Peter Piot MD PhD is a Professor of Global Health and former Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is a Special Advisor to EC President von der Leyen on European and Global Health Security, EU Chief Scientific Advisor Epidemics, and a visiting professor at the Rega Institute, KU Leuven, the University of Antwerp, and the National University of Singapore.
He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. He co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976 and led research on HIV, women's health and infectious diseases. He has an MD from the University of Ghent and a PhD from the University of Antwerp, and he worked at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp; the University of Washington, Seattle; the University of Nairobi; Imperial College London; the College de France, and the Gates Foundation.
He is a member of the Belgian, American, British, and French National Academies of Medicine and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He is Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Institut Pasteur de Dakar, Vice-Chair of GHIT Fund, Tokyo, and a founding Board Member of CEPI and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.
He was made a Baron in his native Belgium and received a UK Knighthood and the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun, Japan. His awards include the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award, Robert Koch Gold Medal, Prince Mahidol Award, Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize, Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, WHO Life Achievement Award, and he was named a 2014 TIME Person of the Year. He has published over 650 scientific articles and 17 books, including his memoir, No Time to Lose, available in 5 languages. He lives in Belgium.