Please note: This page will be updated on an ongoing basis

Gordon Guyatt BSc, MSc, MD, FRCPC

Distinguished University Professor: Departments of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics; Joint Member; Department of Medicine; McMaster University; Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Professor Gordon Guyatt coined the term “Evidence-Based Medicine” in 1990 and has since been a passionate advocate for evidence-based approaches to clinical decision-making and to the development of clinical practice guidelines.

Dr. Guyatt's academic interests have included disseminating the concepts of evidence-based medicine to health workers and health-care consumers; pioneering the methods of clinical practice guideline development and medical decision-making; helping develop systematic review methods; and ascertaining patients' values and preferences.

 Dr. Guyatt’s contributions to the medical literature are enormous and influential, and include co-editing the hugely popular ‘Users’ Guides to the Medical Literature’, a comprehensive set of journal articles and a textbook for clinicians who wish to incorporate the methods of evidence-based medicine into their clinical practice. Dr. Guyatt has played a major role in the development, refinement, and promulgation of the GRADE working group approach to systematic reviews and practice guidelines. 

Dr. Guyatt is a member of CLARITY (Clinical Advances through Research and Information Translation), a research group has been grown through collaborations involving other EBM pioneers from McMaster University (Mohit Bhandari, Jan Brosek, Jason Busse, Deborah Cook, PJ Devereaux, Brian Haynes, Maureen Meade,  and Holger Schünemann).

Dr. Guyatt has published over 900 peer-reviewed articles that have been cited over 65,000 times.

Dr Guyatt will deliver the 2nd Annual Cochrane Lecture during a special Plenary Session on Tuesday 23 September 2014: 1730 to 1830 hours IST.

Allison Tong PhD, MPH (Hons)

Associate Professor, Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Australia.

Allison Tong is an Associate Professor at the Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney. Her main interest is in using applied qualitative research methods to the area of chronic disease; to inform practice and policy for improved patient-centered outcomes. Allison developed the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative health research (COREQ), and the enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative health research [ENTREQ]; which are both endorsed as key reporting guidelines by leading journals and by the international EQUATOR Network for promoting the transparency of health research.

She runs training workshops on systematic review and synthesis of qualitative health research at the University of Sydney as well as at other institutions internationally including Stanford University and the Mayo Clinic.

Currently, she is conducting research on patient priorities for research questions and outcomes, consumer involvement in clinical practice guidelines, experience of illness, treatment decision-making, quality of life, barriers and facilitators to implementing evidence, and process evaluations of healthcare interventions.

Arunasalem Pathmeswaran MBBS, MSc, MD

Professor in Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Ragama, Sri Lanka

Dr Pathmeswaran is a Professor in Public Health at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.  He teaches biostatistics, epidemiology, research methodology and public health to both undergraduates and postgraduates in health sciences including medicine. He obtained his MBBS degree in 1982 from the University of Colombo and after working in several junior grade hospital and public health positions joined the University of Kelaniya in 1995.  He obtained an MD in community medicine in 1997. 

Prof Pathmeswaran is on the editorial board of the Ceylon Medical Journal.  He believes that nothing should be left only in the hands of experts.  This belief is reflected in the diversity of his research publications covering areas such as clinical trials, snakebite, alcohol use, tropical diseases, nutrition, non-communicable diseases, health services quality and medical education.

Dave Sinclair MRCP, MPH

Joint Coordinating Editor, Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group, Department of Clinical Sciences, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK

Dave Sinclair is a UK qualified General Practitioner, and has worked within primary healthcare in the UK, Kenya, and in conflict and post-conflict regions of North and South Sudan.

David joined the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group (CIDG) as an author in 2007 and is now the joint Coordinating editor with the group. He has worked primarily on Cochrane Reviews in malaria and tuberculosis, and has served as a temporary advisor to the World Health Organization’s Technical Guidelines Development Groups on malaria treatment, nutritional care for people with TB and HIV, and screening for active tuberculosis. Dave is an Adjunct Fellow at the Christian Medical College Vellore with the South Asian Cochrane Centre, where he spent a year mentoring Centre staff and review authors in the region. In 2009 he undertook a Masters in Public Health for Developing Countries, before returning to the Cochrane group, were he combines his work as a GP with his work with the CIDG.

