Unni Kaunakara

Dr. Unni Karunakara was International President of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Director on the Board of Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) from 2010-2013. He has been a humanitarian worker and a public health professional for more than two decades, with extensive experience in the innovation and delivery of health care to populations affected by conflict, disasters, epidemics, and neglect in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. He was Medical Director of the MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines (2005-2007) and co-founded VIVO, an organisation that works toward overcoming and preventing traumatic stress and its consequences. Karunakara currently serves on the boards of MSF Holland and Manipal University’s Prasanna School of Public Health.
Dr Karunakara was a Senior Fellow of the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University from 2014-2017. He has held various academic and research fellowships at universities in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Germany and the United Kingdom. Karunakara served as the Deputy Director of Health of the Earth Institute, Millennium Villages Project (2008-2010), and was Assistant Clinical Professor at the Mailman School of Public Health (2008-2017), both at Columbia University. Karunakara is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor of Public Health at Yale University, a Shinhan Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yonsei University, and a Visiting Faculty of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University.