Speakers

Chedly Azzouz, (born 14 January 1958 in Gabés, Tunisia) RN, PPM, MS, is a former “Professeur Paramédical” university of Gabes Tunisia.
Active member of the Infection control Africa Network (ICAN) and holds the position of Chair-Elect.
Member of Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control (ACIPC) and Infection Control Academy of India (IFCAI).
Has been working since 2014 with the World Health Organization (WHO) as a consultant, international expert in IPC. He contributed to the development and implementation of IPC documents, programs and activities at the three levels of WHO, HQ in Geneva, regional Africa and 15 country offices, especially in Africa.
Was involved in WHO Ebola Response in the field of IPC activities in Guinea 2014-2016 and DRC 2018-2021.
Has actively contributed with ICAN to the preparations and response to the COVID-19 pandemic especially in the African region, mainly training and online support in collaboration with WHO Afro and ACDC.
He is author or co-author, supervisors of several publications mainly in the fields of care and IPC.
He has thorough skills and experience in training and education with the development of several IPC training modules and support.
Has carried out numerous IPC assessments at the national level and of health facilities for several countries, particularly in Africa, followed by improvement action plans and support in its implementation.
Has contributed to the development, revision and translation of several documents for the WHO, including those for WHO AFRO in 2023:
– Practical Guide for the Elaboration of Consolidated National Infection Prevention and Control Guidelines
– Infection Prevention and Control in-service Training Guide and curricula description.

Gonzalo Bearman is Chair of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Richard P. Wenzel Professor of Internal Medicine and Associate Chief Quality and Safety Officer for Research at the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System.
Dr. Bearman’s primary clinical focus includes General Infectious Diseases and HIV care. His areas of administration and research focus on the epidemiology of hospital-acquired infections. Dr. Bearman has various industry grants and has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications, multiple editorships of books, and is the primary editor of 3 medical textbooks.
Dr. Bearman previously served as the chair of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Guidelines Committee and was a member of the SHEA Board of Trustees.  In 2019 Dr. Bearman received Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Barry Farr Award for the most influential publication in infection prevention and hospital epidemiology- Presented at ID Week 2019 Annual Meeting.
Most recently, Dr. Bearman has led critical efforts to address the COVID-19 Pandemic on research, clinical, and operational fronts. He has assumed various roles for VCU Health including VCU Medical Center Incident Command Center Infectious Diseases/ Hospital Infection Prevention Program COVID 19 Director, co-Investigator in Remdesevir and Sarilumab Clinical Trials, Primary investigator VCU-VDH COVID 19 Seroprevalence Study, Co/Senior-Investigator VCU COVID 19 Healthcare Worker Seroprevalence Study, Primary media respondent for VCU Health on COVID 19 media requests, member of the Virginia Disaster Management Advisory Committee to Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Services, Infectious Diseases Consultant and Member VCU Public Health Response Committee for University Reopen, Infectious Diseases Medical Advisor to VCU Athletics COVID 19 and Infectious Diseases Medical Advisor to the Atlantic 10 Advisory Committee for NCAA1 Athletics.
Since 2021, Dr. Bearman is Editor in Chief of Antimicrobial Stewardship and Healthcare Epidemiology of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, published by Cambridge University press.

Gabriel Birgand is an Infection Control specialist. He is leading the regional center for infection control in the Pays de la Loire region and the french national center for surveillance and prevention of HAI and AMR in primary care and long term care facilities. Gabriel is honorary research Fellow at the HPRU, NIHR with Prof Alison Holmes, and part time coordinating infection control in the West of France. His research fields are on the development of innovative methods for the diagnosis and prevention of surgical site infection, and the antimicrobial resistance in healthcare settings.

Dr. Boyce served as an infectious diseases specialist and hospital epidemiologist in university-affiliated facilities for many years. He is currently President of J.M. Boyce Consulting LLC, a position he assumed after retiring from his positions as Director of Hospital Epidemiology & Infection Control at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, CT and as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Dr. Boyce was the lead co-author on the CDC Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Health-Care Settings, and was a contributing author to the WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care. He has co-authored numerous articles dealing with hand hygiene.

