Meet The Advisory Board
Dr. Alejandro Molina-Garcia
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Dr. Alejandro Molina-Garcia was born in Morelia City, Michoacan State, Mexico. Medical Doctor with specialities in Environmental Health (National Institute of Public Health, 1987-1988, Mx) and Public Health (National Council of Public Health, 2001-2021, Mx). A master degree in Hospital Management (A regional private Institue, Mx) and a doctoral degree in Science’s Education (A local private University, Mx).
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Interested and researcher in environmental health effects since 1983 (Head-Chief of the Environmental Toxicology Project 1983-1986 in a National Institute in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mx).
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Worker in the Michoacan State Health Ministerian since 1991 until 2016 with administrative, surveillance, research and planning functions on public health. Mostly, the research activities were done here in infectious, pesticides, water and food pollutants.
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Academic activities (main and actually) in several local and regional public and private universities in topics related with public health (preventive medicine, medical sociology, ethics, epidemiology and surveillance, immunizations, environmental health and pollutants; Recently, in climate change and human health effects and the UN-2030 Agenda until now.
Dr. Nicole de Paula
Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies e.V. (IASS)
Founder Women Leaders for Planetary Health
(2019-2020) First Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow
Dr. Nicole de Paula is the inaugural Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany and Founder of the Women Leaders for Planetary Health. In 2020, Dr. Nicole de Paula has been appointed as one of the Scientific Commissioners of the Lancet Pathfinder Commission, chaired by former Prime Minister Helen Clark, Prof. Andy Haines and Joy Phumaphi. This Commission was launched at the UN “Race to Zero” Dialogues and supports progress towards a healthy, zero-carbon society with the support of influential partners, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network; C40-Cities; Wellcome Trust Foundation; OECD; and The Lancet. For more than a decade, she has been globally connecting policymakers and researchers to create a public understanding of key issues related to sustainability, the environment, and public health. Previously of her work in Germany, she was the executive director of a think-tank in Bangkok, Thailand, hosted by Mahidol University at the Faculty of Public Health focused on the operationalization of the One Health approach in Southeast Asia and Latin America. She is the co-founder of an interdisciplinary research group on Planetary Health at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Nicole de Paula holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Sciences Po Paris and has been consulting with several international organizations under the UN system on themes related to global health, climate change, biodiversity, chemicals, financial and urban affairs. In the past, she has also been the French Embassy fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. and a researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science as part of the Global Public Policy Network (GPPN). Since 2012, Dr. Nicole de Paula is also a team leader and writer for the reputable Earth Negotiations Bulletin, published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Her most recent research focuses on decision making and international cooperation in the post-Covid19 world, as well as digitalization and sustainability. In 2020, Dr. Nicole de Paula successfully concluded the executive course "Blockchain: Technologies and Applications for Business" at Berkeley Haas School of Business, University of California. She is currently the review editor for the journal Frontiers in Public Health (Planetary Health) and for the Brazilian Journal of International Politics. As a pioneer in the field named planetary health, she champions the socio-economic advancement of women through environmental conservation and public health policies to make the UN Sustainable Development Goals a reality by 2030.
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Finally, she is currently a member of the global committee preparing the global meeting of the Planetary Health Alliance, to be held in Brazil in April 2021. Originally from Brazil, she speaks Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish.
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Dr. Myriam Mrad Nakhlé
Assistant Professor, Chairperson
Public Health Department
Dr. Myriam Mrad Nakhlé is an environmental health expert (PhD of Epidemiology and Public Health /Sorbonne University Paris) (2014), Master of Environment and Hazards (University of Claude Bernard Lyon I) (2007), Dr. Myriam Mrad Nakhlé (MMN) was initially educated in Biology (Lebanese University)(2006). Between 2008 and 2016, she has been lecturer and researcher jointly at the Faculty of Sciences at Saint Joseph University and the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research in the field of the impact of air pollution on health. In addition, she has been a volunteer at arcenciel from 2007 till 2016, in charge of the research and development unit.
MMN joined the Faculty of Health Sciences at University of Balamand in January 2016 as an Assistant Professor between the Public Health and the Medical Laboratory Sciences Programs. She was appointed director of the Master of Public Health Program in January 2017. In January 2019, she was appointed chairperson of the Public Health Department.
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Ongoing studies led by MMN deal with the effects of ambient air pollution and indoor air pollution on respiratory, cardiovascular, and skin allergic diseases in urban settings, especially in Beirut, Lebanon (Beirut Air Pollution and Health Effects BAPHE Study and Health Effects of Lebanese Schools Indoor Environment HELSIE study); waste management in urban and rural settings; and healthcare waste management in Lebanon and several Arab countries in the region. Recently, MMN was granted a WHO fund to launch a birth cohort study (Environmental Exposures in Lebanese Infants EELI Project) to evaluate the environmental exposures in Lebanese infants in pre and post-natal phases. MMN is collaborating with several national and international institutions to evaluate the health effects of air pollution in Eastern Mediterranean cities. She is an active member in the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology ISEEP/ Eastern Mediterranean Chapter. In 2021, she represented the EMR chapter in the scientific committee of the ISEE Annual Conference. MMN is the author and co-author of several international peer-reviewed articles and other publications. She has given many lectures and presentations at various meetings and conferences.
