Member Login
E-mail: ISTM@ISTM.org
Office hours: Monday - Friday, 9.00 - 17.00 EDT (UTC-04)
Past Officers
Presidents
Herbert L. DuPont, United States of America, 1991 – 1993
Herbert DuPont currently serves as the Director, Center for Infectious Diseases and Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health and Chief, Internal Medicine Service at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. Additionally he is a professor at The Baylor College of Medicine H. Irving Schweppe, Jr., M.D., Chair in Internal Medicine and Vice Chairman, Department of Medicine; The Mary W. Kelsey Chair of Medical Sciences, The University of Texas-Houston Medical School; Professor of Medicine, Graduate Schools of Bio medical Sciences, The University of Texas and Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. DuPont also is Adjunct Professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and President of the Kelsey Research Foundation.
Dr. DuPont has been active and held positions in numerous organisations, including the American Clinical and Climatological Association, American Epidemiological Society, American Society for Clinical Investigation, American Academy of Microbiology, America College of Physicians, Association of American Physicians, Infectious Diseases Society of America, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, and the International Society of Travel Medicine. He has received many awards and honors.
Dr. DuPont has served on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and as Consultant to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Board of Scientific Counsellors, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); NIH Blue Ribbon Panel on Bioterrorism and its Implications for Biomedical Research; Medical Advisory Steering Committee of the City of Houston Medical Strike Team for Biological, Chemical and Nuclear Terrorism; and the Board of Advisors, Emory University School of Medicine, 2001-2009.
Dr. DuPont has lectured widely in the field of travel medicine, has authored or co-authored 615 medical and scientific publications, and edited or written 19 books. Reference 11 in CV was the first description of the biologic properties of Norwalk virus published in 1971 and reprinted in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in 2004 as a Centennial Classic; reference 12 describing the pathogenesis of Escherichia coli diarrhea was deemed a Science Citation Classic in 1985 as one of the 100 most cited articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice, Journal of Infectious Diseases, The Journal of Infection, and currently serves as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Travel Medicine.
Robert Steffen, Switzerland, 1993 – 1995
Robert Steffen, Emeritus Professor, is currently concentrating on research projects at the University of Zurich Centre for Travel Medicine, where until 2008 he was the Head of the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention of Communicable Diseases in the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine and Director of a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Traveller's Health. Further, he is Adjunct Professor in the Epidemiology and Disease Prevention Division of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, TX and Honorary Fellow of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine.
Dr. Steffen began systematically investigating illness and accidents in travellers in 1975. He organised the First International Conference on Travel Medicine in Zurich 1988 and became a co-founder and President of the International Society of Travel Medicine. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Travel Medicine and has published more than 350 papers, book chapters, monographs - mainly in the field of travel health. For 12 years each, Dr. Steffen presided over the Swiss Influenza Pandemic Planning Committee and the Expert Committee for Travel Medicine; he was Vice-President of the Federal Commission on Vaccination and of the Swiss Bioterrorism Committee.
Dr. Steffen has held a number of critical roles in ISTM since its inception. He has served as President-Elect, President and Past-President, as well as chairing the Exam and Liaison Committees.
Jay Keystone, Canada, 1995 – 1997
On September 3, 2019, the travel and tropical medicine world lost a charismatic teacher and outstanding clinician. Many of us first met Jay at the Zurich Conference in 1988 where he displayed to the fledgling travel medicine community his uncanny ability to teach with humor and practicality. Much later, he transformed these methods into a well-known and much loved lecture on “Teaching teachers how to teach.”
Jay practiced medicine, taught, and lived his life on his own terms. Broad smiles and rumbles of laughter were typical during his presentations. Even while ill, he continued to put enormous time and energy into crafting new material for his lectures. Bawdy cartoons and politically incorrect statements punctuated his discourse, and while the occasional listener may have felt insulted, one realized that beneath this visage was someone who deeply loved his fellow man, no matter who they were, or from where they came.
The scientific community will miss this great professional. Jay was a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and for many years, the Director of the Tropical Medicine Unit at the Toronto General Hospital. Well known to have made hospital rounds on roller blades, “The General” was always his second home. One could find large stuffed animals and other mementos in his office from his many travels and from grateful patients. Later, Jay became the Director of the Toronto Medisys Travel Health Clinic and continued to see patients until just a few weeks prior to his death. Loved by his patients and respected by his fellow clinicians, Jay was always available for consultations. Many know the literature, but Jay was one of those rare physicians who was able to expertly and compassionately combine the science with the art.
As President of the ISTM from 1995-1997, he strengthened it with foresight and wisdom. He consolidated what the founders had initiated. All who practice travel medicine know “The Keystone,” the textbook in which he has been senior editor for all 4 editions. For his scientific contributions, he was awarded the Ben Kean Medal by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and more recently was appointed to the Order of Canada. Earlier this year, Jay was awarded the Distinguished Fellow recognition of our Society. When he learned of the award, he gave a characteristic response, “What does it mean?....money, sex, fame?”
Above all, Jay was a family man. Some may recall his many lectures profiling his 5 children and their mother, Donna Keystone, referring to their escapades, and his desire to find them partners by tagging a phone number to their pictures. But the more recent highlight of his personal life occurred 10 years ago with his marriage to Margaret Keystone (nee Mascarenhas). Margaret, a native of Tanzania, and of Tanzanian and Goan background, made her way to Canada on her own in 1990. In 2008, while working, she and Jay met, finding both romance and friendship. There for support during Jay’s first bout with life threatening cancer requiring a bone marrow transplant, Margaret has been the strength that carried him forward. Together they shared the many joys of worldwide and armchair travel, as well as the intimacy of a private and loving home life.
Lastly, all those who had the opportunity to collaborate with Jay within the leadership of the Society, in its committees, meetings, updates, or elsewhere, know that we have lost not only an exceptional colleague and mentor, but also a dear friend, one whom we could turn to at any time for warmth, as well as invaluable and sound advice.
Phyllis Kozarsky and Robert Steffen
Michel Rey, France, 1997 – 1999
Information not available at this time.
Charles Ericsson, United States of America, 1999 – 2001
Dr. Ericsson graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1970. He did his medicine residency at the University of Minnesota Hospitals and served two years in the US Air Force. He did his fellowship in infectious diseases with Herbert L. DuPont at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, where he remained on the faculty to this day. Dr. Ericsson has heavy clinical infectious diseases consultative and teaching duties. He has received several awards for his teaching and is presently the Director of the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program at University of Texas Medical School at Houston. In addition, he is director of the University of Texas Travel Medicine Clinic. He is also currently involved in hospital infection control and antibiotic restriction programs. His research interests include travellers' diarrhea and travel medicine. He has journeyed each summer to Guadalajara Mexico to conduct clinical trials in travellers' diarrhea since 1975.
Dr. Ericsson is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is a member of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Dr. Ericsson is a manuscript reviewer for more than 10 journals; founding editor of the Journal of Travel Medicine; and past Editor of the Travel Medicine Section, Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2000-2009.
A member since the Atlanta meeting, Dr. Ericsson served on the ITSM Scientific Planning Committee for the ISTM meetings in Paris, France. He also was a member of the ISTM Long Range Planning, the Examinations and the Publications Committees and was the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Travel Medicine. Dr. Ericsson served as President of ISTM from 1999 through 2001.
Louis Loutan, Switzerland, 2001 – 2003
Louis Loutan, MD, MPH is the head of the Division of International and Humanitarian Medicine in the Department of Community Medicine and Primary Care at the Geneva University Hospitals in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also Associate Professor in International and Humanitarian Medicine at the University of Geneva. Dr. Loutan is a specialist in internal medicine and tropical medicine and has a Master's in Public Health.
Dr. Loutan spent five years in the Republic of Niger conducting clinical work, epidemiological surveys in nutrition and tropical medicine, and organising programs in community health for nomadic populations. He spent two years in the Department of Community Health at Tufts University School of Medicine (Boston) organising training courses in international health. He has conducted research projects on leishmaniasis, and the impact of snakebites in Nepal. Dr. Loutan has served as senior consultant in tropical medicine at the Geneva University Hospitals and as Medical Director of the HUG laboratory of parasitology. He also served as technical advisor and co-director of the consortium managing SDC funded projects, continuing medical education programs in family medicine, and the Family Medicine Implementation Project in Bosnia.
Dr. Loutan has been the head of the Geneva travel medicine clinic since 1989 and has conducted research in various aspects of travel medicine including immunogenicity and tolerance of hepatitis A and B vaccines, vaccine combinations, security, and humanitarian expatriates. Since 1991 he served as head of the Unit offering various services for migrant and refugee populations in Geneva (medical screening, prevention programs, clinical care, care for survivors of violence, and interpreter services), as well as conducting research and providing training in this field.
His appointments include president of the Swiss Society of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology; president of the International Society of Travel Medicine; former board member of the Federation of European Societies for Tropical Medicine and International Health; chair of the organising committee of the 5th international Conference on Travel Medicine (Geneva 1997); president of the HUG Committee of humanitarian and international cooperation activities; and president of the organizing committee of the Geneva Forum: towards Global Access to Health, Geneva in 2006 and 2008.
Bradley A. Connor, United States of America, 2003 – 2005
Bradley A. Connor, M.D. is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Attending Physician at the New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is founder and Medical Director of Travel Health Services, New York’s first private travel medicine clinic. Dr. Connor is also the director of the New York Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine, a facility devoted to teaching and research in travel and tropical medicine. Dr. Connor has been in the private practice of Gastroenterology and Tropical Medicine for the past 30 years.
His main research interests include chronic gastrointestinal disorders in returned travellers, emerging gastrointestinal pathogens, and enteric parasitic diseases. He was part of the Kathmandu, Nepal team that first described the clinical illness associated with Cyclospora infections and made subsequent contributions to the understanding of its pathogenesis, epidemiology, and treatment. Widely published in these fields, he is co-editor of the textbook Travel Medicine, now in its 3rd edition.
Dr. Connor was the Co-Chair of the ISTM Foundation and CDC sponsored Travellers’ Diarrhea Consensus Conference, held in April 2016. New guidelines for the diagnosis and management of Travellers’ Diarrhea were developed during this conference and the proceedings will be published in early 2017.
This was the first international Consensus Conference on this subject in over a decade and was prompted by the availability of new culture independent diagnostics such as Film Array and the growing awareness of the potential for acquisition of multi drug resistant bacteria as a result of travel and the use of antibiotics. Dr. Connor has been the author of the sections on Travellers’ Diarrhea and Persistent Diarrhea in the CDC Health Information for International Travel "Yellow Book" for the past six years. In his clinical practice Dr. Connor was an early adopter of the BioFire FilmArray GI panel, the first physician in private practice in New York to utilize this new diagnostic technology as early as April 2014 and has now accumulated over two and a half years’ worth of data on diarrhea in returned travellers as well as community acquired cases.
