Director, Department of Tuberculosis and HIV
Dr Riitta Dlodlo has been a physician and public health specialist in Zimbabwe since 1982. She was The Union’s TB-HIV Programme Coordinator from 2003 to 2015, when she became Director, Department of TB and HIV.
Department of Tuberculosis and HIV offers 95 years of experience with TB, one of the world's oldest diseases, and extensive experience with HIV, one of the newest.
Director, Department of Tobacco Control
Dr Gan Quan completed his PhD in Public Health and a post-doc on tobacco control research. Since 2009, he has managed China’s Bloomberg Initiative tobacco control grants, developed campaigns and conducted policy research. He became Director of The Union China Office in 2014 and Director of the Tobacco Control Department in 2017.
Department of Tobacco Control has worked with 50 countries – home to 2/3 of all smokers – and helped to develop policies, legislation and infrastructure proven to reduce tobacco use.
Director, Department of Research
Dr Ajay Kumar is a seasoned Public Health Practitioner with over 15 years of experience in low- and middle-income settings. He has worked for WHO-India as a consultant for providing technical assistance to the Government of India’s National Tuberculosis Programme, particularly in leading TB-HIV co-ordination activities. He is an author/co-author of over 170 publications, with many contributing to a change in policy/practice and has facilitated over 75 national and international courses.
Department of Research: manages the Centre for Operational Research, including the SORT-IT courses, and advises on other research activities.
Director, Lung Health
Professor Kevin Mortimer went to medical school at the University of Cambridge and did a PhD at the University of Nottingham. He moved to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 2011 as Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Respiratory Medicine at Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He is co-Deputy Director of the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Lung Health and Tuberculosis in Africa at LSTM and was co-Principal Investigator in the Cooking and Pneumonia Study.
Lung Health Director: Develop epidemiological, clinical and operational research studies to achieve improved lung health across the life course for the poor.