David Nabarro is the Co-Director of the Imperial College Institute of Global Health Innovation and supports systems leadership for sustainable development through his Switzerland based social enterprise 4SD (Skills, Systems and Synergies for Sustainable Development). Currently David is Special Envoy of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on COVID-19 and Senior Advisor to the United Nations Food Systems Summit. David secured his medical qualification in 1974 and has worked in over 50 countries in multiple positions. In October 2018, David received the World Food Prize together with Lawrence Haddad for their leadership in building coalitions for action for better nutrition across the Sustainable Development Goals.
Carlos Alvarez Pereira is Vice President of The Club of Rome. With a background as a researcher in systems dynamics and entrepreneur in the digital sector, he promotes the emergence of a civilizational shift towards equitable wellbeing within a healthy biosphere. At The Club of Rome he co-leads the initiatives on Emerging New Civilization(s) and Youth and Intergenerational Dialogues. And he keeps doing research in complexity thinking and the transformation of knowledge and innovation to respond to the existential needs of the 21st century.
Carlos is also a member of the Advisory Boards of the UNESCO Chair of Global Understanding for Sustainability at the University of Jena, and of the International Bateson Institute. He is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) and has been a lecturer and researcher in Applied Mathematics at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), founder and manager during more than 20 years of several consulting companies in Spain, Switzerland, France and Germany, and founder of a non-profit research institution devoted to collaborative projects in the domains of complex systems and AI. He has been Vice-President of the Spanish Fulbright Alumni Association for 8 years.
Ademola Braimoh has expertise in agriculture and rural development, integrated landscape management, and resilience of ecosystems and people to global change. Dr. Braimoh studied at the Center for Development Research, University of Bonn in Germany, and at the University of Cambridge in England. He also worked as Professor of Land Change Science at the Center for Sustainability Science, and as Executive Director of the Global Land Project in Japan. Dr. Braimoh is currently the Climate-Smart Agriculture Coordinator for the World Bank’s Africa Region, where he helps client countries to realize increased productivity, improved livelihoods, enhanced resilience, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions in agricultural landscapes.
Patrick Caron is a veterinary doctor, PhD in development geography. He is a specialist of farming systems and territorial dynamics, with a special focus on livestock farming in Brazil, Southern Africa and the Near East.
In addition to his role as Director of the Montpellier Advanced Knowledge Institute on Transitions (MAK’IT), P.Caron is the International Director of the Montpellier University of Excellence (MUSE) Initiative since September 2017 and Vice-President for International Affairs of the University of Montpellier since January 2019. He joined the French International Cooperation Center in Agronomic Research for Development (CIRAD) in 1988 where he was Director-General for Research and Strategy from 2010 to 2016. He is now attached to the JRU ART-Dev.
He has been appointed as the Chair of the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in November 2015, a position that he occupied until October 2019.
He is the author of about 200 publications in international journals, books and conference proceedings.
W. Timothy Coombs (PhD Purdue University) is the Abell Professor of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University. Dr. Coombs is active researching and training in crisis communication. His communication research has won multiple awards from professional organizations for his contribution to the practice of public relations. Dr. Coombs has created and tested the highly influential Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). His works include the award-winning Ongoing Crisis Communication, coediting the Handbook of Crisis Communication, and co-writing Strategic Sport Communication: Traditional and Transmedia Strategies for a Global Sport Market.
Carlos Correa is the Executive Director of the South Centre since July 2018. Formerly, he was the Centre’s Special Advisor on Trade and Intellectual Property (IP). He worked with the Argentine Government and was the Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies on Industrial Property and Economics, University of Buenos Aires (UBA). He was a member of the UK Commission on IP Rights, the WHO Commission on IP, Innovation and Public Health and the FAO Panel of Eminent Experts on Ethics in Food and Agriculture. He has been a visiting professor at several universities, a consultant to various regional and international organizations and advised several governments on IP, innovation policy and public health. He is the author of numerous publications. Dr. Correa is a lawyer and an economist and holds a PhD in Law from the UBA.
Fatima Denton is the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA). She is an accomplished senior leader in the UN system, respected across the research and implementation branches of the organization. She has depth of expertise in natural resource management, as well as deep knowledge of research and policy development, and the African region.
Fatima is a lead author for the IPCC special report on climate change and land, a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group III) and was a Lead Author for the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports (Working Group II) and for the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy and Climate Change Mitigation. She has served on numerous scientific committees and boards, including the Independent Scientific Committee of the CIGIAR Climate Change and Food Security Programme, and is a current member of the advisory board of Future Earth and a trustee of UK-based International Institute on Environment and Development (IIED).
Dr Denton has written more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, reports, and books. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Birmingham (UK).
Michel Dubois is a sociologist of science and technology, director of research at CNRS. After having been deputy director of the CNRS international unit Epigenetics Data and Politics in the United States, he returned to France in 2019 to direct the Groupe d'Etude des Méthodes de l'Analyse Sociologique de la Sorbonne (GEMASS). He is responsible for various research projects around the development of social and environmental epigenetics, the public image of science, and contemporary transformations of scientific work. In 2021, he co-directed with Martin Bauer (LSE) and Pauline Hervois (University of Lorraine) the survey Les Français et la science 2021.