Dr. Connor is Past President of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) an organisation of over 3000 physicians and allied health professionals in over 75 countries. He is a consultant to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and has been part of the Health Information for International Travel working group in the Division of Global Migration since 1997. He is the New York City site director for GeoSentinel®, the emerging infectious diseases network of the CDC and ISTM. Dr. Connor was a member of the task force on Travel Medicine at the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2003. Dr. Connor has served as a consultant to the White House Medical Unit in the Clinton and Bush administrations and is an advisor in Travel Medicine for the U.S. Olympic Swim Team.
Dr. Connor received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He completed both his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center Hospitals in San Antonio and his fellowship in gastroenterology at the New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical College.
Dr. Connor is a Fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA-F), Fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America (FIDSA) and was awarded Fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow) FFTM, FRCPS.
Prativa Pandey, Nepal, 2005 – 2007
Dr. Prativa Pandey is currently the medical director of the CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Center located in Kathmandu, Nepal and has been since 1998. CIWEC Clinic is one of the busiest travel clinics situated in a destination country and receives patients from over 75 different countries in any given year. Dr. Pandey was elected President of the International Society of Travel Medicine in 2005 and served as President till 2007. The society underwent robust membership and financial growth during her tenure as President and she served as Chair of the conference organizing committee for the Vancouver conference held in 2007.
Having been a graduate of medical college in New Delhi, India, she obtained her post graduate training in Internal Medicine from Boston, Massachusetts and was Board certified in that specialty. She returned to her home country after practicing medicine in the USA for 13 years to join Dr. David Shlim at the CIWEC Clinic in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1993. Under her leadership, the clinic got its own custom designed building and is now able to provide expanded services to travellers including inpatient care. In her practice, she combines the keen scientific knowledge she gained in the west with the compassionate caring attitude she grew up with in the east to provide the best care travellers can receive away from home. CIWEC Clinic has served as a wonderful laboratory to study illnesses in travellers and research conducted here has helped define health risk for travellers to Nepal. Dr. Pandey has been an active participant of ISTM's GeoSentinel® network.
Dr. Pandey has served on the Executive Board of Society of Internal Medicine of Nepal and was the founding president of America Nepal Medical Foundation Nepal chapter. She is currently Chairperson of the Open Learning Exchange Nepal that assists school children with computerized learning and very much enjoys being part of this project. She served as a volunteer physician for 3 months at the Himalayan Rescue Association's clinic at 14000ft near Everest Base Camp and has been on the medical advisory board of this association. She has traveled extensively but enjoys trekking in Nepal the most.
Frank von Sonnenburg, Germany, 2007 – 2009
We are saddened by the death of Frank von Sonnenburg, MD, MPH, PhD, on August 21, 2020, after a relatively brief struggle with a brain cancer. Frank’s passing marks the loss of a loyal and longstanding ISTM leader and friend.
Frank was a Professor in Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. He had worked extensively in developing countries on a variety of infectious diseases projects, in public health at the WHO and elsewhere, and on vaccine clinical trials. Among many activities at ISTM, Frank served as CISTM7 Chair in Innsbruck, Austria in 2001, Secretary-Treasurer from 1997-2005, President from 2007-2009, and GeoSentinel Munich Site Director since 1995.
Frank led our Society in major achievements. He contributed greatly to organizing CISTMs in Europe that were not only scientific successes, but also convivial get-togethers and with his exceptional flair for numbers they provided a foundation for the financial success of the Society. He had a vision of a global Society in which peers from industrialized countries around the world would bring together colleagues from lower resource settings to develop travel medicine and travel health in their home countries.
Hans Nothdurft, medical school classmate and life-long good friend of Frank, remarked that Frank mellowed from his early-career radical viewpoints about health care, but continued to dedicate the focus of his work to vaccination as a crucial component of good health for all. Frank was a sincere and inspiring colleague.
Frank was also down-to-earth and keenly supported junior colleagues. As a fledgling travel medicine provider, Lin Chen had written to Frank to learn about Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato in Europe. Although they had never met, Frank answered promptly and expertly with pertinent and valuable knowledge. In GeoSentinel, he constantly pushed for distributing reimbursements to his whole team and for different members on his team to co-author papers. Frank’s assertive but never arrogant nature, his willingness to respond to curiosity, and his support for junior colleagues have led to decades of fond memories for all who knew him.
Frank was a founding site director of GeoSentinel, making Munich one of the first sites outside North America, and from the start one of the largest and most diverse contributors to the network. Frank worked tirelessly from the beginning to update data collection, moving from using fax machines to web-based data entry. Frank later made a tremendous personal effort to more effectively integrate Munich’s huge and complex clinical operation with the Network. As a rare clinician with strong programming skills, he pioneered the use of electronic medical record templates to auto-populate the GeoSentinel database from the invaluable trove of clinical information gathered at his site – a task the rest of us still only dream about accomplishing one day. As co-members of the Data Quality Working Group since its inception, Michael Libman remembers with fondness innumerable days, meetings, meals, and wine-infused evenings dissecting, arguing, and laughing (sometimes quite hysterically) over data conundrums which always spilled over into stories and contemplation of work and life in general. Frank’s extensive clinical knowledge was essential in designing and improving the quality of our entire database. Michael notes that his devotion to GeoSentinel meant that his proposals and opinions were profuse, but always constructive and relevant, delivered with conviction and enthusiasm, and although we all debated a great deal, the result was always for the benefit of our projects.
All of us who spent time with Frank quickly realized that he had that rare balance between being opinionated, devoted, compassionate, and fun – a balance which pushed us all forward, while always enjoying the work and our time together. His joie-de-vivre was manifested by the extraordinary opening parties he organized at Innsbruck in 2001 and Budapest in 2009, which live on in ISTM lore. His compassion is recalled by David Freedman whose son was hospitalized in Munich a few years ago during a summer internship; Frank’s first words when David phoned him on a Sunday were, “don’t worry, I’m going to the hospital right now to check on things”. Frank exemplified what being part of the ISTM family means.
On behalf of ISTM leaders, we send our deepest sympathies to Frank’s wife Angelika and their sons. We remember warmly a passionate man, and with his heart always in the right place despite a few rough edges which were the evidence of his commitment. A man who greatly influenced travel medicine, GeoSentinel and global health. We will miss his expansive persona, his invaluable ideas, his drive and vision for ISTM and GeoSentinel, and the ever-present twinkle in his eyes!
In memory of Frank, you may wish to consider a donation to the ISTM Foundation.
Sincerely,
Lin Chen, ISTM President, with contributions from:
Phyllis Kozarsky, ISTM Co-Founder
Hans Nothdurft, Past ISTM Website Editor and CISTM Organizer
Davidson Hamer and Michael Libman, GeoSentinel Co-Principal Investigators
David Freedman, Past ISTM Secretary-Treasurer 2005-2013, and GeoSentinel PI 1995-2014 Annelies Wilder-Smith, Past ISTM President, JTM Editor-in-Chief
Robert Steffen, ISTM Co-Founder and ISTM Foundation President
Alan J. Magill, United States of America, 2009 – 2011
One of Alan Magill's close friends, a doctor whom he had known since medical school, called me on Saturday, September 19th, to tell me that Alan had died that morning. He said that Alan had gone to a gym with his daughter to work out, and when they were driving home, a few blocks from their house, Alan suddenly pulled the car over to the curb, set the parking brake, and collapsed onto the steering wheel. His daughter, a recent college graduate, had the presence of mind—she was a Magill—to call 911, then pull Alan out of the car onto the street and start cardiopulmonary resuscitation. By chance, the first car to come upon the scene was driven by a doctor, who stopped to help. However, Alan never regained a cardiac rhythm.
I like to think about Alan in his last few seconds, suddenly aware that something was terribly wrong, but only thinking about his daughter's safety, steering the car skillfully to a stop—and setting the parking brake—before he lost consciousness. This seems so typical of Alan Magill—his presence of mind, coming up with a plan, and thinking only of others.
I first met Alan in 1994, when I invited him to speak at a Medicine for Adventure Travel conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I didn't know him, and hadn't heard him speak, so I was nervous about putting him on the program, but he was well recommended by a friend of mine who knew him well. It always seemed so ironic, in retrospect, to have been hesitant to put Alan Magill on a program. He proved to be the clearest, warmest, most insightful speaker that one could hope to see. This was Alan's first foray into travel medicine, as he was a researcher for the U.S. army at the time, working in malaria and leischmaniasis.
Alan was an avid outdoors person, who raced bicycles in Europe while he was stationed there in the 1980s, skied for a U.S. army ski team, and climbed mountains, including ascents of Denali in Alaska, and a first ascent of a mountain in Tibet. He and his family often did long backpacking trips. He loved coming to Jackson Hole, and we went rock climbing together and road biking each time he came. When he was considering retiring from the army, he and his wife, Janiine, seriously looked into moving to Jackson Hole. Instead, Alan ended up taking a job at the Gates Foundation, as the head of their malaria eradication program. When he took that job, he had to choose between accepting a position as the head of infectious diseases at a major university, or the less certain path of working for a foundation. I urged him to go to the Gates Foundation where the potential for leaving a lasting legacy, befitting his great talents and potential, could be more easily realized.
Unlike a number of army researchers that I have worked with, Alan was active duty in the military, and was deployed to war zones in emergencies. I remember his vivid description to me of the massive array of invading forces that streamed across the desert from Kuwait into Iraq—which evoked Star Wars movies in his mind—when the U.S. invaded that country in 2003. Alan was there to counteract potential biologic warfare weapons that it was feared that the Iraqis might deploy.
In the wake of Alan's untimely death—he was only sixty-one years old—I've never seen an outpouring of such universally admiring praise, not just for his research ability, but for every aspect of his life and personality. Those who worked with him are in awe of his leadership ability, which will remain legendary: he quietly could steer any organization in the right direction, and inspire everyone with the attitude that problems can be solved. At meetings he was often the last to speak, and when he did he summed up the often contentious discussion with an insight that steered everyone in the right direction. Everything that I know about running meetings and trying to provide leadership I learned from Alan Magill.