Dr. Boyce served as an infectious diseases specialist and hospital epidemiologist in university-affiliated facilities for many years. He is currently President of J.M. Boyce Consulting LLC, a position he assumed after retiring from his positions as Director of Hospital Epidemiology & Infection Control at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, CT and as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Dr. Boyce was the lead co-author on the CDC Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Health-Care Settings, and was a contributing author to the WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care. He has co-authored numerous articles dealing with hand hygiene.

Dr Sylvie Briand, MD, PhD, MPH is Director of the Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention department (EPP) at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. EPP develops global strategies to prevent and control epidemics and pandemics such as COVID 19, monkeypox, Zika, Influenza and several other emerging pathogens with pandemic potential.

She has been at the fore front of managing acute infectious risks to global health for more than 20 years, including accidental and deliberate events, ensuring the development of global mechanisms and sustainable frameworks to facilitate multi sectoral and multi-partners coordination for epidemics and pandemics.

David P. Calfee, MD, MS is a Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, NY (USA). He is the Chief Hospital Epidemiologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and the Deputy Medical Director of Infection Prevention & Control and the Associate Chief Epidemiologist for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. He is a fellow of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology (ICHE).

Prof. Dr. phil. Lauren Clack is a Professor of Implementation Science in Health Care at the Medical Faculty, University of Zurich. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Zurich and an MSc in Applied Ergonomics (Human Factors Engineering) from the University of Nottingham. From 2011 to 2020, she worked as a researcher and project leader, first at the University Hospitals of Geneva and then at the Division of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology, University Hospital Zurich. She specializes in the application of Implementation Science methodology and human-centered design to improve the systematic integration of evidence-based infection prevention and patient safety interventions into care.

John Conly CM MD DSc is a Professor of Medicine, Microbiology, Immunology & Infectious Diseases and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, former Head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services in Calgary, Canada and the current Medical Director for IPC and Antimicrobial Stewardship for the Calgary Health Zone. He was a former President of the Canadian Infectious Disease Society, a past Chairman of the Board for the Canadian Committee on Antibiotic Resistance, a member of the Canadian Advisory Group on AMR and the current Chair of the WHO IPC Research & Development Expert Group for COVID-19. He has published over 500 manuscripts, book chapters, technical reports and guidelines and has many career honours including the Order of Canada, the FNG Starr Award from the Canadian Medical Association and the CAPM Ronald Christie Award for outstanding contributions to academic medicine in Canada. He holds multiple Fellowships and continues as an active consultant in clinical infectious diseases with current interests which focus on AMR, stewardship, prevention of hospital-acquired infections and novel innovations in healthcare.

My work uses mathematical modelling, statistical techniques, observational studies and clinical trials to help understand infectious disease dynamics and evaluate potential control measures. This involves developing mathematical models to help evaluate the likely impact of control measures, developing and applying statistical approaches for the analysis of infectious disease data and designing and analysing epidemiological studies. Applications of previous work include SARS, MRSA, pandemic influenza, Ebola, Hepatitis E and SARS-CoV-2. My current work focuses on drug-resistant bacterial infections and the control of nosocomial infections.

Nizam Damani’s outstanding contribution to infection prevention and control (IPC) has been recognised with numerous international lifetime achievement awards, including the recipient of the Graham Ayliffe Award from the International Federation of Infection Control and a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for IPC services. His book The ‘Manual of Infection Prevention and Control’, now in its 4th edition, was published by the Oxford University Press and translated into several languages. He is a member of various WHO Guideline Development Groups. His new book ‘Mankind vs Microbes’ is part memoir, part history lesson that explores the historical context and accounts of the individuals who first fought against infectious diseases and contributed to IPC.

Mandy is an Infection Prevention and Control Technical Officer at World Health Organization. She has close to 20 years’ experience in infection prevention and control. She has worked as a frontline ICP in acute acre and public health as well as work at the provincial level in Canada supporting implementation of IPC in acute care, Long-Term Care and community settings, and contributing the development of IPC resources and guidance. She has had a special interest in supporting LMICs, primary care settings and improvement of reprocessing practices. She is a lecturer for the Centennial College Infection Prevention and Control Program.