David Tovey FRCGP

Editor in Chief, The Cochrane Library

Dr David Tovey has been the Editor in Chief of The Cochrane Library since January 2009. He worked previously as Editorial Director for the BMJ Evidence Centre, which is the division of the BMJ Group that produces Clinical Evidence and its counterpart for the public BestTreatments, BMJ Point of Care, and Best Practice.

At the BMJ, David was initially Deputy Editor of Clinical Evidence under Fiona Godlee, moving to the Editor role when she became Editor of the BMJ.

Dr Tovey worked as a General Practitioner in an urban practice in South London for 15 years until 2003. During that time he also undertook roles in continuing professional development for primary care professionals, and was a clinical governance lead for a Primary Care Group.

Elizabeth Waters MPH, DPhil (Oxon)

Jack Brockhoff Chair of Child Public Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Professor Elizabeth Waters is the Jack Brockhoff Chair of Child Public Health at the University of Melbourne and has been Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Health Promotion and Public Health Field (2000-2008), and the Cochrane Public Health Group (CPHG) from 2008 onwards.

She leads a team of researchers who focus on an integrated program of research that includes understanding what influences health and wellbeing, what works to improve it, and what is effective in improving the use of evidence in decision making. The CPHG introduced priority setting to Cochrane in 2002 given the need to prioritise what questions would make the greatest impact on population health outcomes, and thus a strong focus on equity, global health, and social determinants underpins the scope of over 50 reviews of complex mixed method syntheses that are on The Cochrane Library. Prof Waters and the CPHG see their next frontier in developing ways in which to synthesise and understand complex systems, modelling and politics in a more nimble and sophisticated sense. 

Gabriel Rada MD

Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine; Director of Evidence-Based Healthcare Program; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile; President and Executive Director of Epistemonikos Foundation

Dr Garriel Rada is a physician who graduated from the Medical School of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (2001) and who has worked as an Internal Medicine specialist in public primary care organizations in the Metropolitan area of Chile’s capital city, Santiago.

He was one of the founders of the Evidence-based Healthcare Program at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 2001, and has been the director since 2013. He is also co-founder, president and CEO of the Epistemonikos Foundation (asociación sin fines de lucro “Epistemonikos”), a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to bring independent, high quality information closer to everyone making health decisions through the use of information technologies. He leads projects in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Evidence-Based Health Care and is currently working on technologies that combine machine and human collaborative efforts to generate knowledge, multilingual platforms for decision-makers, and automation of systematic reviews.

Dr Rada is co-director of the Southern American Branch of the Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre, conducts systematic reviews in different topics and provides methodological support to other reviewers in the region. He is also an editor with the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Review Group, and a member of the GRADE working group. 

Hilary Thomson BN, MPH, PhD

Senior Investigator Scientist, MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow.

Hilary has a Bachelor of Nursing and a Masters of Public Health from the University of Glasgow. Her PhD comprised a collection of her peer reviewed publications within the field of developing evidence for healthy public policy. Hilary's general research interests are around gathering and translating research evidence to inform healthy public policy. Her work has focussed on assessing the health and socio-economic impacts of housing improvement and area based regeneration investment, as well as transport, employment, and welfare interventions

Hilary's work spans a wide range of methodologies including the use of qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate community interventions. Most recently she has developed methods to manage and promote transparency of narrative synthesis of complex interventions. Hilary is an editor with the Cochrane Public Health Review Group.

Jan Clarkson BSc BDS PhD FDS RCS(Ed) FDS(Paed) RCS(Ed)

Professor of Clinical Effectiveness, University of Dundee Scotland; Professor of Dental Research and Joint Coordinating Editor, Cochrane Oral Health Group University of Manchester, England.

Professor Jan Clarkson has been the Joint Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Oral Health Group (COHG) since 2006.  She has been active in Cochrane since 1996, first as an author then editor when the COHG editorial base moved to Manchester UK.  As co-founder of the COHG Global Alliance she has been responsible for attracting donations from International Dental Associations and Specialist Dental Groups.  These funds contribute to the sustainability of COHG’s methodological infrastructure and review prioritization. The Global Alliance also enables the COHG to be responsive to the needs of International Guideline development groups, delivering up-to-date priority reviews of the highest quality. 

