transport, which could account for the loss of CD4+ T-cells in AIDS patients. Another research interest is the molecular characterization of an isolate of HIV from a patient who died of AIDS in 1969. This is the earliest confirmed case of AIDS in the United States. In addition, the lab has discovered a retrovirus named human intracisternal A-type retroviral particle (HIAP), which appears to be involved in systemic autoimmune diseases and idiopathic CD4 T-lymphocytopenia. More recently, the lab obtained evidence for the existence of a human endogenous retrovirus named human mammary tumor virus (HMTV), which is a close homolog of a virus which causes breast cancer in mice.

Dr. Garry is currently managing a consortium of scientists who are developing countermeasures, including diagnostics, immunotherapeutics and vaccines, against Lassa virus, Ebola and Marburg viruses, and other high consequence pathogens. Our team has produced Lassa fever and Ebola point-of-care and confirmatory diagnostics based on recombinant proteins. A combination of human monoclonal antibodies has been shown to rescue 100% of monkeys even when treatment is initiated at an advanced stage of disease. Studies on a combination Lassa fever and Ebola vaccine for use in West Africa have been initiated. Productive collaborations have been exploited to deepen understanding of the natural history of viral hemorrhagic fevers while providing training for West African scientists and further developing research and clinical trial infrastructure in Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

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.

Senior research manager

Elizabeth is a senior research manager in global health in the policy and insights team at Economist Impact. Prior to this, she was the managing editor and global healthcare editorial lead at Economist Intelligence Unit’s Thought Leadership division. She is the lead on global health projects that help build effective action to develop a sustainable health economy, with patients at the centre. She has led major research projects on universal healthcare, climate change and its impact on lung health, health literacy, digital health, cancer care, self-care, sin taxes, health financing and patient-centred care.  She is also the lead on The Economist Group’s World Cancer Initiative which has led to the development of new thinking in cancer care and is a key moderator at the Economist Impact Events’ such as the World Cancer Series, Future of Healthcare and Sustainability Summit. She is a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, a fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health, and has two degrees: a bachelor of pharmacy degree from Monash University (Australia) and a Master of Science in International Health Policy from the London School of Economics (LSE). She has been a journalist and editor for more than 15 years, covering healthcare policy, R&D and science for medical journals and UK newspapers, including the British Medical Journal and the Guardian. Before joining The Economist Group, she was the deputy news editor at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, where she ran the news and analysis desk and was often called to comment about healthcare issues on BBC radio. She also managed an international team of journalists when she was the world editor of Informa’s Scrip Intelligence, a global publication on pharmaceutical and healthcare policy, where she won the Informa Journalist of Year award. Before moving into journalism, Elizabeth worked as a pharmacist in community, hospital and health authority settings, and she maintains her pharmacist registration.

Current Appointments: Professor of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology atthe University of Texas – Houston School of Public Health, the Mary W. KelseyChair in the Medical Sciences at the University of Texas McGovern MedicalSchool, Clinical Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, Adjunct Professor andSenior Distinguished Lecturer at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Professor, theGraduate School of Biomedical Sciences at University of Texas and MD AndersonCancer Hospital.

Dr. DuPont received a BA from Ohio Wesleyan University and an MD from EmoryUniversity School of Medicine and completed internal medicine training at theUniversity of Minnesota and infectious diseases fellowship at the University ofMaryland. He served as an EIS Officer at the Centers for Disease Control andPrevention (CDC). He received an honorary doctorate from the University ofZurich (Switzerland) and an honorary Doctor of Science from Ohio WesleyanUniversity.

Dr. DuPont served as President of the Infectious Diseases Society ofAmerica, the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, the American Clinicaland Climatological Association and was the first President of the InternationalSociety of Travel Medicine. He served on the Board of Governors for theAmerican College of Physicians (ACP) and served as ACP Governor for southTexas.

He served on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committeeof the FDA and the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Center forInfectious Diseases at the CDC. He is a member of the American Society forClinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and theAmerican Epidemiological Society.

Honors received include: Distinguished Achievement Citation from OhioWesleyan University; the Distinguished Medical Achievement Award from EmoryUniversity School of Medicine; the Maxwell Finland Award for ScientificAchievement from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases; Mastership inthe American College of Physicians; the Alexander Fleming Award for LifetimeAchievement in Infectious Diseases from the Infectious Diseases Society ofAmerica; the President’s Scholar Award for Research from the University ofTexas Health Science Center, and the University title “President’s Scholar”;the Founder’s Award from the International Society of Travel Medicine; and fromthe University of Texas System, he received the Regents’ Outstanding TeachingAward and was given the system title of “Distinguished Teaching Professor”. Hehas authored or co-authored 774 publications (413 original science articles and361 review articles or book chapters) and written or edited 19 books.

Dr. DuPont has supervised clinical or laboratory studies of travelers’diarrhea since 1975 working in Mexico, Guatemala, Thailand, Kenya, and Egypt.Since 2013, Dr. DuPont and his colleague Zhi-Dong Jiang, MD, DrPH haveestablished a CLIA-certified Microbiome Laboratory and a fecal microbiotatransplantation product that is given orally or by enema to reverse dysbiosisdisease states. Dr. Jiang and his laboratory studies of travelers with diarrheahave focused on pathogens, antimicrobial resistance and microbiome diversity.

Robert Steffen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Zurich was the Head of the Division of Communicable Diseases in the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute and Director of a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Traveller's Health. He also is Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.

