Board of Directors
The Board of Directors is responsible for the governance, financial and strategic oversight of the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) and is led by the Executive Officers, including the Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary and Treasurer.
The President of ISUH is responsible for establishing and overseeing implementation of the organization's agenda and undertaking activities to advance its mission.
President of ISUH

Carlos Dora, MD (President, 2021-2023)
Former Coordinator WHO Public Health and Environment Department, Geneva
Dr. Carlos Dora has a distinguished career in global public health and environment. Until recently, he coordinated the WHO’s global work on health impacts of sector policies (energy, transport, housing, extractive industry) and on articulating a global response to air pollution. He led the development of a new Urban Health Initiative to strengthen health systems capacity in cities to support health, climate and air quality benefits from urban policies, which is under pilot implementation in Africa and Asia. He also led the development of a framework for how public health can contribute to Habitat III objectives and the New Urban Agenda. He previously led knowledge synthesis about the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation policies, in a “Health in a Green Economy” series and contributed to the development of health indicators for post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. He has worked to include health into strategic environment assessments and into Development Banks Safeguards. He contributed to establishment of an inter-ministerial process for transport health and environment in Europe (THE PEP), led a health task force in the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, and earlier engaged in health risk assessments in the ex-Soviet Union. He has worked in academia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and as a visiting professor at Columbia University School of Public Health. He worked at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, with the World Bank, and in the organization and innovation of primary care systems in Brazil, where he also practiced clinical medicine. He has served in many science/policy committees at national and international levels and is engaged in many global partnerships. He currently advises governments, civil society and philanthropy about health as it relates to non-heath sector policies and the urban environment. His research and publications include health impact assessment as well as perceptions and communication of science and health risks by scientists, media and politicians. He is a medical doctor and an epidemiologist with an MSc and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Executive Officers of the Board

Jo Ivey Boufford, MD (Chair)
Clinical Professor of Global Public Health, School of Global Public Health, New York University, United States of America
Dr. Boufford is immediate past President of The New York Academy of Medicine. Since January 1, 2018, she is Clinical Professor of Global Public Health at the College of Global Public Health at New York University where she is also Professor of Public Service, Health Policy and Management at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine. She served as Dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University from June 1997 to November 2002. Prior to that, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from November 1993 to January 1997, and as Acting Assistant Secretary from January 1997 to May 1997. While at HHS, she was the U.S. representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1994–1997. She served in a variety of senior positions and as President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), the largest municipal system in the United States, from December 1985 until October 1989. Dr. Boufford was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship at the Institute of Medicine in Washington, DC for 1979–1980. She currently serves on the boards of the United Hospital Fund and the Health Effects Institute. She was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1992 and served on its Board on Global Health and Board on African Science Academy Development. She served two four year terms as the Foreign Secretary of the IOM between 2010 and 2014 and was elected to membership for the National Academy of Public Administration in 2015. She received Honorary Doctorate of Science degrees from the State University of New York, Brooklyn, (1992), New York Medical College, (2007), Pace University, (2011) and Toledo University, (2012). She has been a Fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine since 1988 and a Trustee since 2004. Dr. Boufford attended Wellesley College for two years and received her BA (Psychology) magna cum laude from the University of Michigan, and her MD, with distinction, from the University of Michigan Medical School. She is Board Certified in pediatrics.

Carlos Dora, MD (Vice Chair)
Former Coordinator WHO Public Health and Environment Department, Geneva
Dr. Carlos Dora has a distinguished career in global public health and environment. Until recently, he coordinated the WHO’s global work on health impacts of sector policies (energy, transport, housing, extractive industry) and on articulating a global response to air pollution. He led the development of a new Urban Health Initiative to strengthen health systems capacity in cities to support health, climate and air quality benefits from urban policies, which is under pilot implementation in Africa and Asia. He also led the development of a framework for how public health can contribute to Habitat III objectives and the New Urban Agenda. He previously led knowledge synthesis about the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation policies, in a “Health in a Green Economy” series and contributed to the development of health indicators for post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. He has worked to include health into strategic environment assessments and into Development Banks Safeguards. He contributed to establishment of an inter-ministerial process for transport health and environment in Europe (THE PEP), led a health task force in the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, and earlier engaged in health risk assessments in the ex-Soviet Union. He has worked in academia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and as a visiting professor at Columbia University School of Public Health. He worked at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, with the World Bank, and in the organization and innovation of primary care systems in Brazil, where he also practiced clinical medicine. He has served in many science/policy committees at national and international levels and is engaged in many global partnerships. He currently advises governments, civil society and philanthropy about health as it relates to non-heath sector policies and the urban environment. His research and publications include health impact assessment as well as perceptions and communication of science and health risks by scientists, media and politicians. He is a medical doctor and an epidemiologist with an MSc and a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Gerard Lebeda (Secretary/Treasurer)
Founder and President of Lebeda Management Services
Board Members