Jan is a Consultant in Paediatric Dentistry and as Professor of Clinical Effectiveness she leads a multidisciplinary research team delivering UK multi-centre clinical trials in dental primary care.  As Director of the Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Programme she has responsibility for the development of guidance for dentistry in Scotland and is the clinical lead for the embedded implementation research group, Translation Research in a Dental Setting (TRiaDS).  TRiaDS contributes to the guidance development and evaluates the impact of its dissemination; conducting theoretically based implementation trials if indicated.  A consequence of partnership working with policy makers in service and education has been the opportunity to improve the translation of Cochrane review evidence into practice. 

Joseph L. Mathew MD

Associate Professor, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Advanced Pediatrics Centre, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India

Dr. Joseph L. Mathew is a Pediatric Pulmonologist at the Advanced Pediatrics Centre, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India.   Dr. Mathew has developed expertise in three areas of health-care: pediatric respiratory disease, vaccines of public health importance, and evidence-informed health-care. He has published over 130 papers in scientific journals and several chapters in text books.

Dr. Mathew has pioneered the promotion of the Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) movement in India. He has been an active member of the Cochrane Collaboration since 2003 and has contributed to various entities in different capacities including review author, peer-reviewer, critic, and workshop facilitator. He is a founding member of the South Asian Cochrane Network and continues as a member of the Steering Group of the South Asian Cochrane Network & Centre.  

Dr. Mathew has contributed significantly towards capacity building efforts for health-care professionals in India and abroad. He is the Programme Manager of the SIGNET Capacity and Capability Building Initiative for health-care professionals, in the science of evidence-informed decision-making in health-care. He is the lead author of the EURECA series in Indian Pediatrics. EURECA is an acronym for Evidence that is Understandable, Relevant, Extendible, Current and Appraised. It presents systematic reviews and overviews on topics of child health relevant to developing countries. He has been a Chair or Member of national committees for the preparation of evidence-based guidelines on Pediatric immunization, management of childhood pneumonia and Pediatric Tuberculosis.

Dr. Mathew has also focused on the applicability of external evidence to developing country settings. He has attempted to bridge the gap between research evidence and health-care practice through his interactions with Health Technology Assessment International, Society for Medical Decision Making, and Guidelines International Network.

Julie Wood BA (Journalism), BA (Political Science)

Head of Communications and External Affairs, Cochrane Central Executive

Julie Wood has just joined the Cochrane Collaboration as Head of Communications and External Affairs in September. In her previous position she created and ran the marketing program for an IT services provider with operations in Europe and North America. Before that she worked in various advocacy, campaigning and communications roles at Oxfam GB and Oxfam International, including as the Director of Corporate Communications. She very much looks forward to her new role in Cochrane and hopes to do everything she can to ensure that more people have access to Cochrane's evidence. 

K. Srinath Reddy M.Sc (Epidemiology), MD, DM (Cardiology)

President, Public Health Foundation of India

Prof. K. Srinath Reddy is President, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and was the former head of the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).  He was appointed as the First Bernard Lown Visiting Professor of Cardiovascular Health at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2009. He is also an Adjunct Professor of the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University and Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney.

PHFI is engaged in capacity building in Public Health in India through education, training, research, policy development, health communication and advocacy. Having trained in cardiology and epidemiology, Prof. Reddy has been involved in several major international and national research studies including the INTERSALT global study of blood pressure and electrolytes, INTERHEART global study on risk factors of myocardial infarction, national collaborative studies on epidemiology of coronary heart disease and community control of rheumatic heart disease. 

Widely regarded as a leader of preventive cardiology at national and international levels, Prof. Reddy has been a researcher, teacher, policy enabler, advocate and activist who has worked to promote cardiovascular health, tobacco control, chronic disease prevention and healthy living across the lifespan.  He edited the National Medical Journal of India for 10 years and is on editorial board of several international and national journals. He has more than 400 scientific publications in international and Indian peer reviewed-journals. 

He has served on many WHO expert panels and is presently the President of the World Heart Federation (2013-14).  He also chairs the Core Advisory Group on Health and Human Rights for the National Human Rights Commission of India and is a member of the National Science and Engineering Research Board of Government of India. He recently chaired the High Level Expert Group on Universal Health Coverage, set up by the Planning Commission of India. He also serves as the President, of the National Board of Examinations which deals with post-graduate medical education in India.

Prof. Reddy is a member of the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (www.unsdsn.org), established to assist the United Nations in developing the post-2015 goals for sustainable development.  He chairs the Thematic Group on Health in the SDSN. His contributions to public health have been recognized through several awards and honours.  

