Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove is the COVID-19 Technical Lead of the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as the Head of the Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Unit in the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme.

Why you should listen

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove's research has spanned zoonotic, respiratory and emerging/re-emerging diseases such as avian influenza, MERS, SARS, COVID-19, Ebola, Marburg, plague and Zika. Of particular interest are factors associated with transmission between animals and humans, the epidemiology of zoonotic pathogens, and ensuring that research directly informs public health policies for action.

Van Kerkhove completed her undergraduate degree at Cornell University, an MS Degree in epidemiology at Stanford University and a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Prior to joining WHO in 2017, she was the Head of the Outbreak Investigation Task Force at Institut Pasteur's Center for Global Health in Paris, where she was responsible for establishing public health rapid response teams for infectious disease outbreaks. Her previous roles include a senior fellow at Imperial College London in the MRC Center for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling and epidemiologist at the Institut Pasteur in Cambodia.

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What Now … for the future? Notes from Session 6 of TEDWomen 2021

December 3, 2021

Over three days and six sessions at TEDWomen 2021, more than 40 speakers and performers shared ideas that spanned the globe and drew from across cultures and disciplines to answer the question: What now? For the final session, speakers explored the biggest question of all — What now for the future? — and encouraged us […]

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