THET

Trustees

THET Trustees

Professor Sir Andy Haines – Chairman
Andy Haines is Professor of Public Health and Primary Care at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He was the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine from January 2001 to September 2010. In that role he was responsible for the management of over 1000 staff and 3700 postgraduate students.  He was previously Professor of Primary Health Care and Head of the Department of Primary Care and Population Sciences, at Royal Free and University College Medical School, and worked part-time as a general practitioner in North London for many years.  Before that he was a consultant in epidemiology at the MRC Epidemiology and Medical Care Unit. He was also formerly Director of Research & Development at the NHS Executive, North Thames and a member of the Council of the Medical Research Council.

He has worked internationally, including in Nepal and the USA.  His clinical training included a senior house officer position at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. His research interests are in health services research and epidemiology.  He has around 250 publications on these topic areas including many in high impact journals. In particular, he has undertaken a number of major intervention trials in primary care settings and has also studied the impacts of climatic influences on health.  He was a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their second and third assessment reports.  He also chaired a Task Force on Health Systems Research for WHO which reported in 2005.  He sits on many national and international committees including, until recently, the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research. He is a member of the UUK Board and formerly chair of its Health and Social Care Policy Committee as well as chair of the MRC Global Health Group and member of the MRC Strategy Board.  He was knighted in the 2005 New Years Honours list for services to medicine.

Professor Sir Eldryd Parry, OBE
Eldryd@thet.org +44 (0) 207 290 3887

Eldryd Parry studied medicine at Cambridge and Cardiff and was seconded from 1960 to 1963 to University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. In January 1966 he returned to Africa at Haile Sellassie I University, Addis Ababa, and left in 1969 to take the Chair of Medicine at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. He moved in 1977 to the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, as the Foundation Dean of Medicine, where, with Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe, he introduced a radical community based programme, COBES. In 1980 he went to Ghana for five years as Dean and Professor of Medicine at the now Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. In all these posts he was engaged in clinical work, teaching and research.

He is senior editor of Principles of Medicine in Africa (RSM1st Prize 2004; BMA 1st Prize 2005) and has published many papers on tropical cardiovascular and infectious disease. He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Cardiff and of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he is also an Honorary Professor; an honorary Foundation Fellow at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ghana, and a Foundation Member of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery of Amoud University, Somaliland. In 1988 he founded THET; he stepped down as Chair in January 2007. In 2007, Professor Parry was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Royal Society of Medicine for achievement in tropical medicine, and was made an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This year, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He was awarded the OBE in 1982.

Mr Andy Leather

A Consultant Surgeon at King’s College Hospital since 1996, he has held various positions in the hospital including Surgical Tutor, Deputy Director of Postgraduate Medical Education, Lead Clinician for General Surgery and Clinical Director for Surgery. He has worked with THET for 11 years, started the King’s THET Somaliland Partnership (KTSP) in 2000 and remains the UK KTSP Lead. Andy Leather founded the International Development Unit at King’s in 2006.

Maura Buchanan

Maura Buchanan is currently employed as a Senior Nurse/Nursing Quality Projects Lead within the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust and previously held the position as Nursing and Quality Manager for their acute Private Patient Services.  Maura’s clinical speciality is Neurosurgery and she has practiced in this field in Glasgow, London and Oxford. Maura began her nursing career in her mid 30s, graduating with a BA, RGN from Glasgow Caledonia University.  This was followed by a two year appointment working as a Research Assistant at Glasgow University.

She is the immediate past President of the Royal College of Nursing, an elected position she held from 2006 to 2010.  Maura also served as Deputy President between 2002 and 2006 and as Chair of the RCN Congress from 1998 to 2002. Her professional interests include Health Law and Ethics and Global Health.  She is also a Trustee and Board Member of Ethox, The Oxford Foundation for Ethics and Communication in Health Care Practice.

Dr Michael Pelly

Dr Michael Pelly is a physician at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital specialising in general and acute medicine. He is the Lead Clinician in stroke medicine and is a senior lecturer at Imperial College. Michael has a special interest in humanitarian action, particularly epidemic control and the management of crises and disasters affecting large populations. He has had extensive experience in famine relief in Africa and experience working in long term programme development in Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea. He is currently an external medical advisor to a TB/HIV programme for the International Federation of the Red Cross in the Former Soviet Union.