Kay Dickersin, MA, PhD

Professor of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Director for the Center for Clinical Trials; Director of the U.S. Cochrane Center and Director of the Cochrane Eyes and Vision Group US Satellite.

Kay’s main research contributions have been in in the area of clinical trials, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, reporting biases, trials registration, and the development and utilization of methods for the evaluation of health care interventions and their effectiveness. She has led and participated in research on reporting biases since the 1980s, most recently examining the relationship of internal company documents to the published record.

Kay has served on numerous Institute of Medicine and National Research Council committees related to setting research priorities, clinical trials, the use of evidence in medical decision making, and the use of evidence in non-medical settings. Her efforts to ensure trial registration have included coordination of the Cochrane Collaboration’s CENTRAL register of reports of controlled trials for 12 years, and serving as Co-Chair of the WHO’s Scientific Advisory Board for the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.  

Kay’s work has also included consumer engagement in research as well as building capacity related to clinical trials and systematic reviews. In 2003, Kay founded Consumers United for Evidence-based Healthcare (CUE), a partnership with health and consumer advocacy organizations in the US. Over the past two decades, Kay has developed courses for scientists, consumers, and others, including the original “Project LEAD” science curriculum for the National Breast Cancer Coalition, and “Understanding Evidence-based Healthcare: A Foundation for Action” an online course for consumer advocates co-developed with Musa Mayer.

Among her honors, Kay is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine in the United States and received the 2014 Ingram Olkin Award from the Society for Research Synthesis Methods for contributions to the field.

Lisa A. Bero PhD

Professor, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy and Institute for Health Policy Studies, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco; Director, San Francisco Branch of the US Cochrane Centre; Co-chair, Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group

Lisa A. Bero, PhD was an elected member of the Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group for 12 years and was appointed Co-Chair in 2013.  She has been Professor, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy and Institute for Health Policy Studies, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco since 1991.  As of August 1, 2014, she is Chair of Medicines Use and Health Outcomes at the University of Sydney, Charles Perkins Center. 

Prof. Bero is a pharmacologist who studies how science is translated into clinical practice and health policy.  She has developed and validated methods for assessing bias in the design, conduct and dissemination of research on pharmaceuticals, tobacco and chemicals.  Prof. Bero has also conducted analyses to examine the dissemination and policy implications of research evidence.

Her international activities include member and chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Essential Medicines Committee, member of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Advisory Committee on Health Research, and Chair of the PAHO Strategic Fund Selection Committee.  Prof. Bero was involved in the application to make The Cochrane Collaboration an NGO in official relations with WHO and she is a Cochrane liaison to WHO.  Prof. Bero was an associate editor of Tobacco Control and editor of the Effective Practice and Organization of Care Cochrane group for over a decade.  She is Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Pharmaceutical Research and Science Policy.  Prof. Bero serves on several national and international committees related to conflicts of interest and research, such as the Institute of Medicine Committee on Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education and Practice, and use of systematic reviews in decision making, such as the National Academy of Science Committee to review the Environmental Protection Agency Integrated Risk Information System Process.

Mark Wilson, MA, Dip Jour, MPhil, MM, FCMI

Chief Executive Officer, The Cochrane Collaboration              

Mark started in post at the Cochrane Collaboration in November 2012.

Mark has extensive leadership experience at the highest levels in international humanitarian and development organisations, including the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, where he was Chef de Cabinet and the organisation’s Head of Planning. Previously he had been Head of Delegation in Mozambique, and managed the Federation’s humanitarian operations in former Yugoslavia from 1996 – 2000.

Mark was previously Executive Director of Panos London, part of a global network of institutes that aims to ensure information is effectively used to foster public debate, pluralism and democracy. He is a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. He holds Masters degrees in International Politics, Soviet and East European Studies, Management, and Journalism. As a former journalist in London and Hong Kong, and Communications Director of the Swiss-based Business Council for Sustainable Development, he is an experienced commentator on international economics, business and politics.

Mary Ann Lansang MD, MMedSc 

Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and Clinical Epidemiology; Chief of the Section of Infectious Diseases; Department of Medicine; University of the Philippines,  Manila, Philippines

Dr Mary Ann Lansang is a Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of the Philippines Manila, where she has been a faculty member since 1984 and is currently chief of the Section of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine. 

