Welcome

Monday, 6 December 2021

Speakers

Mike Ryan

Executive Director, World Health Organization (WHO)

Dr Mike Ryan has been at the forefront of managing acute risks to global health for nearly 25 years. He served as Assistant Director-General for Emergency Preparedness and Response in WHO's Health Emergencies Programme from 2017 to 2019. Dr Ryan first joined WHO in 1996, with the newly established unit to respond to emerging and epidemic disease threats. He has worked in conflict affected countries and led many responses to high impact epidemics. He is a founding member of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), which has aided the response to hundreds of disease outbreaks around the world. He served as Coordinator of Epidemic Response (2000-2003), Operational Coordinator of WHO’s response to the SARS outbreak (2003), and as WHO’s Director of Global Alert and Response (2005-2011), He was a Senior Advisor on Polio Eradication for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative from 2013 to 2017, deploying to countries in the Middle East. He completed medical training at the National University of Ireland, Galway, a Master’s in Public Health at University College Dublin, and specialist training in communicable disease control at the Health Protection Agency in London and the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training.

 

Chikwe Ihekweazu

Assistant Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO)

Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu is the Assistant Director-General for the Division of Surveillance and Pandemic Intelligence at the World Health Organization (WHO). In this position, he leads the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. Prior to this, Dr Ihekweazu was the first Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and led the agency between July 2016 and October 2021. He also served as Interim Director of the West Africa Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control from January to December 2017. Dr Ihekweazu is a physician with specialist training in public health and infectious disease epidemiology. He has over 25 years experience working in senior public health and leadership positions in several national public health institutes, including NCDC, the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the UK's Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

Muneera Pilgrim

Slam Poet

Muneera Pilgrim is an international Poet, Cultural Producer, Writer, Broadcaster. She conducts workshops, shares art, guest lectures, host, and finds alternative ways to educate and exchange ideas. She regularly contributes to Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2, she is an alumni artist with English Touring Theatre where she is writing her first play, and she is the resident Artist and Critical Thinker for IBT. Muneera has just released her debut poetry collection 'That Day She'll Proclaim Her Chronicles' which is available for sale directly from her, she has also written for The Guardian, Amaliah, Huffington Post, The Independent, Al Jazeera Blog, Black Ballard and various other digital and print platforms. She has been featured across the BBC network including BBC News, as well as Sky News, Sky Arts, Al Jazeera, and various other television channels. In 2015 a documentary was commissioned and screened about her former group Poetic Pilgrimage Called ‘Hip Hop Hijabis. Muneera holds an MA in Islamic studies where she focused on Black British pathways to spirituality, migration, gender and race. She holds a second MA in Women’s Studies, where she focused on the intersection of faith and spirituality, race, gender, autoethnography and methodologies of empowerment for non-centred people. Her innovation in her work won her The Ann Kaloski-Naylor Award for Adventurous Academic Writing. Muneera is concerned with telling alternative stories, she colourfully etches a space of dialogue, accessible to all regardless of cultural boundaries. Rooted in spirituality she uses communication and art for edification and change. If she were asked to describe herself in three words, she would say ‘Just Getting Started’.