Dr Eremin is a Team Lead, Evidence and Emerging Resistance, in the AMR Surveillance, Prevention and Control Department at the WHO Headquarters in Geneva. His main responsibility is developing the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) and supporting countries in building their national programs for AMR surveillance. He has been working for WHO since 2006. Prior to joining WHO, Dr Eremin held a position of Associate Professor at the Department of Epidemiology at the North-Western State Medical University, St. Petersburg, Russia. In addition to his university appointment, he coordinated national and international projects on infection control and AMR in Russia, Central Asia, the Baltic Sea Region, and several other countries.

David Eyre is Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute, and an Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology at Oxford University Hospitals. David’s research interests include the use of routinely collected healthcare data and pathogen genomics, combined with statistical and machine learning methods, to improve management of individual patients with infection, infection prevention and control, and the management of healthcare systems as a whole.

Dr. Fucini studied medicine in Florence (Italy) from 2002 to 2008. He started working at the Charité University of Berlin in 2012 and since 2019 he is specialist for anaesthesiology, intensive care and emergency medicine. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the influence of fluid driven stroke-volume optimization on the outcome of patients after percutaneous valve replacement.

Since 2020 he is researcher at the institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine at the Charité. His field of studies lies primarily on evidence-based design and infection prevention strategies in hospital design and architecture. In this context, he focuses on measures of water and air control for prevention of hospital related infections in existing and new hospital buildings.

After specialization in hygiene and environmental medicine, Petra Gastmeier worked from 1991 to 2000 as a hospital epidemiologist in Potsdam and the university hospital of the Free University Berlin. During this time, she created the German national surveillance system for healthcare associated infections (KISS) with meanwhile 1200 participating hospitals. From 2001 to 2007, she was Associated Professor of Hospital Epidemiology at Hanover Medical University. Since 2008, she is Full Professor for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine at Charité –University Medicine in Berlin. She also established the German national hand hygiene campaign, which is meanwhile running for more than 15 years.

Yonatan Grad is the Melvin J. and Geraldine L. Glimcher Associate Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. He earned his MD and PhD at Harvard Medical School, trained in internal medicine at BWH and infectious diseases at BWH and Massachusetts General Hospital, and did his research fellowship in the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at HSPH. The Grad Lab investigates how pathogens evolve and spread using a combination of genomics, microbiology, mathematical modeling, and epidemiological tools, with a focus on the biology and epidemiology of antibiotic resistance.

Nick works at Duke NUS Medical School in Singapore. His areas of knowledge include health economics, health services research, decision making and cost-effectiveness. He is interested in projects that show high and low value outcomes, and in the processes around implementing new services. Other research interests include healthcare associated infection, chronic wounds, non-beneficial treatments at the end of life, health behavior change interventions, screening for infectious and chronic disease.

Stefan Hagel, MD, MS graduated 2005 from Jena Medical School. He is specialist in internal medicine, infectious diseases and infection control and currently consultant at the Institute for Infectious Diseases and Infection Control at the Jena University Hospital. His special interest include research in sepsis, including antibiotic therapy, multi-drug resistant organisms and infection control. He got his Master of Science in Clinical Research & Translational Medicine at the University of Leipzig and has peformed several Investigator Initiated Trials as principal investigator in the field of infecition control and antimicobial therapy.

Dr. Harris is an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist whose research interests include emerging pathogens, antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, hospital epidemiology/infection control, epidemiologic methods in infectious diseases and medical informatics. He has published over 280 papers. He has current or has had funding from the NIH, CDC and AHRQ to study antibiotic resistance and hospital epidemiology. He is extremely proud of his mentoring track-record and training the next generation.

Susan Huang, MD MPH is Chancellor’s Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine, and Medical Director of Epidemiology and Infection Prevention at UCI Health. For 20+ years, Dr. Huang has researched healthcare-associated infections and multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), including strategies for containment. Dr. Huang has studied regional spread and prevention of MDROs and has led large-scale randomized clinical trials involving decolonization across the continuum-of-care. Dr. Huang has over 200 publications and has served as past member of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), the CDC Antibiotic Resistance Working Group, and the IDSA Antibiotic Resistance Committee.