Alan became the president of ISTM in 2009. He oversaw a difficult and somewhat painful change as the ISTM transitioned from operating out of an employee's home, to hiring an executive director and creating a designated ISTM office in Atlanta. Whom to hire, where to put the office (on which continent), and many other aspects were contentious from the beginning. Under Alan's watch, all of these problems got solved, one by one, and he never shied away from the difficult decision or the difficult phone call.
However, what I will remember most about Alan were his intellectual abilities. Unlike anyone else I knew, Alan would look at what we knew about travel or tropical medicine and ask how it was that we came to know that. He was not content to repeat what had been published in a textbook or journal. For example, Alan decided to look into how we treated P vivax malaria. It turned out that there were no studies to support the dosage and efficacy of primaquine; the duration of treatment had been based on the duration of the boat trip home from the Pacific at the end of World War II. Alan performed this historical evaluation on many different diseases, and it would be a fitting legacy to him if we could all remember to ask ourselves, “How do we know that this is true?” His example led me to discover that the entire calculation of the risk of hepatitis B in travelers was based on one study in missionaries to Africa in the 1950's.
Alan was devoted to his family above all, and they carried out many adventurous trips together. His wife, Janiine, was also in the U.S. army. Trained as a pediatrician, she supervised clinical trials for much of her career, then when they moved to Seattle, joined the Children's Hospital of the University of Washington as a pediatric oncologist. Alan's daughters are both college graduates, and pursuing careers that help other people. They were energetic children, and one time at a party at my house in Jackson Hole, someone came in to say that there were two young girls running around outside with burning sticks. Without even looking up, Alan said, “Those would be mine.”
I can't think of anyone else in my life who was so universally loved and admired. Alan never said anything bad about anyone, a trait that we could all learn from. He never tried to avoid the difficult decision or task. When he took on the challenge of trying to eliminate malaria from the world, one automatically assumed that if anyone could design such a program, it would be Alan. Sadly, I think it is genuinely true that the time frame for eliminating malaria in the world will probably be set back by the loss of his leadership and vision. He enthusiastically embraced the mission statement that I created for my presidency of ISTM, in that “the ideal form of travel medicine would be the kind that makes it unnecessary.” If there's no malaria in the world, there's no need to discuss malaria prophylaxis.
Alan treated everyone in his life the same way, with kindness and directness, whether they were patients, colleagues in other countries, friends, or family. There was never a dumb question around Alan. Everyone counted Alan as a friend, and as a resource for any difficult tropical medicine question. As the editor of Hunter's Tropical Medicine, Alan's knowledge of tropical medicine became even more encyclopedic. I called him last year to ask him about a patient who had been in Panama and had three weeks of fatigue, minor respiratory symptoms, and a fever every night at 7:00 p.m. He didn't readily know what he had, but he said, “You know, histoplasmosis was discovered in Panama. Has he been in a cave?” I went back to the patient and asked him, and he said that he had spent an hour exploring a cave looking for exotic insects. Histoplasmosis proved to be the diagnosis.
I want to share what Jay Keystone, another former president of ISTM, wrote to me upon hearing of Alan's death. Jay has recently been awarded the Order of Canada for his lifetime work in travel and tropical medicine, yet he credits Alan as being one of his greatest teachers: Alan was a brilliant teacher, the best that I have ever had the pleasure to learn from. He had the ability to simplify difficult concepts and to present them in a way that was both understandable and memorable. He will be missed, but his legacy as an outstanding educator, leader and caring human being will remain far beyond his too short life.
For all of us in travel or tropical medicine, we need to carry Alan's legacy forward as much as we can, remembering to treat everyone with kindness, to question what we know, to look things up, and to teach others when we can. I can't imagine anyone in medicine who was a more inspiring teacher and friend than Alan Magill.
David R Shlim MD
Fiona Genasi, United Kingdom, 2011 – 2013
Fiona is Nurse Consultant in Travel Health Medicine, responsible for national travel medicine programmes at Health Protection Scotland, the agency that oversees travel medicine there. Fiona develops policy and services in travel and international health for the Scottish Government, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, other health professionals and organisations, and the general public. Fiona has been an ISTM member since its inception and has previously served in most of the leadership roles within the Society.
Fiona qualified with a nursing degree in 1984, before specialising in Infectious Diseases, Tropical and Travel Medicine. She gained a Masters degree from the University of Glasgow in 1992, and is an Honorary Lecturer in Epidemiology within the Public Health Medicine Department there. In 2006 she was admitted to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow as a Founder Fellow within the Faculty of Travel Medicine. She sits on the College Examination Board for the Diploma in Travel Medicine and regularly teaches and examines at post-graduate level. Fiona has co-authored three textbooks in travel medicine and numerous other publications on the topic.
Fiona has travelled extensively, and worked abroad in countries such as India and Iraq on education, research and humanitarian projects. She is an active member on various national and international groups and committees, including the UK Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention (ACMP), and EuroTravNet . Fiona was actively involved in the genesis of the winning proposal for EuroTravNet , designed to build a network to support travel and tropical medicine related activities in Europe, which is funded by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
David R. Shlim, United States of America, 2013 – 2015
Dr. Shlim has served as Medical Director at the Jackson Hole Travel and Tropical Medicine Clinic since 1998. Born in Portland, Oregon, Dr. Shlim received his M.D. in 1976 from Rush Medical College. He served his residency at Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.
Dr. Shlim worked in family practice and emergency medicine from 1977 through 1983. He served three volunteer seasons at the Himalayan Rescue Association aid post at Pheriche, Nepal in 1979, 1980, and 1982 and was the Medical Director of the CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal from 1983 to 1998.
Dr. Shlim was the Course Chairman for Medicine for Adventure Travel (a travel medicine course in Jackson Hole, Wyoming) from 1993 to 2006. He served as Secretary/Treasurer of the Clinical Group of the ASTMH from 2001-2003. Dr. Shlim's ISTM roles have included serving on the scientific program committee, the exam committee, the publications committee and has been an editorial board member of the Journal of Travel Medicine since its inaugural issue. Dr. Shlim also served as a Counsellor on the ISTM Board of Directors as a Counsellor from 2007 to 2011, followed by President-Elect from 2011-2013.
Dr. Shlim has published more than 40 original articles on travel medicine issues. He is the co-author of Medicine and Compassion: A Tibetan Lama's Guidance for Caregivers, which is available in English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Catalonian. He is currently Medical Editor of the CDC's Health Information for International Travel.
Annelies Wilder-Smith, Switzerland, 2015 – 2017
Annelies Wilder-Smith is Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom, and a Consultant to the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. She is in charge of dengue and Zika vaccine development at WHO. Furthermore, she is Scientific Coordinator of an international consortium called "ZikaPLAN" (zikaplan.tghn.org) funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020. She coordinates 25 institutional global partners to address research gaps with regards to Zika virus infections. From 2011 to 2016, she led another EU funded research consortium "DengueTools" to investigate innovative tools for the surveillance and control of dengue.
A physician with expertise in travel and tropical medicine, she is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Travel Medicine, a Past-President of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM), and Past-President of the Asia Pacific Society of Travel Medicine. Her special research interests include vaccine preventable and emerging infectious diseases, in particular related to arboviral diseases. With a career spanning almost three decades, she has led and co-led various vaccine trials, published more than 260 scientific papers, edited and co-edited textbooks, and served on various scientific committees. Her awards include the Myrone Levine Vaccinology Prize, the Honor Award for exemplary leadership and coordination in determining and communicating global yellow fever risk, the Mercator Professorship award by the German Research Foundation and the Ashdown Oration Award by the Australian College of Travel Medicine.
Leo Visser, The Netherlands, 2017 – 2019
Leo Visser holds a position as professor and is head of the Department of Infectious Diseases (www.lumc.nl/vaccinaties) at the Leiden University Medical Centre in The Netherlands.
He studied medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and graduated in 1985. He continued his medical training and was board certified for internal medicine in 1990 at the same University. He was registered as an infectious diseases specialist at Leiden University Medical Centre in 1992 and obtained his PhD at the Leiden University in 1997. In 2014 he received a professorship in Infectious diseases and travel medicine at the Leiden University.
Leo Visser is involved in clinical care, research and teaching in infectious diseases, with the emphasis on vaccine-preventable and tropical diseases, travel medicine and global health. He is head of the travel clinic, which is a centre for reference on travel medicine and vaccination in The Netherlands. He holds a lectureship at the Dutch National School of Public and Occupational Health. He is deputy director of the post-graduate training in internal medicine and director of the postgraduate training for infectious diseases at the Leiden University Medical Centre.
Leo Visser is a member of the steering committee of TropNet (www.tropnet.eu). His current research activities involve vaccination responses in immunocompromized hosts, immuneresponse to yellow fever vaccine; immunogenicity and safety of intradermally administered vaccines, and malaria vaccine research in collaboration with the Universtiy of Nijmegen.
Lin Chen, United States of America, 2019 – 2021
Lin H. Chen, MD, FACP, FASTMH, FISTM, is Immediate Past President of the International Society of Travel Medicine (2019-2021). She is Director of the Travel Medicine Center at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Chen is a graduate of Harvard University and Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. She trained in Boston followed by Yale-New Haven Hospital before returning to the Boston area. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), and International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM).
At ISTM, she previously directed the Travel Medicine Review and Update Course, served on the Research Committee, was a Counsellor on the Executive Board as well as Associate Chair of Scientific Program Committee for ISTM Conferences. She served on the ASTMH Certificate Examination Committee and Education Committee and also on Work Groups of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Her editorial roles include the Journal of Travel Medicine, Current Infectious Disease Reports, Travel Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and Infectious Diseases: A Geographic Guide. She served on past scientific program committees of International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases. She is a site director for the GeoSentinel® Surveillance Network and Global Travel Epidemiology Network. Her clinical research highlight issues in travelers' health, including vector-borne diseases, immunizations, emerging infections, and cross-border healthcare.
Peter A. Leggat, Australia, 2021 – 2023
Peter A. Leggat, AM, ADC, MD, PhD, DrPH, FAFPHM RACP, FFPH RCP(UK), FPHAA, FACTM, FFTM FFEWM ACTM, FFTM RCPSG, FISTM, FACAsM, FACRRM, FAIHS, FACE, FAICD, FRAS, FRGS, FRSTMH, Dist.Int.FASTMH, Hon.FFPM RCP(UK), Hon.FACTM, Hon.FFTM ACTM, WSO-CSE/CSM/CSS(OSH)/CSSD, ChOHSP, ISTM-CTH®, is Professor and co-Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Vector-borne and Neglected Tropical Diseases, College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences, James Cook University (JCU), Australia. Professor Leggat has a strong interest in health workforce development in public health and tropical medicine, but also in related areas such as aerospace and travel medicine, having founded the Australian postgraduate course in travel medicine in 1993. A medical and higher doctorate graduate from the University of Queensland, Australia, he has published more than 500 journal papers, more than 100 chapters and more than 30 books. He has consulted with or assisted as an external expert for various organisations, including the Australian Defence Force, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Australia), the Therapeutic Goods Authority (Australia), and the World Health Organization.