Professor Lansang has more than 20 years of experience in global health, with technical expertise in the epidemiology, prevention, control and management of infectious and tropical diseases; policy development for public health programs including maternal, neonatal and childhood health and nutrition; monitoring and evaluation of public health programs; health policy research and knowledge translation; and health systems strengthening. She has published widely in peer-reviewed international journals on infectious and tropical diseases as well as health policy and systems research. She is co-editor of the current (5^th) edition of the Oxford Textbook of Public Health.

She has been seconded to various international programs, among them: the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (2008-2012, as Director of the Health Advisory Unit) and the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (2000-2005, as Executive Director). She has served as a member of various international scientific committees and boards, among them, at the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (WHO/TDR), the Council on Health Research for Development and the Alliance on Health Policy and Systems Research.

N. Sreekumaran Nair PhD

Dr.TMA Pai Chair in Systematic Reviews and Evidence-Based Public Health; Professor of Biostatistics & Head, Department of Statistics; Director, Public Health Evidence South Asia, Manipal University, Manipal, Karnataka, India 

N.Sreekumaran Nair, PhD from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, is Professor of Biostatistics and heads the Department of Statistics at Manipal University, India. Dr. Sree Nair coordinates the South Asian Cochrane Network site at Manipal University and is a member of the steering group of the South Asian Cochrane Network & Centre. He is an executive council member of the International Biometric Society. Dr. Sree Nair serves as the statistical editor for the Cochrane Public Health Group (CPHG) and the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) Group. He is an Associate Editor of the Biomed Central journal “Systematic Reviews”.

Dr. Sree Nair is the architect of the formation of the Cochrane Public Health Group’s South Asian Satellite based at Manipal and is Director of Public Health Evidence South Asia (PHESA). Under PHESA, he is spearheading a systematic reviewers mentoring programme for south Asia in which around 25 reviewers are involved and 8 systematic reviews are in progress.

As Chair of Biostatistics at Manipal University, Sree Nair designed the Master’s and Doctoral program in Biostatistics. He was also headed the design and implementation of the Certificate program in Biostatistics for non-statistician; the Executive education programme in Biostatistics; Biostatistics for Masters in Public Health and Biostatistics for Allied Health Science and Nursing courses. He has trained in epidemiology, Controlled Clinical trials, analytical, practical & regulatory issues in clinical trials, medical writing, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, quality evaluation and control and administrative matters within India and abroad. 

Nata Menabde PhD,MPH

WHO Representative to India, WHO-India Country Office, New Delhi

Dr Nata Menabde is the WHO representative to India. She holds a PhD degree in Clinical Pharmacology, diplomas in Health Management and Leadership from USA and in Health Care Economics from UK. She also studied Public Health at Nordic School of Public Health, Sweden.

Dr Menabde has a robust public health academic background and 28 years of experience as a health professional, during which she has built an extensive track record in public health and health systems at country and international levels.

Prior to taking up her current job in India she worked as Deputy Regional Director of the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Dr Menabde has led WHO Regional office’s work on Health Systems and their relationships with health and wealth which culminated in adoption of Tallinn Charter on health systems.

Dr Menabde’s track record also includes accomplishments in the areas of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, non-communicable diseases and risk factors, climate change and other environmental concerns, health security, intellectual property rights and the social determinants of health.

Dr Menabde has successfully partnered with key stakeholders such as the Council of Europe, the European Union, the European Commission, UNICEF, the World Bank, OECD, the Global Fund, the European Investment Bank and others to increase the effectiveness of WHO’s work.

Dr Menabde’s current interests are related to health and health systems governance and policies, and to promoting evidence based decision making and accountability though performance of health systems, as well as addressing public health concerns in other sector policies.

Paul Garner MBBS, DRCOG, MD, FFPHM

Professor of Research Synthesis; Co-ordinator, Evidence Synthesis for Global Health, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group; Director of the Effective Health Care Research Consortium, Liverpool, UK

Paul Garner is Professor of Research Synthesis at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine where he leads a programme of research coordinating a network of over 300 people synthesising research to inform global, regional and national policies in tropical infections and conditions relevant to middle- and low-income countries. This has had substantive effect on global and national policies, particularly in diarrhoea, malaria and tuberculosis.

Paul’s work experience includes the UK National Health Service; Papua New Guinea as a District Medical Officer, then epidemiologist at the PNG Institute of Medical Research; and researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from 1988. Paul moved to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1994. Paul is convenor of the research synthesis Postgraduate Module at LSTM.