Dr. Renzo Guinto
Public Health • Global Health • Planetary Health
Doctor of Public Health Class of 2019, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Dr. Renzo Guinto, MD DrPH is Associate Professor of the Practice of Global Public Health and Inaugural Director of the Planetary and Global Health Program of the St. Luke’s Medical Center College of Medicine in the Philippines. He is also Chief Planetary Doctor of PH Lab – a “glo-cal think-and-do tank” for advancing the health of both people and the planet.
An Obama Foundation Asia-Pacific Leader, Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow and Climate Reality Leader (under the initiative of former US Vice President Al Gore), Renzo is member of several national and international groups including: Lancet–Chatham House Commission on Improving Population Health post COVID-19 (University of Cambridge); Lancet One Health Commission (University of Oslo); Advisory Council of Global Health 50/50 (University College London); Advisory Board of Climate Cares (Imperial College London); Editorial Advisory Board of The Lancet Planetary Health; Forum on Climate Change and Health of the World Innovation Summit for Health (Qatar Foundation); and Board of Trustees of the Philippine Society of Public Health Physicians. He has served as consultant for various organizations including: World Health Organization; World Bank; USAID; International Organization for Migration; Health Care Without Harm; Philippine Department of Health; Chilean Ministry of Health; and Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium.
Renzo obtained his Doctor of Public Health from Harvard University and Doctor of Medicine from the University of the Philippines Manila, and received further training from the University of Oxford, University of Copenhagen, University of the Western Cape, and East-West Center in Hawaii. In 2020, he was included by Tatler Magazine in its Gen.T List of 400 leaders of tomorrow who are shaping Asia’s future. Previously, Renzo was named an Emerging Voice in Global Health by Health Systems Global; Emerging Leader by the World Heart Federation; and Raffles Fellow by the National University of Singapore. He has traveled to and lectured in nearly 50 countries; published more than 100 articles in scientific journals, books, and popular media; and directed and produced short films that communicate the message of planetary healing to the world.
Dr. Konstantino Makris
Water and Health Laboratory, Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health, School of Health Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology, Irinis 95, 3041, Limassol, Cyprus
Dr. Konstantinos C. Makris is an associate professor of environmental health in the Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health within the School of Health Sciences at the Cyprus University of Technology. He has held an appointment as adjunct assistant professor of environmental health at the Dept. of Environmental Health, Harvard University, USA (2009-2015). Dr. Makris leads the exposome-based water and health lab which aims to minimize the human health risk associated with chronic exposures to environmental stressors. Towards this goal, his team applies improved population health protocols, by conducting human studies in Cyprus, Greece, France, Kuwait, the Netherlands, and Norway. His laboratory is equipped with state-of-the art instrumentation valued at >0.5M euros to generate its own biomarker and metabolomics data. Since 2010, Prof. Makris has received > 1.5 million euros in external funding from the EU, the Cyprus RPF, the EU BBMRI-LPC Biobanking network, and the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences Center at Harvard University. He has produced over >110 peer-reviewed journal articles and >70 conference proceedings. He was one of the two investigators that conducted the cancer cluster investigation for the Astrasol brain cancer court case in Cyprus. Prof. Makris was invited by the Cyprus Parliament Senate Committee on Environment and Health to provide expert testimony about the environmental health consequences for the surrounding populations after the Mari tragedy/explosion and has also served as a member of the scientific advisory committee to the Ministry of Health concerning arsenic exposures in Cyprus. Prof. Makris has been invited by >20 universities and organizations in the USA/EU to deliver research talks, such as in Harvard University, Emory University, University of Alberta, University of Delaware, etc. and he has presided >15 symposia in international conferences.
Dr. Andres Garchitorena
Researcher at Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
Dr. Andres Garchitorena is a researcher at the French Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), with a particular interest in global health and planetary health. A veterinary doctor by training, he specialized in public health through a multidisciplinary background that included a master in public health (EHESP), a PhD in disease ecology (Montpellier University) and a postdoctoral fellowship in global health and social medicine (Harvard Medical School). He is currently based in Madagascar, working alongside Pasteur Institute in Antananarivo and the NGO PIVOT in Ifanadiana, where he is Associate Scientific Director. His research focuses on the impact that interactions between ecological and socio-economic factors have on the health of populations in developing countries, in order to find targeted and sustainable solutions. He has also extensive experience in operational research, conducting impact evaluations of complex health interventions such as universal health coverage, health systems strengthening, or community health.
Dr. Michele Legeas
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Dr. Michele Legeas