Bilge Bassani
Vice Chair of the Advisory Committee of FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University
Ms. Bassani has spent her working life dealing first hand with global equity and climate change issues in Africa, Asia, Europe, United States and the Middle East. She has been passionate advocate for children and ultra-poor and used her expertise as convener of multiple stakeholders to develop effective policies, partnerships and programs to realize child rights , eradicate poverty, find solutions to adapt climate change.
Currently she serves with a few cutting edge organizations as consultant, board member, and mentor to young idealists. She is the Vice Chair of the Advisory committee of FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. She has been a Senior Fellow and Visiting Scientist at Francois-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Health and Human Rights Center at Harvard University, Board member and chair of Governance and Nominations Committee of Turkish Philantrophy Funds, member of Turkiye WIN.
As the Representative of the UN Foundation, she supported their activities in Europe for two years. Ms. Bassani was CEO of FXB International for five years, whose mission is to fight poverty and through investments, transform the lives of the world’s orphans and vulnerable children, their families and communities.
Prior to joining FXB, she worked for more than 20 years at the United Nations, most recently as Deputy Executive Director and Director of Programs for the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP). Ms. Bassani joined the UN in 1983 and was seconded to Addis Ababa as Special Assistant to the Representative of the Secretary General for the Ethiopian Emergency when 9 million people faced starvation. Ms. Bassani was UNICEF Representative in Kigali,Rwanda, Senior Program Officer at the UNICEF International Child Development Center in Florence, Italy. She served at UNICEF Headquarters in New York first as Deputy Chief of the Middle East and North Africa Section and Focal Point for the Iraq Emergency and later as part of the Executive Director’s Office as Deputy Director, Inter-Agency Affairs.
She was the Deputy Regional Director of the Geneva Regional office for six years heading the unit responsible for the coordination of UNICEF National Committee and Implementation of Convention on Child Rights playing a key role in campaigns to stop Child Soldiers, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Child Labor.
She worked with Save the Children USA, as Regional Director for Africa and the Middle East. Ms. Bassani obtained her BA in Business Administration from Robert College ( presently Bogazici University) in Istanbul . She received an MA in Economics from the University of Istanbul, where she also completed the course work toward a Doctorate in Developmental Economics

Jeffrey L. Sturchio
Former Chairman and CEO at Rabin Martin
Jeffrey L. Sturchio is past Chairman and CEO at Rabin Martin, a global health strategy consulting firm, and former President and CEO of the Global Health Council. Before joining the Council in 2009, Dr. Sturchio was vice president of Corporate Responsibility at Merck & Co. Inc., and president of The Merck Company Foundation
He is currently also chairman of the U.S. Corporate Council on Africa, chairman of Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, TB and Malaria, chairman of the BroadReach Institute for Training and Education, and a member of the boards of ACHAP and the Science History Institute. Dr. Sturchio is also a visiting scholar at the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health and the Study of Business Enterprise at The Johns Hopkins University; Senior Associate at the Global Health Policy Center of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; a principal of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Arthur W. Page Society; and an advisor to amfAR, the Center for Health and Well-Being at Princeton University, he Partnership for Quality Medical Donations, the Rutgers Global Health Institute, and the TB Alliance. He received an AB in history from Princeton University and a PhD in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania. His publications include The Road to Universal Health Coverage: Innovation, Equity and the New Health Economy (edited with I. Kickbusch and L. Galambos, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019).

