tim dixon

Tim is the chief political strategist at Purpose.com in New York, where he works across Purpose’s US and international projects, building new movements for progressive change. He is also a current board member of Chifley Research Centre, the official labour think tank. Tim has previously worked as senior economic adviser and chief speechwriter to Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, and to Labor Leader Kim Beazley, between 2005 and 2010. Tim is also a former lawyer and co-author of Australia’s leading economics textbook.

Tim has a special interest in applying the insights of behavioural economics to policy change, and still believes that modern politics has the potential to do good – through renewing progressive parties, building new movements for change and generating fresh ways to engage local communities.

mark dybul

Mark is Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Dybul has worked on HIV and public health for more than 25 years as a clinician, scientist, teacher and administrator. Dybul was a driving force in the formation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), initially serving as Chief Medical officer before progressing through the ranks to become the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. Dybul was formerly co-director of the Global Health Law Program at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, where he was also a Distinguished Scholar.

Sigrun Møgedal

Sigrun is a medical doctor who transitioned to work professionally in global health and health policy. She is currently a member of the Lancet-Uni of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health. Amongst many previous roles in the health and development field, she was a Senior Policy Adviser to the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Ambassador for HIV/AIDS and Global Health Initiatives in the Norwegian Ministry, and is a former State Secretary for International Development in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She began her global health career working primary health care in Nepal.

Ilona Kickbusch

Ilona is a political scientist who had dedicated her career to health policy. She is currently the Director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, following a distinguished career at the World Health Organisation and Yale University. She is published widely and advises organisations, government agencies and the private sector on policies and strategies to promote health.

Alan Lopez

Alan is Melbourne Laureate Professor and Rowden-White Chair of Global Health and Burden of Disease Measurement in the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne in Australia. He is also an Affiliate Professor of Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Prior to this, Dr. Lopez worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva for 22 years, where he held a series of technical and senior managerial posts. In 2006, Lopez co-authored the Global Burden of Disease Study, which has greatly influenced debates about priority setting and resource allocation in health.

Lizzie Brown

Lizzie believes humanitarian engineering and design has the potential to bring lasting and meaningful impact to the community. As CEO of Engineers without Borders since 2010, Lizzie has led a movement of 15,000 people to improve access to clean water, sanitation, energy, basic infrastructure, information technology and engineering education in developing communities both in Australia and abroad. Due to her contributions in the role, she was named one of Australia’s 100 most influential engineers in 2013.

Prior to joining EWB, Brown worked as a Design Engineer for over five years in the water sector in Australia and overseas for companies including OMV Porterra and WRM Water and Environment. In 2009 Brown was awarded a Chief Executive Women Leadership Scholarship and a Churchill Fellowship centred on education, training and research programs for sustainable development in the UK and USA.

Lachlan McDonald

Lachlan is a senior health economist working with The Fred Hollows Foundation. Prior to this he gained several years of experience in central banking, both in Australia and Vanuatu and has worked in a variety of roles in international development. Lachlan holds a Masters of International Relations from the University of Melbourne as well as a Bachelor of Economics, with honours, and a Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University. His PhD thesis in development economics examined “The Vulnerability and Resilience of Households in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands to Global Macroeconomic Shocks” at RMIT University, Melbourne.

Vivian Chew Pui Cheng

Vivian is the pioneering ambassador and hub coordinator to Yunus & Youth Hub – Australia division. Yunus & Youth is an organisation endorsed by Professor Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Across the world, 3 Hubs are being set up in 3 continents, in the cities of Rabat, Morocco, Sao Paulo, Brazil and Melbourne, Australia. The Hub is currently connecting/connected to international organisations, institutes and businesses focused on social business. By profession, she is an architectural designer with experience across multi-disciplinary sectors: Media, Film Set Production, Resorts and Hotels, Social Business, Financial Transparency and Aid, Rural Appropriate Technology, Science and Research, Heritage, Food Security, Commercial Urban Projects and Housing Development. She has also guest lectured in universities and been interviewed on radio stations.

Ted Lankester

Ted was the co-founder of InterHealth in 1989, and remains the Director of Health Services to this day. Ted trained and originally worked as a GP, before moving to Nepal, where he set up health programmes in mountain villages and refugee camps. Ted also leads Community Health Global Network (CHGN), and is a Foundation Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Ted has written several books including Setting up Community Health Programmes: a practical manual for use in developing countries.

Selina Lo

Selina is a Senior Editor for the Lancet, the world’s leading general medical journal. Selina started her career as a GP in Melbourne, specialising in the treatment of HIV. She began going on MSF missions as a way to feed her passion for global health, which led to her serving as the Medical Director for the MSF Access Campaign for several years. At the Lancet, Selina is responsible for coordinating the journal’s groundbreaking global health commission series. 

Paul Komesaroff

Paul is a practising physician and Professor within the Faculty of Medicine at Monash University, as well as Director of the Monash Centre for Ethics in Medicine and Society. He has an international reputation in health care ethics, and has a major impact on the field of clinical ethics in Australia. Komesaroff’s work is interdisciplinary: spanning clinical medicine, biomedical and social research, philosophy and ethical theory, and policy applications. He founded Global Reconciliation, a non-profit that aims to foster community strength in settings of crisis, and has worked extensively in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone.

Dino Asproloupos

Dino is a member of the Médecins Sans Frontières Australia board. He has volunteered with the organization in various capacities over many years, including as a project manager and governance consultant. Dino currently works at Deakin University as Senior Program Manager in the Population Health Department.

Natalie Gray

Natalie is a former lawyer and public health physician who has held numerous senior clinical, technical and management roles in both government and NGO sectors. She is currently the Associate Director (Special Projects) for Oxfam Australia.

Wesley Rodricks

Wesley joined the Thankyou team in mid 2012 after years of experience in multimedia design. Having completed a bachelor of design, Wesley spent a few years freelancing before launching his own clothing label that was set up to benefit various community initiatives.

With a keen eye for emerging design and a passion for social enterprise, Wesley was drawn to the idea of working for Thankyou to further use his creative talents to impact those less fortunate.

Wesley and his team produce innovative designs for a range of different mediums. As Thankyou’s lead creative designer, Wesley is responsible for overseeing the entire design process from start to finish.

Alexandra Phelan

Alexandra is an international health and human rigths lawyer with an impresive record in the field. She currently holds multiple legal positions, including the Honorary Associate at the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law and the Doctoral Researcher at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.