Professor David L. Heymann is professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, head of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House in London, and chairman of the board at Public Health England.

Previously, Professor Heymann was the World Health Organization’s (WHO) assistant director-general for Health Security and Environment, and representative of the director-general for polio eradication. From 1998–2003, he was executive director of the WHO Communicable Diseases Cluster where he headed the global response to SARS. Before joining the WHO, Professor Heymann worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa on assignment from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where, as well as supporting ministries of health in research, he participated in the response to the first and second outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever. Prior to joining CDC, Professor Heymann worked in India for two years on the WHO Smallpox Eradication Programme. He is an elected fellow of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in the US and the Academy of Medical Sciences in the United Kingdom and has been awarded several public health awards. In 2009, Professor Heymann was appointed an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for service to global public health.