Association Leadership

Current Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is elected at the Biennial General Assembly of the Association, held in conjunction with the Ecohealth Biennial Conference series. Information about the election process is available here. The current Representatives of the Board for the International Association for Ecology and Health (2014-2016) are:


Executive Committee

President Kerry Arabena, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Vice President Moses Chimbari, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
Vice President Jonathan Sleeman, National Wildlife Health Center, Geological Survey, Wisconsin, USA
Treasurer Jon Epstein, EcoHealth Alliance, New York, USA
Secretary Alessandra Nava, Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz ILMD Amazonia, Brazil
Student Representative Jessica Magenwirth, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Board Members

Neville Ellis, Murdoch University, Perth, Australia
Hume Field, EcoHealth Alliance, Brisbane, Australia
Maya Gislason, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Thomas Jaenisch, Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany
Aaron Jenkins, Edith Cowan University,  Joondalup, Western Australia
Purvi Mehta-Bhatt, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USA
Hung Nguyen-Viet, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Hanoi University of Public Health, Hanoi, Vietnam
Gerardo Suzan, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico

Assistant to the Association Secretariat

Casey Phillips, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Non-Voting Board Members

EcoHealth Editor-in-Chief
Peter Daszak*, EcoHealth Alliance, New York, USA

Conference Organizers

Ecohealth conference organizers have dedicated vast amounts of energy and enthusiasm to the establishment and growth of the international Ecohealth community.

Melbourne 2016

Martyn Jeggo, Deakin University
John Mackenzie
, Curtin University

Montreal 2014

Johanne Saint-Charles, University of Quebec a Montreal, Montreal, Canada

Abidjan 2013

Bassirou Bonfoh, Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Kunming 2012

Jianchu Xu, World Agroforestry Centre Fang Jing, Kunming Medical School

London 2010

Carolyn Stephens, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Merida 2008

Mario Henry Rodríguez, National Institute of Public Health, Mexico
Ulisses Confalonieri
, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil

Madison 2006

Jonathan Patz, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA


Past Board Members (2006-2016

Alonso Aguirre*, EcoHealth Alliance, New York, USA
Sarah Cleaveland, University of Glasgow, UK
Rita Colwell*, University of Maryland, Biotechnology Institute, USA
Nitish Debnath, Chittagong Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Bangladesh
Benjamin Fayomi, University of Abomey Calavy, Cotonou, Benin
Pierre Horwitz*, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia, Australia (Founding Vice President)
Pattamaporn Kittayapong*, Madihol University, Thailand
Edouard Kouassi, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada
Nancy Lewis*, East-West Center, University of Hawaii, Hawaii, USA
Karen Morrison, York University, Toronto, Canada
Margot Parkes*, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, Canada
Jonathan Patz*, University of Wisconsin–Madison, WI, USA (Founding President)
Mary Pearl*, Stony Brook Southampton, New York, USA
Kate Smith, Brown University, Rhode Island, USA
Carolyn Stephens*, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Bruce A. Wilcox*, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, USA
Jakob Zinsstag, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland

* indicates founding board members