Dr. Yew-Fong (Pamela) LEE is a distinguished healthcare professional with an impressive academic background, including a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with a Global Health focus from Geneva University (2020) and a Public Health Certificate from the Swiss Schools of Public Health. Her expertise extends to a Master of Health Management from the University of New South Wales, Sydney (2014), and an M.B.B.S from Manipal Academy of Higher Education (2007). Currently, Dr. LEE holds diverse roles, including Deputy Hospital Director (Medical) at Sarawak General Hospital, MoH Malaysia, an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School and Medical and Life Sciences, Sunway University (Malaysia), and involvement in the World Health Organization’s hand hygiene and Infection Prevention and Control Research Technical Advisory Group. She plays a pivotal role in patient safety, infection control, and public health initiatives. Dr. LEE’s extensive engagement in various organizations and committees demonstrates her commitment to healthcare improvement, including work with the Malaysian Red Crescent Society, Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), and the development of patient safety curricula. She has a profound impact on hospital management, disaster preparedness, and quality improvement through research and education.

Dr Mark Loeb is a Professor in the Departments of Pathology of Molecular Medicine and Health Research, Evidence, and Impact (formerly Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics) at McMaster University. Dr. Loeb holds the Canada Research Chair in Infectious Diseases and is Co-Director of the McMaster WHO Collaborating Centre on Infectious Diseases, Research Methods and Recommendations. He has 412 peer-reviewed publications, recognitions have included the Gold Medal in Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada for research, the Jonas Salk award from the March of Dimes for research contributions, and Fellowships in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada.

Dr. Leonard Mermel is Professor of Medicine, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Adjunct Clinical Professor, University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy, Medical Director of the Department of Epidemiology & Infection Prevention, Lifespan Hospital System. He was 2005 Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) President, past recipient of the SHEA Young Investigator Award, Mentor Scholar Award, and Senior Scholarship Award. He has co-authored US guidelines on prevention and management of intravascular catheter infections, as well as over 400 articles, textbook chapters, and abstracts dealing with infection control and infectious diseases.

Dr. Moore led the Global Research on AntiMicrobial resistance (GRAM) project based in the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford. Partnered with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Tropical Medicine, they analysed global data to estimate the global burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Dr Moore is a member of the World Health Organization Advisory Group on Critically Important Antimicrobials (AG CIA) for Human Medicine and is a mentor for Fleming Fund Fellows in Eswatini. Dr. Moore works on studies to improve the use of interventions including antibiotic and diagnostic stewardship in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to reduce the unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics. Now based at St George’s, University of London she is a co-lead on the AMR Data to Inform Country Antibiotic Guidance and Local Action (ADILA) project.

Eli Perencevich, MD MS is an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist who for 25 years has studied methods to prevent the spread of pathogens in healthcare settings. Previously, he was the hospital epidemiologist the University of Maryland Medical Center. For the past 12 years, he has been Director of the Center for Access and Delivery Research and Evaluation (CADRE) at the Iowa City VA and University of Iowa.

Dr Laure Pittet completed her Medical School (2011) and Paediatrics residency (2017) at the University Hospitals of Geneva and Faculty of Medicine, Switzerland, in parallel of a MD-PhD (2018) on the topic of “Vaccination of immunocompromised individuals”, and a MD (2017) on the bacteria Bordetella holmesii. Her interest in paediatric infectious diseases and vaccinology motivated a 3-years fellowship in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne (Australia) and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (Melbourne, Australia) focussing her research on off-target effects of vaccines. She came back to the University Hospitals of Geneva in 2021 as a Clinical Scientist, and continues to focus on clinical research projects in vaccinology and paediatric infectious diseases.