Paul's additional appointments include: Honorary Research Fellow at the St Georges Medical School, Grenada; Fellow, Faculty of Public Health Medicine; Specialist Associate Editor with the International Journal of Epidemiology; Member of the WHO Malaria Technical Guidelines Group; Extraordinary Professor in Community Health, University of Stellenbosch; and Honorary Adjunct Professor, Christian Medical College, Vellore. Paul is the Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group. 

Sally Green PhD, BAppSci (Physiotherapy)

Sally Green is Co-Director of the Australasian Cochrane Centre and a Professorial Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine from Monash University in addition to her clinical qualifications in Physiotherapy.

Sally is an active Cochrane reviewer and has several competitively funded research projects which aim to improve health outcomes by investigating the most effective and efficient pathway of knowledge from research result to sustained change in clinical practice and policy.

Professor Green is a member of the NHMRC’s Health Care Committee. She is also co-editor of the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions.

Sanjiv Kumar MBBS,MD, DNB, MBA, FAMS, FIMAMS

Executive Director, National Health Systems Resource Centre, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi

Dr Sanjiv Kumar currently heads the National Health Systems Resource Centre that provides technical support to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and to state governments in India. 

Dr Singh has 38 years of experience in public health in 29 countries in Central and South Asia, Eastern and Southern Africa, Central Eastern Europe and in academics. His career began as a Medical Officer in the Indian Army and later involved working at Primary Health Centres (PHC) in Haryana and urban slums in Delhi, before he joined UNICEF where he contributed as a health specialist at state and national levels in India.  

Dr Kumar then moved to international positions: as Chief of Health, Nutrition, Child Survival & Development and Senior Advisor in Iraq, Kenya, Uganda and Somalia; and as Regional Advisor for 22 countries in Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe. He has conducted strategic program reviews; planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programs; capacity building of semi-literate village volunteers, health workers, program managers, senior faculty of medical, nursing and paramedic colleges; and strategic planning and managing of health programs for UNICEF in many countries. During these journeys, he has worked in the deserts of Rajasthan and in Masai villages in Kenya; and in post- conflict areas of northern Uganda, war zones in Cambodia and domestic fish ponds in Bangladesh; as well as the firing lines in Iraq and militancy-torn Somalia. He has also worked in former Soviet republics after the collapse of communism. Dr Kumar has 38 years of experience in public health in 29 countries in Central and South Asia, Eastern and Southern Africa, Central Eastern Europe and in academics. He began his career as a Medical Officer in the Indian Army and later worked at Primary Health Centres (PHC) in Haryana and in urban slums in Delhi, before he joined UNICEF, where he contributed as a health specialist at state and national levels in India. 

In 2011, Dr Kumar returned to academics. He developed and facilitated courses for government officials and NGOs in leadership and strategic management for mid- and senior- level health officials, and supervised research projects for reputed national and international organizations. His current interests include capacity building in leadership, strategic management team building for the corporate sector, the UN and in health institutions. He has published about 100 papers in scientific and popular magazines and chapters in books.

Shaun Treweek PhD, BSc (Hons)

Professor of Health Services Research, Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, Scotland

Shaun has nearly 20 years’ experience as a health services researcher specialising in trial methodology.  He is active in the field of pragmatic trial design, the design and pre-trial testing of complex interventions, systematically reviewing recruitment interventions for trials, theory-based methods to assess the implementation potential of interventions and improving the way research information is presented to anyone who needs to use it in their decisions. 

He is involved in a range of trials, including an international trial of treatments for a rare neuromuscular condition, a lifestyle change trial run through football clubs and the Scottish Premier League, a trial of exercise for cancer patients and a lung cancer screening trial.  He is currently developing proposals for a trial methodology platform that systematically identifies gaps in trial methodology knowledge, disseminates the information to methodologists and, through greater coordination and collaboration, starts to make trial design and conduct more efficient.  Finally, he coordinates the DECIDE project (http://www.decide-collaboration.eu), a GRADE-based project that aims to improve the way guideline information is communicated to health professionals, the public, policymakers and others.    

Subhadra Menon PhD

Professor, Health Communication; Public Health Foundation of India

Subhadra Menon is Professor, Health Communication, at the Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi. She has been leading public health communication activities and initiatives at PHFI since 2007, with a focus on hard-to-reach and vulnerable communities and guided by the principle that sound public health communication that is delivered effectively can engage and empower communities for behaviour change, and this is the cornerstone of better health outcomes in populations. At PHFI, she has developed and implemented various communication strategies; helped generate evidence for policy action,  facilitated multistakeholder advocacy and provided technical support to government programmes. Her work has focussed on the key public health domains of chronic diseases, infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, under-nutrition, mental health, human resources for health and human rights and health. 