Oluchi Ezekannagha, a Nigerian national, joined the System Organization from IITA, where she has been working as a Graduate Research Fellow on nutrition issues. At the CGIAR System Organization, she has recently coordinated CGIAR COVID-19 country responses in five selected countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Myanmar and Nigeria). Oluchi has worked in various capacities at the intersection of agriculture, nutrition and public health, including consultancies for Nutrition International, Helen Keller International, Save the Children, Dalberg Advisors and African Union Commission. Oluchi received her PhD from Stellenbosch University South Africa, following an MPH from the University of Ibadan and a B.Sc. in Applied Biochemistry from the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.
Nick Ishmael-Perkins has worked in participatory global development for nearly 30 years. Much of that time has been spent co-designing and delivering programmes of social and behavioural change. He has worked in Africa, the Middle East, Southern Asia and the Caribbean, where he was born. He has done several projects leading change in the media, and has been awarded for outstanding achievement by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. In the last 15 years much of his work has focused on facilitating institutional change in response to research. He is currently leading a programme on the Public Value of Science for the International Science Council. Prior to this he was Lead Technical Advisor for Development Communication and Extension at CABI. He was Director of SciDev. Net, the science journalism platform for low and middle income countries, from 2011-2016. He has a Masters in Anthropology and Social Transformation from the University of Sussex. He is also Artistic Director of Wretched Theatre, a company working with migrant artists in the UK. Mr Ishmael-Perkins sits on a number of boards and advisory bodies.
Melissa Leach is Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex. She co-founded and co-directed the ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre (https://steps-centre.org/) from 2006 – 2014. As a social anthropologist she has carried out long-term ethnographic fieldwork in West Africa while engaging with scientific, policy and public discourses and debates around health, sustainability and development. She has led numerous interdisciplinary, policy-engaged research programmes in Africa and beyond. Amongst external roles, she was vice-chair of the Science Committee of Future Earth 2012 – 2017, lead author of the 2016 World Social Science Report 2016 on Challenging Inequalities and the UN Women’s World Survey on the Role of Women in Economic Development 2014, and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food). She was the lead social scientist in the UK/WHO responses to the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak and co-led the award-winning Ebola Response Anthropology Platform. She is now working on COVID-19 as co-lead of the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform and the Wellcome Trust-funded Pandemic Preparedness Project. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and in 2017 was awarded a CBE for Services to Social Science.
Gary E. Machlis is University Professor of Environmental Sustainability at Clemson University, and served as Science Advisor to the Director, U.S. National Park Service (NPS) during both terms of the Obama administration. He also led the Secretary of the Interior’s Strategic Sciences Group, responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricane Sandy. Dr. Machlis received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his Ph.D. in human ecology from Yale. He has written numerous books and scientific papers on issues of conservation, human ecology, sustainability, disaster response, and science during crisis. His research has been published in journals as varied as Bioscience, Climatic Change, Conservation Biology, Society and Natural Resources, Science Advances, and Science. With Dr. Rita Colwell, he co-authored the American Academy of Arts and Science’s report Science During Crisis (2019). Dr. Machlis is active in international conservation and has worked in China on the Giant Panda Project for the World Wildlife Fund, the Galápagos Islands, the national parks of Kenya, Haiti after its devastating earthquake, Cuba, and in Eastern Europe. In 2010 Dr. Machlis was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Julia Marton-Lefèvre is an independent adviser on sustainability. She was Director General of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) from 2007 to 2015. Her board memberships include the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Bioversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the Alliance between Bioversity and CIAT, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the Strategic Advisory Council to IDDRI, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Global Footprint Network, the Turkana Basin Institute, the Oceanographic Institute, Prince Albert 1st of Monaco Foundation and the advisory board of TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). She lectures regularly on environment sustainable development topics. Julia was born in Hungary, educated in the United States and in France, and having lived in several continents, considers herself a global citizen.
Alexander is a former FAO Assistant Director-General (2006-2013), and State Secretary for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture, Germany (2001 -2005). He has vast experience in global sustainability governance, as inter alia: Chair of the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition; member of the UN Environmental Management Group; and Lead, Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Land, and TEEBAgriFood. He is currently the managing director of the TMG Think Tank for Sustainability.
Paul Shrivastava is Chief Sustainability Officer at The Pennsylvania State University, Director of the Sustainability Institute and Professor of Management. Prior to this he was the Executive Director of Future Earth, where he established the secretariat for global environmental change programs. He is a member of The Club of Rome, a global think tank.
He also leads the UNESCO Chair in Arts and Science for implementing SDGs at ICN Business School, France. He is advisor to Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, and Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS), Hiroshima University, Japan.
Soumya Swaminathan was appointed WHO’s first Chief Scientist in March 2019. A pediatrician from India and a globally recognized researcher on tuberculosis and HIV, she brings with her 30 years of experience in clinical care and research and has worked throughout her career to translate research into impactful programmes. Dr Swaminathan was Secretary to the Government of India for Health Research and Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research from 2015 to 2017. In that position, she focused on bringing science and evidence into health policy making, building research capacity in Indian medical schools, and forging south-south partnerships in health sciences. From 2009 to 2011, she also served as Coordinator of the UNICEF/UNDP/World Bank/WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases in Geneva.