Professor Leggat has more than 30 years’ experience serving on professional organization and charitable boards. Current appointments include the ISTM (President); The Australasian College of Aerospace Medicine (Dean of Education); and The Australasian College of Tropical Medicine (ACTM) (President). He is also Immediate Past Dean of the Faculty of Travel Medicine of the ACTM; Councillor on the Board of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine, and Honorary Secretary of the Travel Health Advisory Group, Australia. He was formerly Director-General of the World Safety Organization, having served more than 25 years on the Board at various times between 1989 and 2021. He has been a member of the JCU Academic Board since 2018 and currently holds the position of Deputy Chair. He was previously a member of the JCU Council from 2005-2018. He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 1991.
ISTM service: Founding Member 1991; Certificate in Travel HealthTM, 2003; Fellow, 2016. Councilor, Executive Board 2003-05; Leadership Council 2010-12; Secretary Treasurer, 2013-2019; President-Elect, 2019-2021; President, 2021-President ; ISTM Foundation, Secretary Treasurer, 2015-2019. Journal of Travel Medicine: Editorial Board 2000-12, Section Editor 2003-09; Deputy Editor-in-Chief 2009-11. Editor-in-Chief, ISTM NewsShare, 2010-12. ISTM Committees: Member, CTH® Examinations Committee 2001-05; Nominations Committee, Member, 2002, 2003, 2008, Chair, 2020; Member, various RCISTM/CISTM Organizing/Scientific Committees 2002-11; Member, Professional Education Committee 2003-12; Member, Continuing Professional Development Committee 2011-12 (formerly Taskforce 2010-11). Interest Groups: Military Travel Interest Group, Founder, Council, 2018-Present; Expedition and Wilderness Medicine, Founder, Member, 2019-Preesent; Executive Board Committees: Member, CISTM Oversight Committee, 2013-19 and from 2021; and Finance Committee, 2013-Present.
A former Fulbright Scholar and Fulbright Ambassador, Professor Leggat has received numerous national and international Fellowships and other accolades, including admission as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2013 and promotion to Commander of the Order of St John in 2016. Having served more than 30 years in the Australian Defence Force in full-time and reserve roles, he was promoted to his present rank of Colonel in 2013 and was appointed Honorary Aide-de-Camp to the Governor General of the Commonwealth of Australia in 2019.
Counsellors
Michael Binder, France, 1991 – 1993
Information not available at this time.
John Goldsmid, Australia, 1991 – 1993
Dr, Goldsmid was born in South Africa and received B.Sc. (Hons) and M.Sc. degrees from Rhodes University in Grahamstown. He was awarded h PhD from University of London, and became Professor of Medical Microbiology at the Godfrey Huggins Medical School of the University of Rhodesia. He moved to Australia in 1977 and became Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Tasmania.
While in Rhodesia, Dr. Goldsmid's main interest was in parasitic and tropical infectious diseases and when settled in Tasmania, this translated naturally to an interest in imported infections and thence to travel medicine. He joined the ISTM shortly after arrival in Australia at invitation of Robert Steffen and was elected to the first Council of ISTM and remained a member of the ISTM until retirement in 2002.
Dr. Goldsmid served as President of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine and saw the establishment of a Faculty of Travel Medicine within this College. He served as editor of the Australian Microbiologist and the Annals of the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine. Through the Institute of Biology in Australia, he published a book ("The Deadly Legacy") on the history of the introduction of infectious diseases into Australia. Dr. Goldsmid was elected Honorary Life Member of the Association of Medical Technologists of Zimbabwe and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Austra lasian College of Pathologists and the Australasian College of Tropical Medicine. He retired in 2002 and is presently Emeritus Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Tasmania.
Eduardo Gotuzzo, Peru, 1991 – 1995
Dr. Eduardo Gotuzzo is a Principal Professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia School of Medicine in Lima. Dr. Gotuzzo is also the director of the Humboldt Tropical Medicine Institute, a prominent infectious diseases clinical facility in Peru and a leading research institution in Latin America.
Dr. Gotuzzo is also Chief of Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine of Hospital Nacional Cayetano Heredia. Dr. Gotuzzo is also a Principal Investigator on the MDR-TB Research Project Detail, which is a Phase III trial comparing four alternative methods for drug susceptibility testing of M. tuberculosis with gold standard in patients with smear-positive pulmonary TB sith TDR/WHO. He also works doing researche on Brucellosis, HTLV-1, Fasciolasis, Strongyloides.
Dr. Gotuzzo's HIV expertise dates back to 1983 when the first cases of HIV in Peru were diagnosed at the Humbolt Tropical Medicine Institute. Since then, Dr. Gotuzzo has personally treated thousands of HIV patients and conducted 10 clinical trials on patients with HIV between 1998 and 2005. His reputation as a teacher also is legendary: He has served for many years as the director of the renowned Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine, which annually trains dozens of infectious diseases specialists from around the world.
In 2007, Dr. Gotuzzo received the Society Citation Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). He was President of International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID and he was also President of International Federation of Tropical Medicine (IFTM).
With more than 300 articles and more than 40 book chapters to his credit, Dr. Gotuzzo has contributed prodigiously to the infectious diseases literature on a broad range of topics. His dedication to the specialty is also obvious from his track record of service. Most notably, in USA he serves as a member of the prestigious Forum on Microbial Threat of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and he also serves as Adjunct Professor of School of Public Health, Medicine, University of Alabama School of Medicine; Fellow of Center for the Americas at Vanderbilt University; and Adjunct Faculty of The William J Harrington Training Programs for Latin America, University of Miami School of Medicine.
In Peru, Dr. Gotuzzo is member of the National Board of Transmisibles Diseases, Ministry of Health (MoH); National Board of Expert on MDR-TB; National Board of Experts on HIV/AIDS.
Phyllis Kozarsky, United States of America, 1991 – 1995
Phyllis Kozarsky, MD, is an expert travel health consultant for CDC's Travellers Health and Animal Importation team, whose focus is to promote travellers' health and to prevent introduction of diseases related to animal importation to the U.S. She is an editor of CDC's Health Information for the International Traveller, also known as the "Yellow Book."
Dr. Kozarsky began her CDC career in 2001. She is also medical co-director at TravelWell, an Emory Healthcare affiliated program aimed at providing pre-and post-traveller health services to international travellers, and at Grady Memorial Hospital's Immigrant and Refugee clinic. Current research efforts have primarily focused on issues in clinical tropical medicine and travellers' health, including the epidemiology of travel related infections.
She received her bachelor's degree from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. She went to Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and received her medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
She is the author of many peer-reviewed articles, and is a member many professional organisations, including the International Society of Travel Medicine and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Her current research efforts have primarily focused on issues in clinical tropical medicine and travellers' health. This includes the epidemiology of travel-related infections, as it relates to the more than 50,000 patients in the GeoSentinel® worldwide database.
Richard Dawood, United Kingdom, 1993 – 1997
Richard is the medical director of the Fleet Street Clinic, in London. He studied at UCL and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene, and his interest in Travel Medicine stems from his own extensive travels to more than 100 countries around the world. He edits Travellers' Health (OUP), first published in 1986.
His major interests include the care and support of high risk travellers, with a particular focus on the news, TV and film industry. He is a founder member of the International Society of Travel Medicine, and lectures, writes and broadcasts frequently on travel health issues. He is a columnist for the Daily Telegraph, in London, and for Condé Nast Traveller, in New York.
Robert Kass, Australia, 1993 – 1997
Information not available at this time.
Lisa Sawyer, Canada, 1995 – 1999
Information not available at this time.
Christoph Hatz, Switzerland, 1995 – 1999
Information not available at this time.
Bradley A. Connor, United States of America,1997 – 2001
Bradley A. Connor, M.D. has been an active member of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) since its founding in 1991. He has served since 1994 as Chair of the Travel Industry and Public Education Committee. Under his leadership, this Committee has furthered the agenda of raising public awareness of travel medicine as well as forging links with the travel industry. Specific Committee activities have included the North American Charter for Travel Health Consensus Conference, held in 1996, which laid the groundwork for minimum standards for the travel industry with respect to health advice. The Committee compiled and published the first worldwide directory of ISTM Travel Clinics in 1996. Under his direction, the Coalition for Healthy Travel, a not for profit ISTM initiative, was begun in 1997. With industry partners, the Coalition for Healthy Travel has embarked on a travel medicine awareness campaign through media outreach.
Dr Connor served as Chair of the 8th Conference of the ISTM (CISTM8) held in New York in May, 2003. In May 2003 Dr. Connor assumed the role of President of the ISTM, a position he held until 2005.
Dr. Connor is a gastroenterologist with clinical faculty appointments at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Rockefeller University and serves as Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Founder and Medical Director of Travel Health Services, New York City's first private Travel Medicine Clinic, he is also the Director of the New York Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine, a facility devoted to teaching and research in travel and tropical medicine. Dr. Connor's main research interests include chronic diarrhea in returned travellers, emerging gastrointestinal pathogens, viral hepatitis and enteric parasitic diseases. He was part of the Kathmandu, Nepal team that first described the clinical illness associated with Cyclospora and has investigated the pathogenesis, clinical illness, epidemiology, and treatment of Cyclospora infections. In 1997 he received the Clinical Research Award from the International Society of Travel Medicine for his work on travellers diarrhea in Vietnam.
Dr. Connor has authored numerous publications and has lectured widely in the field of travel medicine. He is an editor of the recently published textbook Travel Medicine. Co-director of "Medicine for Adventure Travel," a one-week travel medicine conference held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming since 1993, Dr. Connor serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Travel Medicine, and has been involved in development of the Certificate of Knowledge in Travel Medicine.
Karen Howell, United Kingdom, 1997 – 2001
Information not available at this time.
David O. Freedman, United States of America, 1999 – 2003
Secretary-Treasurer (2005-2013) David O. Freedman, MD, is Professor Emeritus Infectious Diseases and founded the Travelers Health Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1989. He is Managing Senior Director and Chief Travel Medicine advisor for Shoreland Travax, an online medical publisher where he oversees database development for a range of international travel support resources.
He received his undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montreal and his MD from the University of Toronto. After residency and fellowship in Internal Medicine and Infectious diseases at McGill University, he completed post-doctoral training with the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, NIAID.