Subhadra believes strongly in the significance of people in modern societies managing to use credible knowledge for effective action and sees this as the fulcrum of any major agenda for change that we pursue in contemporary Indian and global settings. In a career spanning 27 years, Subhadra has worked in the health field in diverse capacities covering professional and community activist experiences.  Prior to joining PHFI, she was Project Director for the Essential Advocacy Project (EAP) at the Futures Group, a technical, advocacy capacity building partner of Avahan – the India AIDS Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Before this, she was Editor-in-Chief and Project Director, State-level Programmes, for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) in India and was part of the founding team of the India programme, supporting the initiation of the first AIDS vaccine trial in the country.  

For about 15 years (between 1985 and 2001), Subhadra was a print-media journalist with a core focus on health, environment and science for development. She was Principal Correspondent (Health, Science and Environment) for India Today magazine for five years. Subhadra was founding editor of TerraGreen, a biweekly electronic newsletter covering environmental and energy topics, published by The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi; and of Sankalp, a bimonthly newsletter published by IAVI in India. Subhadra was the Invited Editor at Outlook magazine, responsible for the publication of their 10^th anniversary special on Science and Technology in 2005.  A Ph.D. in Reproductive Biology from the University of Delhi, she taught under-graduate science at the same university for four years at the start of her career. Subhadra is an award-winning and prolific writer with more than 400 articles and features published in Indian and international newspapers and magazines and peer-reviewed publications.  Her critically acclaimed book on urban India’s public health scenario, No Place to Go: Stories of Hope and Despair from India’s Ailing Health Sector (Penguin Books), 2004, was short-listed for the New India Foundation Prize, and she has authored three more books. 

Taryn Young MBChB, MMED, FCPHM

Director, Centre for Evidence-Based Health Care, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; Consultant to the South African Cochrane Centre

Taryn Young is Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Health Care at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and consultant to the South African Cochrane Centre. Taryn is an epidemiologist with a specialist degree in public health and considerable expertise in the field of evidence‐based health care. She has coordinated international collaborative projects that facilitate the use of best evidence in healthcare policy and practice. Taryn has conducted many systematic reviews and provided intensive training, mentorship and editorial support to authors of Cochrane and other systematic reviews.

Taryn leads the coordination of various projects that promote evidence-based practice and policy in Africa, taking into account the unique attributes of the region and the relevance of the proposed activities. Integral to her work is the co‐ordination and evaluation of training programmes for health professionals in clinical epidemiology, evidence‐based healthcare and research synthesis, nationally and in the African region.

Toby Lasserson BA, MPhil, MSc

Senior Editor, Cochrane Editorial Unit

Toby Lasserson has been a Senior Editor at the Cochrane Editorial Unit (CEU) since 2010. He has been an active contributor to Cochrane since 1999 as an author and editor on reviews of asthma, COPD and sleep apnoea therapies. He has delivered training on systematic review methods at Cochrane workshops and symposia in Europe and Australia.

In 2011 he was part of the coordinating group that developed the Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR standards) for the conduct and reporting of Cochrane Reviews, and the Plain Language Expectations for Authors of Cochrane Summaries (PLEACS) for Plain Language Summaries. Since September 2013 Toby has been working closely with a team of editors at the CEU to undertake pre-publication quality assurance of new Cochrane Reviews.

Tracey Brown

Director, Sense About Science, UK; and campaign leader of the +AllTrials Initiative

Tracey has been the Director of Sense About Science, a charity that equips people to make sense of evidence, since 2002. She has a background in social research, and previously spent four years working on a European Commission programme to establish social research and teaching in the former Soviet Union. In her time at Sense About Science Tracey has led campaigns for sound science and evidence in public life and she has written and edited many public guides to scientific research. She is a regular public speaker and writes about scientific evidence, policy and the public, for national media, periodicals and books. Tracey is the author of In the Interests of Safety (with Michael Hanlon, Sphere, July 2014).

She was a Commissioner on the UK Drug Policy Commission 2009-2012, and a trustee of Centre of the Cell until December 2013, and is currently a trustee of the Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, and of Jurassica.