DrJohn Reeder

Professor John Reeder is Director of TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases since February 2012 and Director of the Research for Health Department at the World Health Organization in Geneva since 2019.

He has long experience leading international research organizations, including as Director of the Centre for Population Health and Head of the Office of International Health Research at the Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia’s largest infectious disease research institute. Before this, he was Director of the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research for 6 years, where he worked on translating scientific findings into policy for improved health.

A naturalized Australian, born and educated in England, Professor Reeder began his career in medical microbiology laboratories in the United Kingdom and received his PhD in microbiology at the University of Manchester. He then moved to health training as a development volunteer in the Highlands of PNG and later working with a world-renowned malaria research team at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Australia. He made significant contributions to the study of the molecular basis of pathogenesis and the molecular epidemiology of the malaria parasite, and maintains active research interest in malaria and other agents of major global health significance, such as tuberculosis and HIV.

He has published around 200 scientific papers that span basic laboratory research to large community- based field studies and he holds an adjunct professorship at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

In 2020, Professor Reeder received the Mitchell Humanitarian Award for his contribution to end the debilitating disease onchocerciasis.