He is founding Director of the Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine that is given for 2 months each year in Peru. He is Associate Editor of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal and Past-President of the Clinical Group of the ASTMH. He is a co-author of the Infectious Diseases Society of America Clinical Practice Guidelines on Travel Medicine and is co-Editor of the textbook, Travel Medicine (Editions 1,2,and 3). From 1995-2013 he was Director of ISTM's global GeoSentinel® Surveillance Network, which he co-founded. GeoSentinel® developed the largest database of ill travelers available in collaboration with 65 ISTM travel/tropical medicine units on six continents with over 40 peer-reviewed publications during this time.
Prior ISTM service: One of 287 founding members in 1991. Counsellor 1999-2003. Chair, Electronic Communications Committee (1995-2005). Founder, ISTM TravelMed listserv. Chair, Scientific Program Committee for CISTM7 in Innsbruck and CISTM9 in Lisbon. Editorial Board of the Journal of Travel Medicine (2013-). Member, CTH® Exam Committee 1999-2005. FISTM, 2017
Santanu Chatterjee, India, 1999 – 2003
Dr. Santanu Chatterjee graduated in Medicine with Honours from Calcutta University in 1983 and subsequently qualified in Tropical Medicine with distinction, being awarded the J N Chowdhury Scholarship from the School of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata in 1986. In 2008, he was admitted as a Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow.
Dr. Chatterjee has presented on travel health and tropical medicine at various international and regional conferences and has original research contributions on travellers' diarrhea, health behaviour of travellers and malaria chemoprophylaxis to his credit. His major interests in travel medicine include health risks in the tropics specifically malaria and other travel-related infections, emergency medical care and the impact of travel on host countries. An invited Speaker on 'The Impact of Travel on Host Countries' at the Commonwealth Partnership in Medicine Conference - Edinburgh in October 1997, Dr Chatterjee is on International Medical Advisory Board of IAMAT (Canada) and is Immediate Past President of the Asia-Pacific Travel Health Society. He chaired the Host Country Committee of the International Society of Travel Medicine and is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Travel Medicine and the Journal of Tropical Medicine and Health (Japan).
Dr Chatterjee is a contributing author in the Textbook of Travel Medicine and Health, in Travel Medicine and Migrant Health, in Pocket Guide to Cultural Health Assessment, in Tourism and Health, in Travel Medicine - Tales Behind the Science, in Travellers' Diarrhoea 2nd Edition and in Guide to Healthy Living in Thailand and South East. He is also the Joint Course Coordinator for the "Clinical Tropical Medicine" Course organized by the Center for Travel medicine Dusseldorf, the Berlin Centre fur Reise-und Tropenmedizin in cooperation with National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata.
Fiona Genasi, United Kingdom, 2001 – 2005
Fiona is Nurse Consultant in Travel Health Medicine, responsible for national travel medicine programmes at Health Protection Scotland, the agency that oversees travel medicine there. She is responsible for national travel medicine programmes at Health Protection Scotland, the agency that oversees travel medicine in Scotland. Fiona develops policy and services in travel and international health for the Scottish Government, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, other health professionals and organisations, and the general public. Fiona has been an ISTM member since its inception and has previously served in most of the leadership roles within the Society.
Fiona qualified with a nursing degree in 1984, before specialising in Infectious Diseases, Tropical and Travel Medicine. She gained a Masters degree from the University of Glasgow in 1992, and is an Honorary Lecturer in Epidemiology within the Public Health Medicine Department there. In 2006 she was admitted to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow as a Founder Fellow within the Faculty of Travel Medicine. She sits on the College Examination Board for the Diploma in Travel Medicine and regularly teaches and examines at post-graduate level. Fiona has co-authored three textbooks in travel medicine and numerous other publications on the topic.
Fiona has travelled extensively, and worked abroad in countries such as India and Iraq on education, research and humanitarian projects. She is an active member on various national and international groups and committees, including the UK Advisory Committee on Malaria Prevention (ACMP), and EuroTravNet . Fiona was actively involved in the genesis of the winning proposal for EuroTravNet , designed to build a network to support travel and tropical medicine related activities in Europe, which is funded by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Prativa Pandey, Nepal, 2001 – 2003 (became President Elect)
Dr. Prativa Pandey is currently the medical director of the CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Center located in Kathmandu, Nepal and has been since 1998. CIWEC Clinic is one of the busiest travel clinics situated in a destination country and receives patients from over 75 different countries in any given year. Dr. Pandey was elected President of the International Society of Travel Medicine in 2005 and served as President till 2007. The society underwent robust membership and financial growth during her tenure as President and she served as Chair of the conference organizing committee for the Vancouver conference held in 2007.
Having been a graduate of medical college in New Delhi, India, she obtained her post graduate training in Internal Medicine from Boston, Massachusetts and was Board certified in that specialty. She returned to her home country after practicing medicine in the USA for 13 years to join Dr. David Shlim at the CIWEC Clinic in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1993. Under her leadership, the clinic got its own custom designed building and is now able to provide expanded services to travellers including inpatient care. In her practice, she combines the keen scientific knowledge she gained in the west with the compassionate caring attitude she grew up with in the east to provide the best care travellers can receive away from home. CIWEC Clinic has served as a wonderful laboratory to study illnesses in travellers and research conducted here has helped define health risk for travellers to Nepal. Dr. Pandey has been an active participant of ISTM's GeoSentinel® network.
Dr. Pandey has served on the Executive Board of Society of Internal Medicine of Nepal and was the founding president of America Nepal Medical Foundation Nepal chapter. She is currently Chairperson of the Open Learning Exchange Nepal that assists school children with computerized learning and very much enjoys being part of this project. She served as a volunteer physician for 3 months at the Himalayan Rescue Association's clinic at 14000ft near Everest Base Camp and has been on the medical advisory board of this association. She has traveled extensively but enjoys trekking in Nepal the most.
Peter Leggat, Australia, 2003 – 2005
Peter A. Leggat, MD, PhD, DrPH, is Professor and co-Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Vector-borne and Neglected Tropical Diseases, College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences, James Cook University (JCU), Australia. Professor Leggat has a strong interest in health workforce development in public health and tropical medicine, but also in related areas such as aerospace and travel medicine, having founded the Australian postgraduate course in travel medicine in 1993. A medical and higher doctorate graduate from the University of Queensland, Australia, he has published more than 500 journal papers, more than 90 chapters and more than 30 books. He has consulted with or assisted as an external expert for various organisations, including the Australian Defence Force, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Australia), the Therapeutic Goods Authority (Australia), and the World Health Organization.
Professor Leggat has more than 30 years’ experience serving on professional organization and charitable boards. Current appointments include the ISTM; St John Ambulance Australia; The Australasian College of Aerospace Medicine; and The Australasian College of Tropical Medicine (ACTM). He is also Dean of the Faculty of Travel Medicine of the ACTM; and Honorary Secretary of the Travel Health Advisory Group, Australia. He was formerly Director-General of the World Safety Organization, having served more than 20 years on the Board at various times between 1989 and 2018. He has been a member of the JCU Academic Board (Quality Portfolio) since 2018 and previously was a member of the JCU Council from 2005-2018. He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 1991.
ISTM service: Founding Member 1991; Certificate in Travel HealthTM, 2003; Fellow, 2016. Councilor, Executive Board 2003-05; Leadership Council 2010-12; Secretary Treasurer, 2013-2019; President-Elect, 2019-Present; ISTM Foundation, Secretary Treasurer, 2015-2019. Journal of Travel Medicine: Editorial Board 2000-12, Section Editor 2003-09; Deputy Editor-in-Chief 2009-11. Editor-in-Chief, ISTM NewsShare, 2010-12. ISTM Committees: Member, CTH® Examinations Committee 2001-05; Member, Nominations Committee 2002, 2003, 2008; Member, various RCISTM/CISTM Organizing/Scientific Committees 2002-11; Member, Professional Education Committee 2003-12; Member, Continuing Professional Development Committee 2011-12 (formerly Taskforce 2010-11). Interest Groups: Military Travel Interest Group, Council, 2018-Present. Executive Board Committees: Member, CISTM Oversight Committee, 2013-Present; and Finance Committee, 2013-Present.
A former Fulbright Scholar and Fulbright Ambassador, Professor Leggat has received numerous national and international Fellowships and other accolades, including admission as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2013 and promotion to Commander of the Order of St John in 2016.
Non-Voting Member of the Board.
Eli Schwartz, Israel, 2003 – 2007
For the past twenty-five years, Dr. Schwartz's professional focus has been in the area of travel and tropical diseases. He has been an active member of the ISTM since its founding in 1991. Over the years he has served on several of the ISTM Congress Scientific Committees as well as on the board for the Journal of Travel Medicine. Dr. Schwartz is a co-investigator of GeoSentinel®, the ISTM-CDC surveillance project of emerging pathogens. He has chaired the ISTM Professional Education Committee and is an active member of the ISTM Examination Committee.
Dr. Schwartz has been an active participant at various European and Asian travel medicine society meetings and chaired the scientific committee of the Asian-Pacific Travel Health (APTH) conference in Shanghai which took place in October of 2002, as well as serving the same position for the upcoming conference in Nara, Japan in 2010.
Dr. Schwartz introduced the field of travel medicine in Israel. He is currently the Director of the Center for Geographic Medicine at Sheba Medical Center in Tel-Hashomer Israel, which is the recognized center by the MOH for tropical diseases in Israel. He is also currently serving as the president of the Israeli Society of Parisitology and Tropical Diseases and president of the Asia-Pacific Travel Health Society. Dr. Schwartz is a full Professor (clinical) at the Sacker faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University.
Dr. Schwartz has worked extensively in developing countries including Cambodia Refugee camps (1980), CIWEC Clinic, Kathmandu (1987-88) and Ethiopia (1991 and 1999). As director of the Israeli Malaria team, he served as a consultant for the governments of Zanzibar (1994), for the United Nations peace keeping troops in Angola (1997) and in Senegal (2001).
Dr. Schwartz graduated in 1992 from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. His research interests have led to more than 130 publications in the medical literature in the field of travel and tropical medicine. He was a coeditor of the book "Travel Medicine- tales behind the science". (Elsevier 2007). The most recent book he edited "Tropical Diseases in Travellers" (Wiley Blackwell 2009) is the first 'Post-Travel' textbook in which the knowledge gained in understanding the specific aspects of tropical diseases in travellers was summarized.
