Speakers

Dr. Albert Icksang Ko is the Raj and Indra Nooyi Professor of Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and Collaborating Researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazilian Ministry of Health. He served as Chair of the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale (2010-2021) after being stationed with the Brazilian Ministry of Health in Salvador, Brazil for 15 years. His research centers on the health problems that have emerged due to rapid urbanization and social inequity. Dr. Ko coordinates an urban health program in Brazil, which focuses on delineating the role of social marginalization, urban ecology, and climate on infectious disease threats to informal settlements and implementing community-driven interventions in these settings. Ko and his team have mobilized the research and public health response to multiple epidemics, which include meningitis, leptospirosis, dengue, Zika virus infection and associated birth defects, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He serves as a principal investigator of NIAID research programs, including a cluster randomized controlled trial in Brazil which is evaluating the effectiveness of Wolbachia-infected Aedes aegypti in reducing arboviral infection. Dr. Ko has devoted a significant part of his efforts to global health training as program director of a Fogarty Global Infectious