He has recently left his role as Associate director in the International Office (Global Health) at the Royal College of Physicians after a 5 year tenure and has since become a council member of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He is also the Vice-Chairman of the Royal Colleges International Forum.

Dr Colin Brown

Dr Colin Brown is currently undertaking an Academic Clinical Fellowship in Infectious Diseases & Microbiology at St Thomas’ Hospital. As part of this he is in the process of setting up a research partnership for his longstanding interest in TB and its interplay with HIV with colleagues at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Prior to this, he was a Fellow at the Royal Free Hospital, London, and has also gained clinical experience overseas in South Africa, New Zealand and India. For many years, Colin has worked with several internationally focused organisations in an advocacy role, beginning with the UK student group Medsin and the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations. He has since had post-qualification involvement with Alma Mata. He is the current lead on a draft proposal to develop professional postgraduate training in global health.

Colin also has a strong commitment to educational development, having sat for several years on the British Medical Association’s Medical Student Education Committee and the Junior Association for the Study of Medical Education’s National Executive.

Professor Parveen Kumar – CBE

Professor Parveen Kumar qualified in medicine at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, University of London in 1966. She has spent most of her life working in the NHS in North and East End of London at Bart’s, the Homerton and the Royal London Hospitals. Following qualifying, she trained as a gastroenterologist and did her research at Barts. Her major research interest and publications have been in small bowel disorders, particularly coeliac disease.

She was the academic sub-dean and later Director of Post-graduate medical education for Barts and the London, and started the first MSc course in gastroenterology in this country. She changed the face of medical publishing when she co-authored Kumar and Clark’s ‘Clinical Medicine’. She is a senior examiner for the MRCP, MBBS and other post-graduate degrees- both at home and abroad. She has held several offices at the Royal College of Physicians, including those of Director of Continuing Professional Development, Academic Vice- President and Senior Censor. She has served on the academic sub-committee of Modernising Medical careers.

Professor Kumar was awarded CBE for Services to Medicine in 2000 and was also the first Asian Woman of the Year (Professional) in 1999.

Jim Conybeare-Cross – Honorary Treasurer

Jim Conybeare-Cross graduated from Durham University where he read English, Economics and Philosophy and then qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1987. Since then Jim has worked as Finance Director for multinational companies including D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (advertising), Jones Lang LaSalle (real estate consultants) and Reed Elsevier (publishing).

For 11 years Jim lived in Hong Kong and Singapore and worked and travelled extensively around Asia Pacific, returning to London in 2006 to be Finance Director for Reed Elsevier’s medical publishing business (publishers of The Lancet, Gray’s Anatomy, Kumar & Clark’s Clinical Medicine) in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

David Cutler

Since 2003, David Cutler has been the Director of the Baring Foundation, one of the UK’s best known independent funders. Among other work, the Foundation  awards international development grants to work in Africa for displaced people and has a special initiative on the role of the African Diaspora in the development of Africa. David convenes the interest group of the Association of Charitable Foundations on international development. For four years he was a board member of Hammersmith and Fulham Primary Care Trust and is a Non- Executive Director  of Commission for the Compact which oversees the relationship between the voluntary sector and Government.

Julian Lob-Levyt

Dr. Lob-Levyt is the Senior Vice President International, Managing Director of DAI Europe and manages DAI’s London office and oversees the expansion of DAI’s portfolio with European clients. He also plays a leading role in the formulation and execution of DAI’s global mission to deliver results that improve lives in the developing world, overseeing DAI’s international offices. Prior to joining DAI in November 2010, Julian served as Chief Executive Officer of the Geneva, Switzerland-based GAVI Alliance, a public-private global health partnership created in 2000 to increase access to immunization for children in the world’s poorest countries. Since 2000, more than 256 million children were vaccinated and 5.4 million premature deaths averted thanks to GAVI-funded programs. Before joining GAVI in 2005, Julian served as Senior Policy Adviser to the UNAIDS Executive Director, and prior to that he served for five years with the U.K. Department for International Development, initially as Chief Health and Population Adviser and then as Chief Human Development Adviser (covering health, education, and social protection). Earlier in his career Julian taught and undertook research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Previous assignments include senior positions with the World Health Organization and the European Commission. Dr. Lob-Levyt has held long-term overseas postings in Zimbabwe, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and the Solomon Islands.