Kevin Kain, Canada, 2003 –2007
Dr. Kain is the Director, McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, UHN-Toronto General Hospital, Director, Global Health, McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine, University of Toronto, the Director, The Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine at the UHN-Toronto General Hospital, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and holds a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Parasitology. Dr. Kain received his medical degree (cum laude) from the University of Western Ontario, undertook his residency training at the University of British Columbia, and post-doctoral research training as a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Immunology, at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington DC. Dr. Kain has worked extensively in the topics and sub-tropics including New Guinea, Uganda, Kenya, Madagascar, Honduras, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia and the Amazon basin. He is the recipient of the C. Woolf Award for the Excellence in Teaching from the University of Toronto, a Career Scientist Award from the Ontario Ministry of Health, the Young Investigators Award from the Canadian Infectious Disease Society, and Bailey K Ashford Medal from the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, awarded for distinguished work in tropical medicine. Dr Kain was profiled by TIME magazine as one of "Canada's Best In Medicine". He also received the: Fred Barrett Lectureship, University of Tennessee; Distinguished Service Award, Global Health Education Consortium, University of California (2006); John Evans Lectureship in Global Health (2006); The Henry and Sylvia Wong Lectureship In Medicine, MacMaster University (2006), 2005 Forbes Lectureship, University of Melbourne, Australia (2005), Senior Investigator Award (2004) from the Clinical Research Society of Toronto (CRST); and the University Health Network "Inventor of the Year" Award (2003) "In recognition of contributions to the advancement of human health through by means of a patentable invention." He has served as chairperson on Health Canada's Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Malaria Foundation, Board member of the Programme for Appropriate Technology (PATH) Canada, and as a consultant to many organisations including the World Health Organization, Red Cross, Canadian Blood Services, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
Nancy Piper-Jenks, United States of America, 2005 – 2009
Nancy Piper-Jenks, MS, CFNP,MFTM RCPS (Glas), FAANP, is Director of Research Initiatives at HRHCare, a Federally Qualified Health Center and one of the largest community health providers in the USA, with 28 sites in the Hudson Valley and Long Island. Ms Piper-Jenks has lived and worked on four continents, including over 3 years in West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, 2 years working at CIWEC Clinic in Kathmandu, Nepal and 2 years as a research fellow at the Center of Evaluation of Vaccination: WHO Center for the Prevention and Control of Viral Hepatitis in Antwerp, Belgium. She has published in the peer-reviewed medical literature on topics including Hepatitis E and enteric fever in travellers, VFR travel and Lyme disease, MRSA and strongyloidiasis in migrants. She has co-authored several chapters in medical textbooks in areas including economics of travel medicine, migrant medicine and hepatitis. She is the co-PI at HRHCare for the NIH “All of US” precision medicine research program. In addition to research, Ms Piper-Jenks delivers primary health care to patients in the community, including a large number of migrants. She is the site director for the GeoSentinel® network, a global sentinel network of travellers and immigrants.
Ron Behrens, United Kingdom, 2005 – 2009
Information not available at this time.
David R. Shlim, United States of America, 2007 – 2011
Dr. Shlim has served as Medical Director at the Jackson Hole Travel and Tropical Medicine Clinic since 1998. Born in Portland, Oregon, Dr. Shlim received his M.D. in 1976 from Rush Medical College. He served his residency at Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.
Dr. Shlim worked in family practice and emergency medicine from 1977 through 1983. He served three volunteer seasons at the Himalayan Rescue Association aid post at Pheriche, Nepal in 1979, 1980, and 1982 and was the Medical Director of the CIWEC Clinic Travel Medicine Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal from 1983 to 1998.
Dr. Shlim was the Course Chairman for Medicine for Adventure Travel (a travel medicine course in Jackson Hole, Wyoming) from 1993 to 2006. He served as Secretary/Treasurer of the Clinical Group of the ASTMH from 2001-2003. Dr. Shlim's ISTM roles have included serving on the scientific program committee, the exam committee, and the publications committee. He has been an editorial board member of the Journal of Travel Medicine since its inaugural issue.
Dr. Shlim has published more than 40 original articles on travel medicine issues. He is the co-author of Medicine and Compassion: A Tibetan Lama's Guidance for Caregivers, which is available in English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Catalonian. He is currently Medical Editor of the CDC's Health Information for International Travel.
Eric Caumes, France, 2007 – 2011
Dr. Caumes is a clinician (MD) certified in Dermatology (1989) then in Infectious and tropical diseases (1993). He is Professor of Infectious and Tropical diseases, at the University "Pierre et Marie Curie" in Paris since 2001. He is vice chairman of the department of infectious diseases, at the Teaching Hospital "Pitie-Salpetriere" in Paris. Dr. Caumes is involved in teaching, taking care of patients seen at the travel disease unit or been hospitalized and performing clinical research. He lived in Nepal at the beginning of the eighties. At that time, Kathmandou valley was still a paradise and his road crossed that of David Shlim. He worked there as a "doctor for travellers" at the French Embassy in Kathmandou
Dr. Caumes' involvement in our travel medicine institution began in the pre ISTM period, after he came back from Nepal, beginning in the late eighties at the first international congress in Zurich of what will become the ISTM. He was too young to be considered as a pioneer but he was there. He is also a member of the Journal of Travel Medicine editorial board. Dr. Caumes is president of the French Society of Travel Medicine, member of the "Counseil National des Universites", editor of La Lettre de l'Infectiologue and serves on the editorial board of the Bulletin de la Societe de Pathologie Exotique.
Dr. Caumes is noted for his research input in travel medicine. Main fields of research concern returned ill travellers, skin infections (cutaneous larva migrans, skin and soft tissue infections, leishmaniasis), imported tropical diseases (typhoid, schistosomiasis, malaria, gnathostomiasis) and sexually transmitted diseases. In his daily practice, he is also involved in the care of HIV infected patients with a focus on skin manifestations and cutaneous adverse reactions to drugs.
Lin H. Chen, United States of America, 2009 – 2013
Lin H. Chen is the Director of the Travel Medicine Center at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
She graduated from Harvard University and Jefferson Medical College, and trained in internal medicine at New England Deaconess Hospital and infectious diseases at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and completed a medical education fellowship. She was a medical education visitor to the Armed Forces Research Institute in Medical Science (AFRIMS)-Kwai River Christian Hospital (Thailand) and attended the Gorgas Expert Course (Peru).
Dr. Chen is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. She serves on the Certificate Examination Committee of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), and several editorial roles including the Journal of Travel Medicine, Current Infectious Disease Reports, Travel Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and the book Infectious Diseases: A Geographic Guide. She is a site director for the GeoSentinel® Surveillance Network, the Boston Area Travel Medicine Network, and Global Travel Epidemiology Network.
Dr. Chen serves on the Professional Education and Training Committee, and serves as Associate Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for CISTM14 and 15. She has served in the past as chair of the ISTM course, member of the Research Committee, and a counselor on the ISTM Executive Board.
Annelies Wilder-Smith, Singapore (currently Switzerland), 2009 – 2013
Annelies Wilder-Smith is Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (part-time), and Consultant at the Initiative for Vaccine Research at the World Health Organization, Geneva. She is in charge of dengue and Zika vaccine development at WHO. Furthermore, she is Scientific Coordinator of an international consortium called "ZikaPLAN" (zikaplan.tghn.org) funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020. She coordinates 25 institutional global partners to address research gaps with regards to Zika virus infections. From 2011 to 2016, she led another EU funded research consortium "DengueTools" to investigate innovative tools for the surveillance and control of dengue.
A physician with expertise in travel and tropical medicine, she is the Immediate Past President of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM), and Past-President of the Asia Pacific Society of Travel Medicine. Her special research interests include vaccine preventable and emerging infectious diseases, in particular related to arboviral diseases. With a career spanning almost three decades, she has led and co-led various vaccine trials, published more than 260 scientific papers, edited and co-edited textbooks, and served on various scientific committees. Her awards include the Myrone Levine Vaccinology Prize, the Honor Award for exemplary leadership and coordination in determining and communicating global yellow fever risk, the Mercator Professorship award by the German Research Foundation and the Ashdown Oration Award by the Australian College of Travel Medicine.
Francesco Castelli, Italy, 2011 – 2015
Bio not available at this time.
Karin Leder, Australia, 2011 – 2015
Associate Professor Karin Leder is the Director of Travel Medicine and Immigrant Health Services at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, a large tertiary referral hospital in Australia. She is also Head of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit in the School of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University. She is a Fellow of the Australasian College of Physicians, and she has a Masters of Public Health degree (Harvard University), a PhD (Monash University), and a DTMH (Gorgas).
Dr Leder's main research interests include travel health, the burden of imported infections, immigrant / refugee health, research methodology, and public health issues associated with water use. She is author of over 70 peer-reviewed papers and co-author of a number of book chapters related to travel medicine and parasitic infections. She is also the Section Editor for the Travel Medicine section for UpToDate.
Dr Leder is the GeoSentinel® Site Director for Melbourne, the current Chair of the GeoSentinel® Publication Committee, and a member of the ISTM Research Awards Committee. She has also been a member of the Scientific Program Committee for CISTM11 (Budapest) and CISTM 12 (Boston), as well as for the Asia Pacific Travel Health Conference in Melbourne (2008). She is the co-chair of the Asia Pacific Travel Health Conference to be held in Singapore, 2012. Dr Leder is also a regular contributor to and referee for the Journal of Travel Medicine.
David Hamer, United States of America, 2013 – 2017
David Hamer obtained a BA from Amherst College (majors in biology and French) and a MD degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine. After an internal medicine residency at the Washington Hospital Center, he completed specialty training in infectious diseases in the Department of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center. He is a Professor of Global Health and Medicine at the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine and an Adjunct Professor of Nutrition, Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
Dr. Hamer spent nearly four years serving as the Director of Research and Evaluation at the Zambia Center for Applied Health Research and Development in Lusaka, Zambia conducting community- and hospital-based research on maternal, newborn, and child health. Since June 2014, he has been the Principal Investigator of the ISTM GeoSentinel® project. Dr. Hamer currently serves as the Director of the Travel Clinic and is a member of the Section of Infectious Diseases at Boston Medical Center. He is a board-certified specialist in infectious diseases, with a particular interest in tropical infectious diseases. He has 25 years of field research experience in malaria, pneumonia, micronutrients, HIV/AIDS, and diarrheal diseases. During the last two decades, he has supervised and provided technical support to numerous studies in resource-limited countries that have evaluated interventions for improving neonatal survival and maternal health, treatment and prevention of malaria, micronutrient deficiencies, diarrheal disease, and pneumonia. He is currently participating in studies on maternal, newborn, and child health in South Africa and Zambia in addition to leading GeoSentinel®. Dr. Hamer has published over 275 peer-reviewed publications, reviews, chapters, and editorials as well as 4 books.
