Contact:
David Foreman
davidforeman@virginia.edu
(434)-924-2242
UVa Professor, Physician Selected as Global Health Ambassador
Charlottesville, Va. - Dr. Richard Guerrant, Thomas H. Hunter Professor of Internal Medicine and founder and director of the Center for Global Health at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, has been named an Ambassador in the Paul Rogers Society for Global Health Research. Guerrant is one of the society's founding cadre of 25 ambassadors.
The Paul G. Rogers Society was established to increase awareness of-and make the case for greater U.S. investment in-research to fight diseases that disproportionately affect the world's most underdeveloped countries. Society members, or Ambassadors, are drawn from the nation's foremost leaders in global health research. Chosen by a distinguished advisory council, Ambassadors will serve in a continuing program of public outreach and advocacy for global health research, facilitated by Research! America.
"I am honored to be selected as one of the society's first ambassadors," says Guerrant. "Through my work with the group, I hope to continue to illuminate the continued need for greater investment to fight diseases which affect the world's poorest nations."
In his role as an ambassador, Dr. Guerrant is expected to meet with state and federal lawmakers to stress the need for additional funding for global health initiatives. Additionally, he will work to spread the message to the general public through speeches, presentations and letters to the editors of major national publications.
Dr. Guerrant has long been a leader in the area of global health. His research focuses on the recognition, diagnosis, pathogenesis, impact, and control of enteric infections and their consequences. He is also working to develop a network of Centers for Global Health at top institutions across the United States and abroad.
Dr. Guerrant is the author of over 420 scientific and clinical articles, reviews, and major textbook chapters, and editor of six books, including a two-volume textbook, Tropical Infectious Diseases, Infections of the Gastrointestinal Tract and a book about lessons learned from his collaborations in Northeast Brazil entitled At the Edge of Development: Health Crises in a Transitional Society.
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