Richard Feachem

Professor Sir Richard G A Feachem is Director of the Global Health Group at UCSF Global Health Sciences, and Professor of Global Health at both the University of California, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a Visiting Professor at London University and an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. From 2002 to 2007, Sir Richard served as founding Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. During this time, the Global Fund grew from scratch to become the world’s largest health financing institution for developing countries, with assets of US $11 billion, supporting 450 programs in 136 countries.

From 1999 to 2002, Professor Feachem was the founding Director of the Institute for Global Health at UCSF and UC Berkeley. From 1995 until 1999 Dr. Feachem was Director for Health, Nutrition, and Population at the World Bank. Previously (1989-1995), he was Dean of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Professor Feachem served as Chairman of the Foundation Council of the Global Forum for Health Research; Treasurer of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative; Council Member of Voluntary Service Overseas; and on numerous other boards and committees. He was a member of the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, and the Commission on HIV and Governance in Africa, and the Commission on Investing in Health. He has worked in international health and development for 40 years and has published extensively on public health, health policy, and development finance.

Professor Feachem holds a Doctor of Science degree in Medicine from the University of London, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Health from the University of New South Wales. In 2007 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering by the University of Birmingham. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians and of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. In 2002 he was elected to membership of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences. Sir Richard was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2007. He was awarded 2010, Sir Frank Whittle Medal, by the Royal Academy of Engineering.