Marc Mendelson, South Africa, 2013 – 2017
Associate Professor Marc Mendelson studied Medicine at St Mary’s Hospital, London. He specialized in Infectious Diseases at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, where he attained his PhD before moving to The Rockefeller University, New York, to work on tuberculosis and innate immunity. Marc moved to University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2001 to continue his research and in 2007, was appointed as Principal Specialist and Head of Division of Infectious Diseases & HIV Medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital, UCT.
He is Director of the Cape Town GeoSentinel® Travel Surveillance Site, current head of the GeoSentinel® Publications Committee and an associate editor for the Journal of Travel Medicine. His main focus in Travel Medicine is in the clinical management of returning travellers, and the HIV-infected traveller. He has authored GeoSentinnel® publications on risks to travellers to the FIFA World Cup in South Africa 2010, and on regional variation of travel-related illness in travellers to Africa. He has published over 50 papers and numerous book chapters.
Dr Mendelson is the current President of the Infectious Diseases Society of Southern Africa (IDSSA) and of the Federation of Infectious Diseases Societies of Southern Africa (FIDSSA). He is co-chair of the South African Antibiotic Stewardship Programme (SAASP) and is involved with WHO in clinical management of Influenza. Dr Mendelson is organizing Chair of Options for Control of Influenza VIII, 2013 and local organizing chair of the 16th International Conference on Infectious Diseases, 2014. He is married with 3 children and lives amongst the Constantia vineyards in Cape Town.
Gerard Flaherty, Ireland, 2015 – 2019
Dr. Gerard Flaherty hails from a small town in the west of Ireland. He graduated from the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 2000 with a first class honors degree and gold medals in each of the 8 final year subjects. As an undergraduate, Gerard gained an intercalated BSc degree in Anatomy and received numerous international academic distinctions. He gained Membership of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 2002 and Fellowship in 2011. He holds a Diploma in Travel Medicine from the RCPSG (Glasgow). He has completed 3 Masters degrees, including a Masters in International and Travel Health (Sheffield) and Masters in Medical Education (Dundee). His doctoral thesis from NUI Galway was based on his original research in travel medicine.
He is a Fellow, examiner, former board member and education convenor of the Faculty of Travel Medicine. He was also the recipient of the Cameron Lockie Prize for Travel Medicine. He is Immediate Past President and current Research Officer of the Travel Medicine Society of Ireland, he was Chair of the Northern European Conference on Travel Medicine (NECTM) 2012 scientific committee which the Travel Medicine Society of Ireland hosted in Dublin, and Vice-Chair of the NECTM 2014 scientific committee in Norway. He also serves on the international scientific committee for the 2015 NECTM and 2016 RCISTM conferences in London and South Africa, respectively. He holds an Adjunct Professorship in Travel Medicine and International Health with the International Medical University in Malaysia. Gerard's research interests include high altitude medicine, travellers with pre-existing medical conditions, and education in travel health. He has 12 years of clinical experience in travel medicine.
Gerard's current academic position as Senior Lecturer in Clinical Medicine and Medical Education at NUI Galway, and Director of Clinical Studies and International Affairs for the School of Medicine gives him responsibility for design, delivery and assessment of much of the undergraduate curriculum. He is also a Past Chair of the Curriculum Review Committee. He received a President's Award from NUI Galway for Teaching Excellence in 2008. He has been awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Educators (UK). He has over 100 publications and research presentations to date, including a textbook, and 3 textbook chapters. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease.
Gerard has worked with Croí, the West of Ireland Cardiac Foundation for many years as a volunteer expedition physician on fundraising high altitude treks to Nepal and Kenya. He is currently their Honorary Academic Director and was instrumental in establishing the National Institute for Preventive Cardiology on whose Advisory Council he serves. In addition to acting as Founder and Programme Director for the MSc in Preventive Cardiology programme at NUI Galway, Gerard is responsible for the medical management and supervision of participants enrolled on the Croí MyAction preventive cardiology programme. In his leisure time Gerard travels, golfs, walks in forests, climbs mountains and bird-watches. He is currently enjoying a Diploma course in Avian Studies, having been awarded Certificates in Ornithology and in Bird Behaviour.
Claire Wong, New Zealand, 2015 – 2019
Claire is a Travel Health Specialist Nurse at Worldwise Travellers Health and Vaccination Centre in the beautiful city of Auckland. Claire took up this post in March 2013 after emigrating from her native United Kingdom with her husband and two dogs (her boys!). Her role is a varied one which involves both clinical and academic travel medicine and in addition to preparing travellers for overseas visits, she has also co-edited a travel vaccine text book and speaks regularly at educational workshops and conferences.
Claire's travel medicine career began in 1996 when she took a locum job in a travel clinic simply because it sounded interesting and the hours involved no shift work; little did she know that travel medicine would take over as a major focus in her life!
Claire has since worked in several specialist travel clinics in the United Kingdom, gaining a Diploma in Travel Health and Medicine along the way. In 2002 she became a Specialist Nurse at the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC), a position she held for over 10 years. This role allowed her to gain experience working at a national level, setting standards in travel medicine, and supporting other practitioners my providing a telephone advice line. Whilst there she sat the ISTM Certificate in Travel Health™ exam, gained an MSc in International and Travel Health and became a Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Glasgow.
Claire joined ISTM in 1998 and is currently a member of the Nurse Professional Group Council and the Exam Board. She is now looking forward to further supporting the ISTM and its members as a Counsellor on the Executive Board.
Elizabeth Barnett, United States of America, 2017 – 2021
Elizabeth Barnett is a pediatrician with a specialty in infectious diseases working in an urban hospital with a large international population. Her career focus has been in general pediatric infectious diseases, travel and topical medicine, immigrant medicine, vaccines and vaccine safety, and antimicrobial therapy and resistance. With colleagues in the adult infectious diseases group, she founded the Travel Clinic at Boston Medical Center in the early 1990s and the Refugee Health Assessment Program a few years later. Her research interests have included travel medicine - through the Boston Area Travel Medicine Network (BATMN), a collaboration of 5 travel clinics in the Greater Boston Area – immigrant medicine, and vaccines, including participation in clinical trials of Japanese Encephalitis vaccine in children and oral cholera vaccine. Dr. Barnett has been Site Director for the Boston GeoSentinel site since the 1990s, contributing over 7000 records. Current academic and administrative activities include being the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program Director, a member of the BUSM Promotions Committee, and a member of the Leadership Group of GeoSentinel. Dr. Barnett has also been active in ISTM for over 20 years, including participation in the Migrant Interest Group, former Director/Co-Director of the ISTM Review Course, member and former Co-Chair of the Research Committee, and member of the Executive Board of ISTM (starting 2017).
Andrea Rossanese, Italy, 2017 – 2021
Andrea Rossanese, born in Camposampiero (Padova, Italy) on 24 Dec 1969, got his Degree in Medicine and Surgery in 1994 and his Specialization in Internal Medicine in 2000 at University of Padova. He then got a PhD in Clinical Pathophysiology at the same University, the Diploma in Travel Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (Scotland, UK, 2006) and the Certificate in Travel Health™, by International Society of Travel Medicine (2003). Since 2011 he has been a Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine of Glasgow.
Married to Chiara, they are growing two boys (Mattia, 4 yo, and Giacomo, 2 yo).
He loves trekking in the Dolomites, listening to music and reading mystery novels.
Counsellor: Rebecca Acosta, United States of America, 2019 – 2023
Rebecca Wolfe Acosta, RN, MPH is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Traveler's Medical Service of New York, a comprehensive travel medicine practice with a diverse client population based in New York City (USA.) She provides care to thousands of travelers each year and is a recognized expert on the subject of best practices in travel health care. Rebecca serves as a consultant to major corporations and international organizations on travel health issues, travel health program development and emerging disease response, including Ebola and Zika.
Rebecca received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from the University of Rochester and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Johns Hopkins University. She is a longstanding member of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) and has contributed to a variety of society level activities for nearly two decades. Rebecca participated in the development of and co-chaired the Practice and Nursing Issues Committee of the ISTM for eight years, which has evolved into the current Nursing Professional Group (NPG.) She served as a member of the Examination Committee during the development of the first Certificate of Knowledge Exam in Travel Medicine and the Travel Medicine Review and Update Course. She received her Certificate of Knowledge (CTH) in 2003. Rebecca has been a contributing author for cornerstone publications in the field of Travel Medicine and Travelers’ Health including the US Centers’ for Disease Control (CDC) and is an invited speaker to professional and international conferences, including the CISTM. In addition to her professional career, Rebecca has traveled throughout her life and continues to share this passion with her husband and children.
Counsellor: Jenny Visser, New Zealand, 2019 – 2023
Jenny graduated from medical school (University of Otago, New Zealand) in 1986. She is vocationally trained in General Practice and is a Fellow of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.
Following a special interest in travel medicine she is now Leader of Travel Medicine Postgraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer, Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice, University of Otago, Wellington. There she convenes and teaches the university’s qualifications in travel medicine enjoying the stimulation that teaching brings.
Her research interests include the travel health needs of long term expatriates and expedition medicine. She also works part time in clinical travel medicine at The Travel Doctor in Wellington where her clinical role includes being medical advisor to New Zealand Red Cross for overseas deployments.
Jenny has worked in many roles and places, including being a full time general practitioner in Wellington for 12 years, medical advisor to New Zealand Land Search and Rescue, medical officer on the research vessel RV Tangaroa (spending seven summers in Antarctica), a season as a volunteer doctor at a high altitude rescue post in Nepal, two months on set in a remote village in Bougainville as film crew doctor and expedition doctor on treks to Kilimanjaro, China and Fiji. When she is not working she is travelling (often by bike or trekking) either in New Zealand or overseas.
Secretary-Treasurers (non-voting)
Hans Lobel, United States of America, 1991 – 1994
Hans Lobel passed away in 2015 at the age of 85 years.
