Peter Piot is the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and a Handa Professor of Global Health. He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations (1995-2008). A clinician and microbiologist by training, he co-discovered the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976, and subsequently led pioneering research on HIV/AIDS, women’s health and infectious diseases in Africa. He is the first Chair of the UK HMG Strategic Coherence of ODA Funded Research Board, a Vice Chair of the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund in Tokyo, the Chair of the Global Burden of Disease Independent Advisory Committee, and past president of the International AIDS Society. In 1995 he was made a baron by King Albert II of Belgium, and in 2016 was awarded a UK honorary knighthood KCMG. The numerous awards and honours for his research and service include the Canada Gairdner Global Health Award (2015), the Robert Koch Gold Medal (2015), the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health (2014), and was named a 2014 TIME Person of the Year (The Ebola Fighters).