I am an infectious disease epidemiologist and vaccinologist, since July 2018 I have been based at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kilifi, Kenya, leading a trial to assess whether fractional doses of PCVs protect Kenyan infants as well as the full dose schedules. We will compare immunogenicity and carriage after vaccination with a full, 40% or 20% dose schedules. The results could be used to enable countries unable to afford the full cost of the vaccine, to continue delivering it in the childhood immunisation programme in the absence of Gavi support.

Maria Garcia Quesada, MSPH, is a Research Associate on the Epidemiology team at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC). Maria is a PhD student in Epidemiology at the Emory Rollins School of Public Health, received her MSPH in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her BS in Public Health and Neuroscience from Tulane University.

Nele graduated with a MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2020 at the University of Antwerp. During her master’s thesis, she studied the effect of potential uridine diphosphate glucose pyrophosphorylase (UDPG:PP) inhibitors on the virulence of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Following her studies in Pharmaceutical Sciences, she started as a PhD student at the Laboratory of Microbiology, Parasitology and Hygiene (LMPH) at the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on the characterization of persistence in S. pneumoniae in order to gain better understanding of the ways for S. pneumoniae to evade elimination and persist in the patient’s body.

Dr Andrea Gershon is a Respirologist and Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto and ICES. She is a well published CIHR-funded researcher as well as the COPD Associate Editor of the high impact journal CHEST. Dr. Gershon’s award winning research and knowledge translation program uses ‘Big Data’ to learn from the real-world experiences of people with lung disease with a focus on vulnerable groups, including the elderly, those of lower socioeconomic status and aboriginal peoples. Her clinical studies evaluate the use of remote monitoring and wearables in people with respiratory disease. She is currently leading a national, multicentre study on the respiratory effects of long COVID. Dr. Gershon has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles. She has been an invited speaker at international meetings, universities, and medical centres worldwide. Her work is used by government and non-profit organizations to informs local and international guidelines and policy. Dr. Gershon works with junior faculty, postgraduate fellows, graduate candidates, and other students at all levels of training. She loves supporting these upcoming leaders, researchers and clinicians –the future of discovery and innovation to help people stay healthy.

Bradford Gessner is a pediatrician and medical epidemiologist who completed his undergraduate training at Dartmouth College, medical school at the University of Florida, pediatric residency at the University of Colorado, preventive medicine residency and Masters of Public Health at the University of Washington, and Epidemic Intelligence Service fellowship with the US CDC. For 20 years, he served as the Scientific Director and Chief Scientific Officer with Agence de Medicine Preventive, based in Paris, France and Abidjan, Cote d’lvoire. In this role he initiated field studies primarily in Africa and impoverished settings and for most vaccine-preventable etiologies. During this time, he served on numerous WHO expert working groups, several SAGE working groups, WHO’s IVIR-AC and IPAC committees, and the Gavi Board of Directors. From 2016 to 2019 he worked with Pfizer as the Global Medical Lead for Pneumococcal Vaccines, adding Lyme Vaccine in 2020. Since 2021 has served as the Global Medical Lead for Respiratory Vaccines overseeing all post-licensure scientific work and medical affairs for Pfizer’s pneumococcal, RSV, and GBS vaccines. He is the author of over 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts from 40 countries, primarily in the field of vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases.

Ryan Gierke is an epidemiologist with the Respiratory Diseases Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He earned his BS in Microbiology and MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Minnesota. He has over 12 years of experience in infectious disease surveillance, working at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Foodborne Diseases Unit, the Georgia Emerging Infections Program, and the CDC's Active Bacterial Core Surveillance system.

Dr. Ryan Giroux (he/him) is a Pediatrician working at St. Michael’s Hospital and the Inner City Health Associates in Toronto, and is one of two Indigenous Educators at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is Métis from the Métis Nation of Alberta. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology in Edmonton prior to completing medical school and residency at the University of Toronto. His research has focused on the intersection between social determinants of health and respiratory disease, specifically TB in children. His clinical practice focuses on urban Indigenous families, and refugees/newcomers to Canada.

David Goldblatt is Professor of Vaccinology and Immunology at the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, University College London (UCL) and a Paediatric Immunologist at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children where he is Director of Research and Development. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and a PhD in Immunology from the University of London, UK. He has a long-standing interest in the immune response to vaccines, infectious diseases and correlates of protection. His major focus on the Pneumococcus has recently expanded to evaluating immunity to bacterial candidate vaccines including Group A and Group B Streptococcus and Klebsiella Pneumoniae. He recently established a platform for evaluating humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2 with focus on developing correlates of protection to accelerate COVID19 vaccine licensure. He is a regular advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on vaccines and is Director of the WHO Reference Laboratory for Pneumococcal Serology based at UCL. He serves on subcommittees of the United Kingdom Department of Health Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation (JCVI) has advised the US FDA, EMA and MHRA on vaccine evaluation and the currently sits on COVID vaccine committees for MHRA and WHO.

Dr. Alyssa Golden is a biologist in the Streptococcus and STI laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow and PhD student in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the Max Rady College of Medicine, University of Manitoba, Canada focusing on antimicrobial resistance of common Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes collected from patients in Canadian hospitals.

Norberto Gonzalez-Juarbe is an assistant professor working in the Infectious Diseases and Genomic Medicine Group. Currently, he is focused on the host responses that occur during co- and secondary bacterial infections to influenza. Dr. Gonzalez-Juarbe began his science career researching the habitability of primary producers in the field of astrobiology. Later while working on his PhD, his research was one of the first to establish that bacterial pathogens use pore-forming toxins to deplete the lungs of alveolar macrophages through activation of necroptosis (programmed necrosis). As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, under the supervision of Dr. Carlos Orihuela, Dr. Gonzalez-Juarbe focused on the study of Streptococcus pneumoniae-induced cardiac damage during invasive pneumococcal disease and expanded his graduate work on how bacterial pore-forming toxins cause cell death and the immunological implications of these mechanisms.