Professor Benjamin Cowie is an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist, with appointments in both the Epidemiology Unit at VIDRL and VIDS. In addition, Ben is a medical epidemiologist with Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance, Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, and is an Honorary Principal Fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Melbourne. He serves on a range of communicable disease, clinical and public health committees at state, national and international levels.

Dee Lee - Director and founder of Inno Community Development Organisation, an Nonprofit that aims at creating social impact through social innovation pursuing a dream of a healthy and just society. Inno created the largest and one of most influential Fight Hepatitis Discrimination Programme in Asia which helped 238 factories to remove the job screening of people with hepatitis. In 2009 Inno worked together with hundreds of millions of people to start the hepatitis self-support network in China. Inno is awarded by domestic and international entities in social innovation and philanthropy area.

Associate Professor James Ward is a Pitjantjatjara/Narungga man, and a national leader in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. He is currently the Head of Infectious Diseases Research Program, Aboriginal Health, at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. For over two decades he has been working passionately to make a difference in Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander health outcomes through; programs, research, community led interventions and advocacy particularly in the areas of sexual health, HIV and alcohol and other drugs.

Chris Cunningham, of the Ngati Toa and Ngati Raukawa tribes of New Zealand (NZ), is Professor of Maori Health and has been Director of the Research Centre for Maori Health & Development at Massey University’s Wellington Campus since 1996. He has a strong background in both policy development and research. He is current Chair of the Hepatitis Foundation of New Zealand and has been co-Chair of the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conferences on Viral Hepatitis, held in Alice Springs in 2014 and Anchorage, Alaska in 2017. Chris is Director of two major Maori research programmes and is currently supervising 5 doctoral students, having supervised 28 PhDs and 14 post-docs to completion. His major research interests include non-communicable diseases (especially hepatitis B/C, cancer, diabetes and insulin resistance), whanau (family) health & development, ageing, longitudinal research, school-based interventions in physical activity and nutrition, and housing & health.