Visiting Scholar's Global Engagements

Tuesday 6 October

Currently a Visiting Scholar at Trinity College and a Miegunyah Distinguished Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Professor Lawrence O Gostin  has been asked by President Barack Obama to chair a National Academy of Sciences committee on America's disaster preparedness.

Professor Gostin now leads the Committee in examining US standards of care for all types of mass emergencies including nuclear, terrorist, biological, and climatic events, as well as epidemics such as swine flu.

‘Our interim report is coming out soon,’ Professor Gostin said, adding, ‘But I am still chairing the committee as its work will continue for a year or so more.’

This week, however, Professor Gostin flew to Beijing where he is helping to reform China’s health system.

‘This work has been funded through a State Department Grant for Democracy Building that supports advising the Chinese government on health reform,’ he explained.

Professor Gostin will return to Trinity next weekend. Here, he will join the judging panel for the 2009 Louise Gourlay Prize for Social Change and, on 21 October, will present a Fireside Chat on 'Why Rich Countries Should Care About the World's Least Healthy People' for students staff and alumni.

Later in October, he will be heading to Hanoi, Vietnam, where he will give the keynote address for the international health and human rights conference on
 ‘Realising the rights to health and development for all’.

Professor Lawrence O Gostin is the Linda D and Timothy J O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.