David L. Heymann

Who is David L. Heymann?

Professor David L. Heymann, MD was appointed Chairman of the Board of the UK Health Protection Agency in April 2009. At the same time, he became Head and Senior Fellow of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, London and in 2010 joined the faculty at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology.

Prior to this, Prof. Heymann was the World Health Organization's Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment and the representative of the Director-General for Polio eradication. Previously, from 1998–2003, he was Executive Director of the WHO Communicable Diseases Cluster and from October 1995 to July 1998 he was Director of the WHO Programme on Emerging and other Communicable Diseases. Prior to this, he was the chief of research activities in the WHO Global Programme on AIDS.

Prof. Heymann is also chairman of Strategic Advisory Group of Hilleman Laboratories.

Before joining WHO, Prof. Heymann worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa on assignment from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He also worked in India for two years as a medical epidemiologist in the WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme, where smallpox was eradicated in 1978. Prof. Heymann also took an active role in the first Ebola outbreak in 1976, and led the response team during the 1995 Kikwit outbreak. In 2003, David Heymann was at the forefront of the SARS epidemic, working with his team to mediate international effort to halt the pandemic.