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Dr. Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, is Regents Professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, a professor in the Technological Leadership Institute, College of Science and Engineering, and an adjunct professor in the Medical School, all at the University of Minnesota. In early 2025, Dr. Osterholm and colleagues founded the , a key initiative dedicated to safeguarding vaccine use in the US. He is also author of the new book, . In November 2020, Dr. Osterholm was appointed to President-elect Joe Biden's COVID-19 transition advisory board. From June 2018 through May 2019, he served as a Science Envoy for Health Security on behalf of the US Department of State. He is also on the Luther College Board of Regents.

Dr. Paul Wise is dedicated to bridging the fields of child health equity, public policy, and international security studies. He is the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology and Developmental Medicine, and Health Policy at Stanford University. He is also co-Director, Stanford Center for Prematurity Research and a Senior Fellow in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Wise is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been working as the Juvenile Care Monitor for the U.S. Federal Court overseeing the treatment of migrant children in U.S. border detention facilities.

Conrad Sauvé, President and CEO of the Canadian Red Cross since 2008, is an accomplished senior executive who specializes in transforming non-profit organizations into impactful contributors to local, national, and global communities. He strategically restructured and repositioned the Canadian Red Cross by developing long-range plans and cultivating strong partnerships with senior government officials, private sector executives and other stakeholders. Under his leadership, the Canadian Red Cross has become a global leader in emergency health including the deployment of mobile field hospitals to more than 50 contexts worldwide. The organization is now one of the top three charities in Canada, in part due to Mr. Sauvé’s successful efforts to raise public awareness of the vast array of services the Red Cross provides. Over the last five years, the Red Cross has raised more than $1B in funding.

Dr. Kelley Lee is trained in International Relations and Public Administration with a focus on international political economy. She spent over twenty years at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was a core member of donor-led studies of WHO reform during the 1990s. She co-established the WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Change and Health, and chaired the WHO Resource Group on Globalization, Trade and Health. Dr Lee also co-led the Guildford Archiving Project to secure public access to internal tobacco industry documents, and then the Global Tobacco Control Research Programme to analyze their contents in relation to the globalization of the tobacco industry. She has authored 140+ peer-reviewed papers, 70+ book chapters and 15 books including The World Health Organization (Routledge, 2009). Her current research, leading the Pandemics and Borders Project, focuses on the use of travel measures durng public health emergencies

Dr. Liu is a Canadian practicing paediatric emergency physician at University of Montréal and Professor at ɬ�﷬ where she focuses on pandemic and health emergencies. She is the Founding Director of the Pandemic and Emergency Readiness Lab. She is the former International President of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders, and has engaged with the world leaders at the highest level on medical humanitarian crises.  She is involved in various high-level initiatives and commissions related to pandemics, health emergencies, and conflicts, including as Chair of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. Dr. Liu graduated from the ɬ�﷬ School of Medicine in Montreal in 1991 and did her   pediatric specialty training at University of Montreal. She holds a Fellowship in Paediatric   Emergency Medicine from New York University School of Medicine as well as an International   Master’s in Health Leadership, also from ɬ�﷬.

Fatima Hassan is a human rights lawyer and social justice activist and the founder of the Health Justice Initiative. She is the former Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSF-SA), heading the Foundation for 6 years (mid-2013 - mid-2019). She has dedicated her professional life to defending and promoting human rights in South Africa, especially in the field of HIV/AIDS where she worked for the AIDS Law Project and also acted for the Treatment Action Campaign in many of its legal cases. She has a BA and LL.B from the University of the Witwatersrand and an LL.M from Duke University. She clerked at the Constitutional Court of South Africa for Justice Kate O'Regan and has served as the Special Adviser to former Minister Barbara Hogan (Health; Public Enterprises).