In the 1970’s he started systematic research in morbidity and mortality of illnesses and accidents related to international travel. On the basis of such epidemiological evidence, he concluded on preventive strategies for individual travellers and on measures to be taken out of public health interest. Meanwhile he has (co-)authored over 400 publications, among them many relating to vaccination. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Travel Medicine, of the International Journal of Public Health and Section Editor for Clinical Infectious Diseases. In the 27 years of his tenure at the Zurich University Center for Travel Medicine he supervised over 1 million vaccinations as in that travel clinic there were almost 20,000 consultations per year. Since his retirement from Zurich University his research focus is on adult immunization; he is an advisor of the Adult Immunization Board (AIB).

Robert Steffen presided the Swiss Federal Commission for Influenza; he was Vice-President both of the Federal Commission on Vaccination and of the Swiss Bioterrorism Committee. The WHO often has invited him to advisory boards, such as during the revision of the International Health Regulations (IHR) and on other topics, such as malaria, vaccine preventable diseases, chemical and biological warfare, disinsection of conveyances, or epidemiological preparedness at airports. Repeatedly he served as Chair of the IHR Ebola Emergency Committee until 2020.

Professor G. Dennis Shanks MD, MPH

Prof Dennis Shanks has been the Director of the Australian Defence Force Malaria and Infectious Disease Institute (ADF MIDI) in Brisbane for the last 15 years and is an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland, School of Public Health as well as James Cook University. He directs militarily relevant medical research on infectious diseases capable of stopping tropical operations such as malaria, dengue and influenza. For the previous 20 years Professor (then Colonel) Shanks had been a US Army medical officer who spent the majority of his military career conducting field trials of new antimalarial drugs in the tropics.  His assignments included service at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the overseas laboratories of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research at the Armed Forces Research Institute Medical Sciences in Thailand and the US Army Medical Research Unit in Kenya, as well as the Australian Army Malaria Research Unit in Ingleburn, Australia (a fore-runner of ADF MIDI). Concerned mostly with malaria prevention studies, Prof Shanks has conducted field studies in various rural populations including gold miners in New Guinea, Thai border militia on the Cambodia border, displaced persons in camps along the Thai-Burmese border, tea estate workers of the Kenyan Rift Valley and Kenyan villagers near Lake Victoria.  He performed one of the pivotal efficacy trials for atovaquone proguanil which lead to its licensure as a chemo-prophylactic combination and has tested most antimalarial drugs in use today. Prof Shanks did the first field trial of tafenoquine, a new antimalarial drug which was registered in Australia and the USA in 2018 for the prevention and treatment of malaria. Most recently he has been using historical data to determine the causes of malaria relapses and mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic. He has published over 220 research papers on malaria and other infectious diseases. Prof Shanks serves as the medical monitor for several antimalarial clinical trials and is on several advisory committees. His awards include the US Army Legion of Merit and the Donald MacKay Medal from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Recent publications:

Shanks GD and White N. The activation of vivax malaria hypnozoites by infectious diseases.  Lancet Infect Dis 2013: 13: 900-06

Shanks GD. How the Great War changed global attitudes to war and infectious diseases.  Lancet; 2014; 384:1699-1707

Shanks GD.  Malaria mortality in the Australian Defence Force during the 20^th century.  Am J Trop Med Hyg 2017; 97(2):544-547

Shanks GD, Mohrle JJ. Treating malaria; new drugs for a new era.  Lancet Infectious Diseases 2017; 17:1223-1224

Shanks GD, Wilson N, Kippen R, Brundage JF. The unusually diverse mortality patterns in the Pacific Region during the 1918-1921 influenza pandemic: reflections at the pandemic’s centenary. Lancet Infect Dis 2018; on line 9 May 18 18: S1473-3099

Shanks GD. Tolerance May Be More Accurate Than Immunity When Describing Chronic Malaria Infections. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2019; 100(3):497-500.

Shanks GD. Malaria-Associated Mortality in Australian and British Prisoners of War on the Thai-Burma Railway 1943-1944 Am J Trop Med Hyg 2019; 100(4):846-850.

Shanks GD. Australian Defence Force’s role in Regional Health Security: missions defined by infectious diseases.  J Mil Vet Hlth 2020; 28: 43-49.

Zottig VE, Shanks GD. Historical perspective: the evolution of post-exposure prophylaxis for vivax malaria since the Korean War. MSMR. 2021 Feb; 28(2):8-10

Ash E, Zahra M, Shanks GD, Nasveld P. Influenza outbreak during Exercise Talisman Sabre, Queensland, Australia, July 2019. MSMR 2021 Mar; 28(3):9-12

Susana Lloveras, MD.CTH Specialist in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases Director, Geosentinel Site Buenos Aires Head of the Medical Zoonosis Unit, Hospital Muñiz, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Founder and Director of Clinica de Viajeros. Argentina
I am a physician specializing in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, with over 30 years of clinical experience in tropical and endemic diseases, travel medicine, and neglected diseases. Certified in Travel Health (CTH), my work focuses on improving the diagnosis, treatment, and access to care for diseases affecting local populations, migrants, and travelers. I integrate clinical practice, research, and public health to address global challenges such as Chagas disease and other neglected tropical diseases.

As Head of the Zoonoses Medical Unit at the Muñiz Hospital, Buenos Aires, I direct clinical and research efforts on zoonotic and vector-borne diseases. I am the Director of Geosentinel Buenos Aires Site, contributing to global surveillance of travel-related diseases. Additionally, I serve as a technical advisor to the Ministry of Health of Argentina, supporting public health strategies for the control of infectious diseases.

I am a member of the Board of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases (SADI) and an active participant in the Latin American Alliance for Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (ALEIMC). I am a founding member and former president of the Latin American Society of Travel Medicine (SLAMVI), where I worked to promote travel medicine throughout the region.

In the academic field, I enjoy teaching medical students, residents and fellows and I teach at the University of Buenos Aires and Universidad Austral. Also, I direct the SLAMVI Travel Medicine Training Program. My work aims to improve health outcomes for vulnerable populations and strengthen health systems.

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.