ß-lactams, polymyxins, and quinolones in Gram-negative rods, either in human and veterinary medicine. He is specialized on the genetics of acquisition of antibiotic (ß-lactams, quinolones, polymyxins) resistance genes in Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii. He is the author of more than 600 publications in international journals, his Google Scholar H-index being 143.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and Associate Editor of two highly-ranked journals, i.e. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.
He has co-invented a series of rapid diagnostic tests for detection of emerging resistance traits, including the Carba NP test. In addition, he is co-inventor of a series of 15 patents mainly corresponding to rapid diagnostic tests or antibiotic selective media.

Professor Klara M. Posfay-Barbe is a pediatrician and an infectious diseases specialist, Chair of the Division of General Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Geneva. She is also the Deputy Medical Director of the University Hospitals of Geneva, a 2000-beds institution. She is the Director of the Clinical Research Platform in Pediatrics and is the past President of SwissPedNet, the network of all pediatric clinical research centers of Switzerland.
She is an active member of the International Pediatric Transplant Association (IPTA), its infectious diseases group, and of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Group of Switzerland (PIGS). She is interested in infections in immunocompromised host, including nosocomial infections.

Elda Righi is an Infectious Diseases physician currently working as associate professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Department of Diagnostics and Public Health and Infectious Diseases Center for Translational Research (ID-Care) at Verona University, Italy. Dr Righi serves for the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Ethics Advisory Committee and is involved in research and educational activities related to Infectious Diseases Ethics (IDE) and its applications to research and clinical guidelines. Her main interests include the study of multidrug-resistant bacteria in the nosocomial setting and the management of infections in immunocompromised hosts

Jesús Rodríguez-Baño, MD PhD FESMID, is head of Infectious Diseases division at Virgen Macarena University Hospital; Professor of Medicine at the University of Seville / Biomedicine Institute of Sevilla (IBiS), in Seville, Spain; co-coordinator of the Antimicrobial Resistance programme at CIBERINFEC, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. Past-President of ESCMID and associate editor of Clinical Microbiology and Infection. He is author of more than 400 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and principal investigator of several national and international research projects. His main areas of interest are control and treatment of antimicrobial resistant bacteria, antimicrobial stewardship, healthcare-associated infections and bloodstream infections.

Dr. Rubin is a Tenured Professor and Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He is also the Section Chief of Epidemiology at the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, where he is Associate Director of the VA Salt Lake Informatics, Decision-Enhancement, and Analytic Sciences (IDEAS) Center of Innovation and recently established a new VA Advanced Fellowship in Health Services Research. His research interests are in health services research and implementation science, particularly as these relate to topics in infectious diseases and infection prevention, and has led research teams on numerous projects focusing on preventable healthcare-associated infections.

Prof Dr med Hugo Sax has over 20 years of experience in Infectious Diseases and Infection Prevention and Control. He is currently a Senior Researcher at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Switzerland, and founder and owner of www.saxhealthdesign.com. His research interests focus on human factors and systems thinking in healthcare – using epidemiology, qualitative research, data science, and innovation. The user-centered ‘My five moments for hand hygiene’ concept he co-created became a global standard. He published over 100 original papers on many aspects of infection prevention (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1532-2198) and teaches at the University of Zurich and ETH Zürich.

Mitchell J. Schwaber, MD, MSc, is Professor of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and director of the National Center for Infection Control of the Israel Ministry of Health. His primary professional focus is the study and prevention of healthcare-associated infection and antimicrobial resistance at the national level.
In addition, he practices internal and infectious diseases medicine at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Maccabi Healthcare Services, and is a reserve officer in the Medical Corps of the Israel Defense Forces.
He serves in an advisory capacity on several World Health Organization (WHO) committees, chairs the WHO Infection Prevention and Control COVID-19 Guidance Development Group and co-chairs the WHO Hand Hygiene Technical Advisory Group.

Dr. Shenoy is Medical Director for Infection Control for Mass General Brigham healthcare system, a large integrated healthcare system. In this role, she is responsible for the development and implementation of infection control strategies, policies, and measurement across the Mass General Brigham system. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Infectious Diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Shenoy serves as Medical Director of the Regional Emerging Special Pathogens Treatment Center at MGH, one of thirteen federally-funded centers with expertise in preparedness and response for emerging pathogens.