Dr. Roojin Habibi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), a Senior Visiting Fellow of the United Nations University’s International Institute for Global Health, and a Research Fellow of the Global Strategy Lab based at York University and the University of Ottawa. Bridging the fields of international law, health law and human rights, her current research program examines normative interpretation and change in global health law. Her mixed methods and collaborative approach to research has led to the convening of several international conferences as well as publications across a range of venues, including in journals of public health and medicine, law and social science reviews, commissioned reports, foundational law textbooks, and public news and media outlets.

Dr. Nina Schwalbe, PhD, MPH is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in New York’s 12th District and a nationally recognized public health leader focused on evidence-based policy and accountability. She is the founder of Spark Street Advisors and has held senior roles at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, UNICEF, and the Open Society Institute, including leading USAID’s $7 billion COVID-19 Vaccine Access and Delivery Initiative. Her work spans maternal and child health, pandemic preparedness, vaccine access, and global health governance. She is currently a Senior Scholar at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and a Commissioner for The Lancet Commission on Gender and Health. She has published and interviewed widely for major national and international outlets, such as the Washington Post, Financial Times, and The Economic Times. She advised New York City leaders during COVID-19, and remains an active community volunteer, grassroots Democrat, and parent.

Dr. Jennifer M. Welsh is the Canada 150 Research Chair in Global Governance and Security at ɬ�﷬, and the Director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy. She was previously Chair in International Relations at the European University Institute and Professor in International Relations at the University of Oxford, where she co-founded the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict. From 2013-2016, she served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, on the Responsibility to Protect. She currently sits as a member of the IDP Protection Expert Group, based in UNHCR.

André Picard is the health columnist at The Globe and Mail, where he has been a staff writer since 1987. He is also the author of six bestselling books. André has received much acclaim for his writing, including being named Canada’s top newspaper columnist at the National Newspaper Awards and being awarded the prestigious Michener Prize for Meritorious Public Service Journalism. He is a graduate of the University of Ottawa and Carleton University, and has received honorary doctorates from eight universities, including UBC and the University of Toronto. In 2023, André was named a member of the Order of Canada.

Nora Loreto is a writer and activist from Quebec City. She is the author of Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic [Fernwood 2021], Take Back the Fight: Organizing Feminism in the Digital Age(Fernwood 2020), and From Demonized to Organized: Building the New Union Movement (CCPA 2013). Nora is the editor of the Canadian Association of Labour Media and is an opinion columnist whose writing appears regularly in many publications. She co-hosts the popular podcast Sandy and Nora Talk Politics with Sandy Hudson.

Dr. Kim Lavoie, Co-Director of the MBMC and Co-Lead of the International Behavioural Trials Network (IBTN), holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Medicine and is a researcher in the Chronic Disease Research Division at Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal. She is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at UQAM and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at University of Montreal. She is the Chair of the Canadian Network for Health Behaviour Change and Promotion (CAN-Change) and an active member of the CHEP recommendation panel (Adherence Subcommittee). She is an internationally recognized expert in motivational communication; over 10,000 health professionals across Canada and internationally have attended her professional training workshops. She currently holds multiple grants in the area of motivational communication training and efficacy for behaviour change in chronic disease.

Jessica Malaty Rivera is an epidemiologist and science communicator who has worked to help policymakers and the American public understand the COVID-19 pandemic. She is no stranger to emerging diseases like COVID-19, considering she studied them at Georgetown University School of Medicine while receiving her Master of Science in Biohazardous Threat Agents & Emerging Infectious Diseases. Throughout her professional career thereafter, Malaty Rivera developed an expertise in science communication and public relations, advising a wide variety of private companies and advocacy groups on how to communicate with the public. She is completing her PhD at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Baral is an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and Global Health Scholar whose work examines how health systems can prepare for and respond to crises, with a focus on public trust in science and misinformation, surge capacity during emergencies, and improving data infrastructure. She is the Inaugural Deputy Director of the Pandemic and Emergency Readiness Lab. She has advised governments around the world as well as institutions including the World Health Organization, World Bank, United Nations, the Gates Foundation, and OpenAI on global health and health emergency preparedness. She holds a PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.