She received her academic training in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, and has published more than 350 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. She is an elected Foreign Fellow of the US National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of all three science academies in India. The Science division’s role is to ensure that WHO stays ahead of the curve and leverages advances in science and technology for public health and clinical care, as well as ensuring that the norms, standards, and guidelines produced by WHO are scientifically excellent, relevant and timely. Her vision is to ensure that WHO is at the cutting edge of science and is able to translate new knowledge into meaningful impact on population health worldwide.
Sonja Vermeulen is Director of Programs at the Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) System Organization, leading on coordination of the delivery, performance and results of the shared CGIAR research portfolio, plus future strategies for effective agricultural research for development. Dr. Vermeulen has previously served as Global Food Lead Scientist at WWF International, Head of Research at the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Director of the Program on Business and Sustainable Development at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and Research Fellow at the University of Zimbabwe. Her career has bridged academic and applied research, and natural and social sciences, with a strong focus on linking science with public policy and private sector strategies, particularly in Africa and Asia. She has led the design and implementation of research programs on climate change, agriculture, land use, food security, bioenergy, forestry, conservation, land governance and business practice. Dr. Vermeulen is also an Associate Fellow at the Hoffmann Centre for Sustainable Resource Economy at Chatham House, and was a Commissioner on the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems. She holds a BA and MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Tropical Resource Ecology from the University of Zimbabwe and a PhD in Population Biology from Imperial College London.
Sélim Louafi is a social scientist and Deputy Director of the ‘Genetic Improvement and Adaptation of Mediterranean and Tropical Plants (AGAP)’ Institute at the French Agricultural Research Center for International Development (CIRAD) in Montpellier. His research focuses on the interface mechanisms between science and public decision-making at the international level in the fields of biodiversity and food security. He previously worked at the Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales (Iddri) where he was in charge of the Biodiversity/Genetic Resources program. He also worked for the FAO as Deputy to the Secretary of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). He provides regular support to the Secretariat of the ITPGRFA and the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, Rome), particularly in relation to food security and access and benefit-sharing issues. He was also a member of the international panel of the external evaluation of the International Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES/UNEP). He recently co-organized with , Arizona State University, the Keystone Center (USA) and FAO, a multi-expert initiative entitled "Post COVID-19 Implications for Genetic Diversity and Genomics Research & Innovation: A Call for Governance and Research Capacity".
As Executive Secretary Vivi leads on managing the CFRS portfolio of activities. Vivi is a Clinical Psychologist and development worker with extensive international experience in humanitarian emergencies and post-conflict situations as a social development consultant, evaluator and researcher. She has worked with UN and development agencies, government ministries and services, and academic institutions in the areas of child protection, mental health and psychosocial support and health systems development, Health and Human Rights, and security sector reform.
Myrtille Lacoste is a researcher in agricultural innovation. She recently led a 20+ authors perspective in Nature Food on the value of farmer-centric On-Farm Experimentation to change how agricultural knowledge can be produced globally, and is part of the #OFE2021 Organising and Scientific Committees supported by the OECD-CRP, the first international conference on this topic. She is a Guest Editor of the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development. Myrtille is from Curtin University, Western Australia, part of The Pacific Livelihoods Research Group. Currently, she is hosted at Montpellier #DigitAg as a Marie Curie Fellow through a partnership between the French Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) and the Montpellier Advanced Knowledge Institute on Transitions (MAK’IT). She focuses on integrating contrasted disciplinary perspectives around the use of digital technologies, the translation of agronomic insights, and the alignments of stakeholders with varied interests to promote methodologies that are tailored to local farming circumstances and make the most of farmers’ own knowledge.
Philippe Augé is a professor of public law specialising in tax law and public finance. He was elected President of the University of Montpellier in 2015, re-elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2021. He was previously President of the University of Montpellier 1 since 2009. Philippe Augé is a Knight of the Legion of Honour, a Knight in the National Order of Merit and an Officer in the Order of Academic Palms.
Janos Pasztor (a Hungarian and a Swiss citizen) is Carnegie Council senior fellow and executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G). He has over 35 years of work experience in the areas of energy, environment, climate change, and sustainable development. Before taking up his current assignment he was UN assistant secretary-general for climate change in New York under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Earlier, he was acting executive director for conservation (2014) and policy and science director (2012-2014) at WWF International. He directed the UNSG’s Climate Change Support Team (2008-2010) and later was executive secretary of the UNSG’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability (2010-2012). In 2007 he directed the Geneva-based UN Environment Management Group (EMG). During 1993-2006 he worked, and over time held many responsibilities at the Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC), initially in Geneva and later in Bonn. His other assignments included: in the Secretariat of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit ’92); Stockholm Environment Institute; United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Secretariat of the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission); the Beijer Institute; and the World Council of Churches. He has BSc and MSc degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
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