Dr. Robert Sherertz is an adult infectious diseases physician, who ran medical school hospital infection control programs for 30 years. Pertinent to his recently published book, COVID Chaos, What Happened and Why, Dr. Sherertz did 30 years of research focused on the pathogenesis of hospital acquired infections, mainly S.aureus, and how nasal carriers of S.aureus can become “superspreaders”. COVID Chaos was written in real time, beginning in March 2020, by Dr. Sherertz and his co-author and longtime friend and colleague, Dr. Jon Abramson, a pediatric infectious diseases physician and 15 year chairperson of multiple WHO immunization committees.

Rami Sommerstein is an Infectious Diseases and Healthcare Epidemiolgy specialist working in Lucerne, Central Switerzland. He is affiliated with the Universities of Berne and Lucerne. His research focus are SSI prevention and surveillance of HAIs.

Dr. Srinivasan is the Deputy Director for Program Improvement in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a Captain in the United States Public Health Service. He is board certified in Infectious Diseases. Before coming to CDC he was as Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Infectious Diseases Division at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he was the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Antibiotic Management Program and the associate hospital epidemiologist. His primary responsibilities include oversight and coordination of efforts to eliminate healthcare associated infections and reduce antibiotic resistance. His research and investigative areas of concentration have included outbreak investigations, infection control, multi-drug resistant gram negative pathogens and now focus on hospital antibiotic stewardship. Dr. Srinivasan has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals on his research in healthcare epidemiology, infection control and antimicrobial use and resistance.

Mélanie Suppan is a certified anesthesiologist since 2017. She also completed full trainings in internal medicine, prehospital emergency medicine and intensive care. Additionally, she always had a strong interest in informatics which led her to undertake Master studies in Medical Informatics. Her interest lies in how technology can be used to improve medical teaching and medical practice in general. During the COVID-19 pandemic all her skills were used and merged to develop digital tools aiming to improve IPC practices in different populations.

Dr. Ermira Tartari is a lecturer and researcher of Infection Prevention and Control at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta, Malta. She holds a PhD in Global Health from the University of Geneva. She is an IPC consultant in the Infection Prevention and Control Hub and Task Force at the WHO, Geneva, Switzerland. Ermira is a European Committee on Infection Control (EUCIC) advisory board member. She is passionate about all aspects of evidence-based infection prevention to advance the science in IPC and ensure patient safety and quality of healthcare services.

Jean-Francois Timsit is Head of the Medical and infectious diseases intensive care unit of the university hospital Bichat in Paris. He is Full Professor of intensive care medicine of the University of Paris, France. Dr Timsit studied at the university of Paris, He had a Science thesis in epidemiology and healthcare evaluation and is capability of directing research thesis at the university Paris-Cité. He is the group leader of the infectious diseases in critical care in the research unit U1137 (IAME) in Paris-Cité University. He leads the critical care teaching of the Parisian area.

Dr Timsit is the past chair of the critical care section of the ECCMID (ESGCIP). He serves as editor and deputy editors for international journals. He is the author of 600 indexed papers (web of science H index 80) published in International peer-review journals on severe infectious diseases in critical care, antibiotic resistance, antibiotic therapy and design and conduct of prospective clinical researches. He is the president of the OUTCOME REA research network.
He is the président of the Central infection control comity for assistance publique hôpitaux de Paris (CLIN central APHP).

Sarah Tschudin Sutter (MD, MSc) is board-certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases and has a main research interest in the transmission of hospital-acquired infections and C. difficile infections. She conducted her medical training at the University Hospital of Basel, Switzerland and obtained her Master’s of Science degree in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology as well as a certificate in Healthcare Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She holds a full Professorship for Epidemiology in Infectious Diseases at the University of Basel, is Head of Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology and Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases & Hospital Epidemiology ad interim at the University Hospital Basel, Switzerland.

