Prof. Gesine Meyer-Rath is a medical doctor and health economist working on the economics of infectious disease interventions in low- and middle-income settings. She is a Research Professor in the Department for Global Health of the School of Public Health of Boston University, US, and a Principal Researcher at the Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Dr Meyer-Rath’s research focus lies on modeling methods for economic evaluation and translating research into recommendations for public policy, in particular for the HIV and TB programmes of South Africa and other southern African countries

Professor Quarraisha Abdool Karim is a globally recognized infectious diseases epidemiologist and co-founder of CAPRISA, where she is Associate Scientific Director and holds the John C. Martin Chair in Global Health. She is also a Professor at Columbia University, President of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and UNAIDS Special Ambassador for Adolescents and HIV. Her pioneering research showed that antiretrovirals can prevent sexual transmission of HIV, laying the groundwork for PrEP. Over three decades, she has advanced HIV prevention technologies for women and contributed to understanding HIV-TB co-infection and COVID-19’s impact on people with HIV. She serves on advisory boards for PEPFAR, WHO, and others, and has trained over 600 African scientists. With more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, she is a Fellow of several national and international academies and recipient of over 30 major awards, including the L’Oréal-UNESCO Award, Canada Gairdner Global Health Award, and the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award.