Blaise Nguendo Yongsi (Treasurer 2020-2022, President 2019-2021)
Professor, Health Geography IFORD, University of Yaounde II, Cameroon
Professor Blaise Nguendo-Yongsi completed his undergraduate degree in geography from the University of Yaoundé. He then migrated to Canada where he earned a Bachelor degree in Education and world studies at Laurentian University in Ontario. He then went on to take a Masters in Development studies and a PhD in health geography from the University of Paris-X (France).
He has served as a Research Professional at the Centre de Recherche Interuniversitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal and as Professor of Epidemiology and Health Geography at the University of Chicoutimi (Quebec–Canada). In addition to his earlier academic appointments, Blaise has been an academic visitor at the department of geography-laboratory of sustainable development, University of Montréal from 2005 to 2007. Since 2014, he chairs the African network for training in urban health. He currently serves on the board of the Scientific committee of the Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme of the International Council of Science, and of the national observatory of public Health. Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of African Studies and Research in Africa (IJASRA), he is a member of editorial boards of numerous journals (International Research in Medical and Health Science, Médecine d’Afrique Noire, Archives of Medical Science, Research Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences).
He has a longstanding interest in urban health and has empirically focused on the spatial disparities of infectious diseases and access to health care in Cameroon. His work involves an integrative understanding of the broad determinants of population health and research on environment and health linkages within urban settings. Nowadays, Blaise's research activities have three broad foci: healthy neighbourhoods, health issues of vulnerable groups, and urban oral health. Pr Blaise believes in the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis. A growing interest in the explanation of the geographic patterns of diseases and health status has led him to investigate the socio-cultural and environmental aspects of health and health care in a variety of settings using humanistic theories and qualitative methods. Much of his current research involves interdisciplinary and intersectoral partnerships with community organizations and health policy actors, in order to maximize the utility of his work as a tool for social and political change. He has published extensively in a variety of international journals, such as Journal of Urban Health, Globalization and Health, The Lancet : Diabet and endocrinology, International Neuropsychiatric Disease Journal, International Journal of Tropical Disease & Health International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health .
He is the author of Urban Health: spatial epidemiology of infectious diarrheas in Yaoundé, Paris, Éditions Connaissances et Savoirs, 2016 , and of Introduction to health geography, Book Guild Publishing Ltd, London, 2018. He is currently Professor of Health Geography and Spatial Epidemiology at the Institute of Population Studies (IFORD) of the University of Yaoundé II (Cameroon), and Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the School of Health Sciences of the Catholic University of Central Africa (UCAC-Cameroon).

Gerard Salem (Secretary, 2020-2022)
Professor, University of Paris Ouest, France
Pr. Gérard Salem is 63 years old. After completing a B.A. and M.A. degree in geography (University of Paris 1 – Sorbonne), he went on to receive a Ph.D. in African Studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (E.H.E.S.S.) in Paris. Additionally, he completed a master in urbanism at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and another master in epidemiology from the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
As a researcher with ORSTOM, he worked from 1980-1988 and from 2009-2012 in Senegal; has been Full Professor of Geography of Health at the University of Paris-Nanterre (1997-2013). He is currently Professor emeritus, member of the Scientific Committees of International Council for Science ICSU (Urban Health and Wellbeing program), International Society of Urban Health, and International Geographical Union.

Sainath Banerjee (2020-2024)
Lead Operation, Urban Health Program, Population Service International

Blessing Mberu (2020-2024)
Research Scientist, Urbanization and Wellbeing Program, African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), Kenya

David Vlahov (2020-2024, Founding President)
Associate Dean for Research, School of Nursing, Yale University, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Urban Health, United States of America
Advisors to the Board