Amelia was the first female Minister for Health for the Kingdom of Tonga from 2019 to December 2021 and led Tonga’s response to both the measles outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic up to December 2021, without deaths for both during her time in leadership.
Before that she was the national Chief Nursing Officer. Amelia’s PhD work informed the development of the Tonga National Professional Standards for the Registered Nurse and is mandated within the Act 2021. Amelia was decorated with the Knight Grand Cross: Royal Order of the Crown of the Kingdom of Tonga by His Majesty King Tupou VI in 2021.
Amelia was a member of the WHO Executive Board (EB) and WHO EB Rapporteur in 2020.
Amelia is committed to supporting the globe’s largest health care professionals─nurses and midwives to transform health systems to promote health and well-being and serve the vulnerable.

Dr. Maaike van Mourik is a clinical microbiologist and researcher on the topic of automated surveillance of healthcare-associated infections. In the past years her research has focused on developing methods for surveillance of healthcare-associated infections with special attention on delivering knowledge needed for successful implementation.
She was the project leader for implementation of semi-automated surveillance of surgical site infections and central-line associated bloodstream infections in the UMC Utrecht and she is the initiator and coordinator of the JPIAMR-funded PRAISE network (Providing a Roadmap for Automated Infection Surveillance in Europe). She currently undertakes projects aimed at developing improved methods for automated surveillance and improving knowledge of automated surveillance in the IPC community.

Dr Vandenbroucke-Grauls is professor of Epidemiology & Surveillance of Infectious Diseases at Aarhus University (Aarhus), Denmark, and emeritus professor of Medical Microbiology at the VU University (Amsterdam), The Netherlands.
Since January 2017 she is Editor-in-Chief of Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control.

She holds an MD from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and a PhD from the Utrecht University (Utrecht, The Netherlands), and a degree in Epidemiology (PhD equivalent) from the Dutch Society for Epidemiology. She is Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), Fellow of the European Society of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and Member of the Academia Europaea.

Professor Vandenbroucke-Grauls was head of Department of Medical Microbiology & Infection Control at the VU University Medical Center from 1995 until 2017. For over ten years she served as chair of the Dutch Working Party on Infection Control. She also served in several professional boards and national and international scientific committees. Her main work interest is in infection control and antimicrobial resistant pathogens (MRSA and ESBL- and carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae in particular).

Andreas Widmer, MD,MS,FIDSA,FSHEA is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases, trained mainly in Switzerland. We earned a master’s degree in hospital epidemiology at the university of Iowa, USA. He was head of hospital epidemiology at the university hospital in Basel for two decades. He served as associated editor for infection control & hospital epidemiology, as advisor for clinical infectious diseases and many other journals. He was founding member of the National Center for Infection Prevention (www.swissnoso.ch) together with Didier Pittet and Patrick Francioli. He still acts as president of this association, supporting the Federal office of public health for guidelines for acute care hospitals. He is responsible for development of C.difficile surveillance in Switzerland, as co-leader for surveillance of ventilator associated pneumonia. In addition, he wrote the chapter on guideline for surgical hand hygiene for WHO, and was expert for developing WHO guidelines on prevention of surgical site infections. He also acts as executive board member in “roundtable antibiotics” to facilitate development of new antibiotics. He has published more than 430 peer-reviewed papers

After the study in mathematics and a PhD in epidemiology, Martin Wolkewitz worked from 2005 as a medical statistician at the Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics – University of Freiburg, Germany. Since 2015, he is an Associated Professor of Medical Statistics at the Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center – Freiburg, Germany. He is mainly interested in modelling and complex analyses of clinical data regarding hospital-acquired infections and public health data regarding COVID-19. In particular, he is interested in time-to-event analyses, study designs, causal inference and bias research. In 2018, he spent 6 months for an overseas research visit as a visiting professor at the McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Since 2017, he is the Lead of the division “Methods of Clinical Epidemiology” (www.uniklinik-freiburg.de/imbi/miclep.html).

Deborah Yokoe, M.D., M.P.H. is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Medical Director for Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Prevention at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF). She is the 2023 Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) President. She has previously served as the co-chair of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory committee (HICPAC) which provides input to the CDC on infection prevention issues. She also continues to co-lead the work led by SHEA in partnership with the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, The Joint Commission, and the American Hospital Association to create and update the set of guidance documents known as “A Compendium of Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute Care Facilities”.