Peter Piot, MD, PhD

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK

Professor Peter Piot MD PhD, is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and a Handa Professor of Global Health.  He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations (1995-2008). He is the first Chair to lead the UK Government’s Strategic Coherence of ODA-funded Research (SCOR) Board. Professor Piot is Chair of the Global Burden of Disease Independent Advisory Committee and Chair of the King Baudouin Foundation US. He is Vice-Chair of the board of the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund in Tokyo, and is a member of the board for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the African Health Research Institute (AHRI), in Durban. He is past president of the International AIDS Society. In 1995 he was made a Baron by King Albert II of Belgium, and in 2016 was awarded a UK honorary knighthood KCMG.

A clinician and microbiologist by training, Professor Piot co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976, and subsequently led pioneering research on HIV/AIDS, women’s health and infectious diseases in Africa.

Peter Piot has received numerous awards for his research and service, including the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award (2015), the Robert Koch Gold Medal (2015), the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health (2014), and the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research (2013), the F.Calderone Medal (2003), and was named a 2014 TIME Person of the Year (The Ebola Fighters). He has published over 580 scientific articles and 16 books, including his memoir, No Time to Lose.