Sunil Suhas Solomon MBBS, PhD, MPH is Professor of Medicine, in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA. He was trained in medicine at the Sri Ramachandra Medical University in Chennai, India and received a Masters in Public Health and a Doctorate in Epidemiology (PhD) from the Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses on the epidemiology, clinical management and access to HIV and HCV care among vulnerable Indian populations such as People Who Inject Drugs and Men who have Sex with Men. He has published extensively on these topics in highly ranked peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet ID, Lancet HIV, Clinical Infectious Diseases and AIDS. Dr. Solomon has been elected into the Phi Beta Kappa honors society for academic excellence and the Delta Omega Public Health honors society. In 2015, he was one of the first recipients of the Avenir award, a Director’s award (DP2) from the National Institutes of Health, USA aimed at identifying individuals who propose high impact research and who show promise of being tomorrow’s leaders in the field of drug abuse and HIV.
M. K. Mani MD, FRCS, FNAMS, retired as the Chief Nephrologist at Apollo Hospitals, Chennai and is Honorary Managing Trustee, Kidney Help Trust, Chennai. He has previously held several teaching and clinical positions in various government medical colleges and their associated teaching hospitals in Tamilnadu, and at Sydney Hospital and the University of Sydney, Australia. His pioneering effort in establishing nephrology in India has been recognised by such institutions as the National Academy of Medical Sciences, Indian College of Physicians, and Indian Society of Nephrology. He has contributed over a hundred papers and chapters to scientific books and journals, including four textbooks of medicine, and authored 87 papers on medical ethics. His awards and distinctions include the Padma Bhushan, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Indian Society of Nephrology the John H. Dirks Award by the International Society of Nephrology, the Rabindranath Tagore Oration from the Indian College of Physicians and the Doctor of Science (honoriscausa) degree from the Tamilnadu Dr MGR Medical University and from the NTR University of Health Sciences, Andhra Pradesh. He is the author of Letters from Chennai: Random Thoughts on Medicine and Society, and of an autobiography, Yamaraja’s Brother.
Kartar Singh is the Chief Strategic Officer, The Suniti Solomon Foundation, as well as adviser and consultant to several Indian and UK organisations engaged in teacher training, school education, and environmental conservation. He was formerly Director, International Relations at SRM University, Chennai. As British Council – South India’s first Deputy Director based in Chennai, he has led programmes and projects in the arts, science and technology, education, management and the social sciences. He has considerable expertise in project cycle management, including project identification, design, formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. He oversaw design and management of over 100 projects valued at over 5 million GBP. He helped design the flagship UK-India Education and Research Initiative that has defined the bilateral relationship between the UK and India in science, technology and education. He has fostered schemes for bilateral collaboration in areas like poverty alleviation, gender development, advocacy, and health management, and has led several missions to the UK. He taught Food Science for two years at the Institute of Food Science and Technology, Mumbai and later, worked as a food microbiologist in a central government sponsored project on post-harvest fisheries. He holds professional graduate and post- graduate qualifications in fisheries technology from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore. After 32 years’ service, he retired from the British Council in 2012