Eugenie L. Birch, PhD
Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Education and Research, University of Pennsylvania, Chair of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme’s World Urban Campaign, United States of America
Professor Birch is the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education. She teaches courses in planning history, global urbanization and serves as chair, Graduate Group in City and Regional Planning, co-director, Penn Institute for Urban Research, co-editor, City in the 21st Century Series, University of Penn Press and co-editor, SSRN Urban Research e-journal.
Professor Birch is the Chair of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme’s World Urban Campaign, a global coalition of public, private and civil society partners acting to promote sustainable urbanization. She is active in the field’s professional organizations and in academia in the United States and abroad. She is a member of the U.S. National Committee for Habitat, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Thematic Group on Resilient Cities, and an Associate Editor, Journal of the American Planning Association. In the past, she has been President, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning; President, Society of American City and Regional Planning History; President, International Planning History Society; and co-editor,Journal of the American Planning Association. She has been a member of the Planning Accreditation Board, having served as its chair from 2004-2006. She has been a member of the editorial boards of Planning Theory and Practice, Journal of Planning History, Journal of Planning Education and Research and Planning Perspectives. In 2000, she was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners and made a member (honorary) of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Jason Corburn, PhD
Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning and the School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, and Director, Institute of Urban and Regional Development, Berkeley, United States of America
Jason Corburn, PhD is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, jointly appointed in the Department of City and Regional Planning and the School of Public Health. Dr. Corburn directs Berkeley’s Institute of Urban and Regional Development, the joint Master of City Planning (MCP) and Master of Public Health (MPH) degree program and leads the Center for Global Healthy Cities. His research focuses on the links between environmental health and the social justice in cities, notions of expertise in science-based policy making and the role of local knowledge in addressing environmental and public health problems. Dr. Corburn is currently working on developing a strategy for integrating health equity into all decision making in city governance, drafting and implementing integrated upgrading plans for informal settlements and researching metrics and indicators for urban health equity. Furthermore, Jason has received numerous awards for his work, including the United Nations Association Global Citizenship Award, the 2016 UC Berkeley Chancellor's Award for Public Service in Teaching, the Paul Davidoff Book Award for Street Science, and a Health Policy Investigator Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. His CV is available here.

Rajae El Aouad, MD, MSc, MHPM
Resident Member, Hassan II Academy of Sciences and Technology of Morocco (HIIAST) and Steering Committee Member, Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), Morocco

Jean Christophe Fotso, PhD (President 2009-2011)
Founder & Executive Manager, EVIHDAF (Evidence for Sustainable Human Development Systems in Africa), Yaounde, Cameroon
Jean Christophe Fotso is the Founder and Executive Manager of EVIHDAF (Evidence for Sustainable Human Development Systems in Africa), an international research and development organization headquartered in Yaounde, Cameroon, which serves the West and Central Africa region. He is a research and evaluation professional with more than 20 years’ experience in designing and applying state-of-the-art approaches to program monitoring and evaluation and dissemination. His subject areas include family planning and reproductive health; maternal, newborn and child health; nutrition and food security, human resources for health; and use of mobile technologies to reduce barriers to health care.
Until December 2016, he served as Director, Monitoring and Evaluation at Concern Worldwide USA, where he led an eight-year, flagship program, the Innovations for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, comprised of nine projects in five countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, India, Sierra Leonne), and two cross-project agenda on human-centered design, and alignment with human rights principles. Prior to joining Concern Worldwide in early 2013, he was the Head of the Population and Reproductive Health research program at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Nairobi, Kenya, leading and managing projects in many African countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Congo DR, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal.
Dr. Fotso is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, USA. He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Maryland Population Research Center (MPRC), University of Maryland, USA. He holds a PhD in Demography from the University of Montreal, Canada; an MSc in Statistics from University of Paris VI, France; and an MSc in applied Mathematics from the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Gina S. Lovasi, PhD, MPH
Urban Health Collaborative Co-Director and Dornsife Associate Professor of Urban Health, Drexel University, United States of America

Olga Lucia Sarmiento, MD, MPH, PhD
Associate Professor of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

Susan Thompson, PhD, MTCP; BA Hons; DipEd, FPIA
Professor of Planning and Director Healthy Built Environments Program, The University of New South Wales, Australia
ISUH: Bringing health into all aspects of the Urban Dialog
ISUH is the only global professional organization in the world that focuses exclusively on the broad determinants of urban health. Your membership can help us develop and sustain ISUH as an independent voice of our global, transdisciplinary members and strategic partners for health equity in urban settings.