Hans was appointed the first full-time CDC officer for malaria surveillance in 1966. In the early 1980's it became apparent that one of the agents used for malaria prophylaxis, pyrimethamine-sulfadoxin (Fansidar, produced by Roche), was associated with severe cutaneous adverse events. At a meeting at the Roche headquarters in Basel, Hans and myself met and based on common interests in travellers' health we became friends. Hans greatly contributed to the first Conference on International Travel Medicine organized in Zurich 1988. One debate I remember from that period concerned the name: should that be travel medicine, tourist medicine, emporiatrics? Since that gathering was successful over expectations, he took the initiative to organize a second meeting in Atlanta in 1991 in close collaboration with Phyllis Kozarsky from Emory University. Then, together with Herbert L. DuPont from Houston who for several years had collaborated with me in travellers' diarrhea research, the four of us launched the initiative to found the International Society of Travel Medicine. Hans became its first Secretary/Treasurer and based in his CDC office in Atlanta he served the ISTM until 1994. Upon retirement he decided to concentrate on family life and sailing in Hilton Head, SC.
Hans was a colleague with visions and a strong mind. Discussions with him were stimulating, occasionally they could become agitated, often they were interrupted by laughter, and finally they always were constructive. Hans was an achiever who worked relentlessly in the interest of travellers' health, not only to set up the Society, but also as a scientist. With various among us he has collaborated in malaria studies. Some of these were conducted 'in the field', such as distributing questionnaires daily around midnight for a period of time in the departure lounges of the Nairobi Airport semicircle, occasionally treating an obvious case of malaria on-site.
Phyllis Kozarsky, United States of America, 1994 – 1997
Phyllis Kozarsky, MD, is an expert travel health consultant for CDC's Travellers Health and Animal Importation team, whose focus is to promote travellers' health and to prevent introduction of diseases related to animal importation to the U.S. She is an editor of CDC's Health Information for the International Traveller, also known as the "Yellow Book."
Dr. Kozarsky began her CDC career in 2001. She is also medical co-director at TravelWell, an Emory Healthcare affiliated program aimed at providing pre-and post-traveller health services to international travellers, and at Grady Memorial Hospital's Immigrant and Refugee clinic. Current research efforts have primarily focused on issues in clinical tropical medicine and travellers' health, including the epidemiology of travel related infections.
She received her bachelor's degree from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. She went to Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and received her medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
She is the author of many peer-reviewed articles, and is a member many professional organisations, including the International Society of Travel Medicine and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Her current research efforts have primarily focused on issues in clinical tropical medicine and travellers' health. This includes the epidemiology of travel-related infections, as it relates to the more than 50,000 patients in the GeoSentinel® worldwide database.
Frank von Sonnenburg, Germany, 1997 – 2005
We are saddened by the death of Frank von Sonnenburg, MD, MPH, PhD, on August 21, 2020, after a relatively brief struggle with a brain cancer. Frank’s passing marks the loss of a loyal and longstanding ISTM leader and friend.
Frank was a Professor in Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. He had worked extensively in developing countries on a variety of infectious diseases projects, in public health at the WHO and elsewhere, and on vaccine clinical trials. Among many activities at ISTM, Frank served as CISTM7 Chair in Innsbruck, Austria in 2001, Secretary-Treasurer from 1997-2005, President from 2007-2009, and GeoSentinel Munich Site Director since 1995.
Frank led our Society in major achievements. He contributed greatly to organizing CISTMs in Europe that were not only scientific successes, but also convivial get-togethers and with his exceptional flair for numbers they provided a foundation for the financial success of the Society. He had a vision of a global Society in which peers from industrialized countries around the world would bring together colleagues from lower resource settings to develop travel medicine and travel health in their home countries.
Hans Nothdurft, medical school classmate and life-long good friend of Frank, remarked that Frank mellowed from his early-career radical viewpoints about health care, but continued to dedicate the focus of his work to vaccination as a crucial component of good health for all. Frank was a sincere and inspiring colleague.
Frank was also down-to-earth and keenly supported junior colleagues. As a fledgling travel medicine provider, Lin Chen had written to Frank to learn about Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato in Europe. Although they had never met, Frank answered promptly and expertly with pertinent and valuable knowledge. In GeoSentinel, he constantly pushed for distributing reimbursements to his whole team and for different members on his team to co-author papers. Frank’s assertive but never arrogant nature, his willingness to respond to curiosity, and his support for junior colleagues have led to decades of fond memories for all who knew him.
Frank was a founding site director of GeoSentinel, making Munich one of the first sites outside North America, and from the start one of the largest and most diverse contributors to the network. Frank worked tirelessly from the beginning to update data collection, moving from using fax machines to web-based data entry. Frank later made a tremendous personal effort to more effectively integrate Munich’s huge and complex clinical operation with the Network. As a rare clinician with strong programming skills, he pioneered the use of electronic medical record templates to auto-populate the GeoSentinel database from the invaluable trove of clinical information gathered at his site – a task the rest of us still only dream about accomplishing one day. As co-members of the Data Quality Working Group since its inception, Michael Libman remembers with fondness innumerable days, meetings, meals, and wine-infused evenings dissecting, arguing, and laughing (sometimes quite hysterically) over data conundrums which always spilled over into stories and contemplation of work and life in general. Frank’s extensive clinical knowledge was essential in designing and improving the quality of our entire database. Michael notes that his devotion to GeoSentinel meant that his proposals and opinions were profuse, but always constructive and relevant, delivered with conviction and enthusiasm, and although we all debated a great deal, the result was always for the benefit of our projects.
All of us who spent time with Frank quickly realized that he had that rare balance between being opinionated, devoted, compassionate, and fun – a balance which pushed us all forward, while always enjoying the work and our time together. His joie-de-vivre was manifested by the extraordinary opening parties he organized at Innsbruck in 2001 and Budapest in 2009, which live on in ISTM lore. His compassion is recalled by David Freedman whose son was hospitalized in Munich a few years ago during a summer internship; Frank’s first words when David phoned him on a Sunday were, “don’t worry, I’m going to the hospital right now to check on things”. Frank exemplified what being part of the ISTM family means.
On behalf of ISTM leaders, we send our deepest sympathies to Frank’s wife Angelika and their sons. We remember warmly a passionate man, and with his heart always in the right place despite a few rough edges which were the evidence of his commitment. A man who greatly influenced travel medicine, GeoSentinel and global health. We will miss his expansive persona, his invaluable ideas, his drive and vision for ISTM and GeoSentinel, and the ever-present twinkle in his eyes!
In memory of Frank, you may wish to consider a donation to the ISTM Foundation.
Sincerely,
Lin Chen, ISTM President, with contributions from:
Phyllis Kozarsky, ISTM Co-Founder
Hans Nothdurft, Past ISTM Website Editor and CISTM Organizer
Davidson Hamer and Michael Libman, GeoSentinel Co-Principal Investigators
David Freedman, Past ISTM Secretary-Treasurer 2005-2013, and GeoSentinel PI 1995-2014 Annelies Wilder-Smith, Past ISTM President, JTM Editor-in-Chief
Robert Steffen, ISTM Co-Founder and ISTM Foundation President .
David O. Freedman, United States of America, 2005 – 2013
Secretary-Treasurer (2005-2013) David O. Freedman, MD, is Professor Emeritus Infectious Diseases and founded the Travelers Health Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1989. He is Managing Senior Director and Chief Travel Medicine advisor for Shoreland Travax, an online medical publisher where he oversees database development for a range of international travel support resources.
He received his undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montreal and his MD from the University of Toronto. After residency and fellowship in Internal Medicine and Infectious diseases at McGill University, he completed post-doctoral training with the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, NIAID.
He is founding Director of the Gorgas Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine that is given for 2 months each year in Peru. He is Associate Editor of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal and Past-President of the Clinical Group of the ASTMH. He is a co-author of the Infectious Diseases Society of America Clinical Practice Guidelines on Travel Medicine and is co-Editor of the textbook, Travel Medicine (Editions 1,2,and 3). From 1995-2013 he was Director of ISTM's global GeoSentinel® Surveillance Network, which he co-founded. GeoSentinel® developed the largest database of ill travelers available in collaboration with 65 ISTM travel/tropical medicine units on six continents with over 40 peer-reviewed publications during this time.
Prior ISTM service: One of 287 founding members in 1991. Counsellor 1999-2003. Chair, Electronic Communications Committee (1995-2005). Founder, ISTM TravelMed listserv. Chair, Scientific Program Committee for CISTM7 in Innsbruck and CISTM9 in Lisbon. Editorial Board of the Journal of Travel Medicine (2013-). Member, CTH® Exam Committee 1999-2005. FISTM, 2017
Peter A. Leggat, Australia, 2013 – 2019
Peter A. Leggat, MD, PhD, DrPH, is Professor and co-Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Vector-borne and Neglected Tropical Diseases, College of Public Health, Medical and Veterinary Sciences, Division of Tropical Health and Medicine, James Cook University (JCU), Australia. A medical and higher doctorate graduate from the University of Queensland, he has published more than 500 journal papers, more than 90 chapters and more than 30 books, as well as presenting more than 400 papers at national and international conferences. He has consulted with various organisations, including the Australian Defence Force, the Therapeutic Goods Authority Australia and the World Health Organization. A former Fulbright Scholar and Fulbright Ambassador, he has received numerous national and international Fellowships and other accolades. He is a member of a number of charitable boards, including St John Ambulance Australia, and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Professor Leggat has a strong interest in health workforce development in public health and tropical medicine, but also in related areas such as aerospace and travel medicine, having founded the Australian postgraduate course in travel medicine in 1993. He is Dean of Education of The Australasian College of Aerospace Medicine; National Director of Training for St John Ambulance Australia; Dean of the Faculty of Travel Medicine, Immediate Past President of The Australasian College of Tropical Medicine; and Honorary Secretary of the Travel Health Advisory Group, Australia. He was formerly Director-General of the World Safety Organization. He has been a member of the JCU Academic Board (Quality Portfolio) since 2018.
Prior ISTM service: Founding Member 1991; Certificate in Travel HealthTM, 2003; Fellow, 2016. Councilor, Executive Board 2003-05; Leadership Council 2010-12; Secretary Treasurer, 2013-Present; ISTM Foundation, Secretary Treasurer, 2015-Present. Journal of Travel Medicine: Editorial Board 2000-12, Section Editor 2003-09; Deputy Editor-in-Chief 2009-11. Editor-in-Chief, ISTM NewsShare, 2010-12. ISTM Committees: Member, CTH® Examinations Committee 2001-05; Member, Nominations Committee 2002, 2003, 2008; Member, various RCISTM/CISTM Organizing/Scientific Committees 2002-11; Member, Professional Education Committee 2003-12; Member, Continuing Professional Development Committee 2011-12 (formerly Taskforce 2010-11). Interest Groups: Military Travel Interest Group, Council, 2018-Present. Executive Board Committees: Member, CISTM Oversight Committee, 2013-Present; Finance Committee, 2013-Present.
Non-Voting Member of the Board.