SUZGO CHITETE – is an award-winning journalist with over 10 years’ experience in both broadcast and print media. He is currently working as an Investigative Journalist for Nation Publications.

He holds a BA in Communication and Cultural Studies from Chancellor College-University of Malawi and a Diploma and Certificate in Journalism from the Malawi Institute of Journalism.

He previously worked as a senior reporter for the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and as a field producer, correspondent and fixer for Al Jazeera and BBC. Chitete is part of the team that has published a book for Amnesty International “Out of the Shadows” which is an adaptation from an investigative story done by Aljazeera on attacks against people with albinism in Malawi. Suzgo worked as a field producer and the book is currently used as Amnesty International’s resource material. Some of his work include – an informative TV documentary on the plight of people born as intersex in Malawi – which is currently used as an advocacy tool for human rights campaigners

He is a journalism trainer and is currently part of a project, under the Media Institute of Southern Africa – DW akadamie initiative to train community radio journalists. He has offered consultancy services to both public and private organisations in areas of media and communication.

Samrat Chowdhery has been a journalist for two decades with stints in mainline newspapers in India. He is the Vice President of the global consumer advocacy group International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO) and founder-director of Association of Vapers India (AVI). He has been involved in tobacco harm reduction advocacy since 2014, building grassroots resistance to anti-THR policies through consultations with authorities and other stakeholders, identifying and seeding research opportunities, and also by filing legal challenges in a number of Indian states that have prohibited lower-risk tobacco alternatives. Mr. Chowdhery was honoured with the ‘Advocate of the Year’ award at Global Forum for Nicotine (GFN) held in Warsaw in June 2018. He is currently working on collaborations to study the impact of bans on consumer behaviour and the indigenous development of lower-risk alternatives for India's 200 million smokeless tobacco users.

Jon has a 30 year background in harm reduction, with a varied career which has included: working in a substitute prescribing programme, managing a harm reduction focussed training department, co-founding a successful injecting equipment supply company, writing the standard UK text on safer injecting and producing over 750 harm reduction orientated short films and several full-length documentaries. As former smoker of around 40 years, he was excited by the possibilities of vaping, which he first encountered in 2010. Two years later using e-cigarettes, he had quit both smoking (accidentally!) and vaping. He has worked with KAC for around 10 years, first as a film maker and latterly as manager of the THR Scholarship Programme.

Dr Marewa Glover (Director) is an indigenous behavioral scientist who has worked on reducing harms from smoking for over 25 years. She has over 100 scientific publications, has been involved in many trials and has led many research projects. Reducing smoking among pregnant Māori women has been a particular focus of her research.

Will Godfrey is the founding editor-in-chief of Filter, an online magazine that launched in 2018 to cover drug use, drug policy and human rights through a harm reduction lens. He's also the executive director of The Influence Foundation, the nonprofit behind Filter. He previously founded The Influence, an award-winning drug policy news site, and ran Substance.com and the addiction-focused site The Fix. Before that, he co-founded an award-winning print publication for incarcerated people in London. He has consulted for numerous organisations in the drug policy and harm reduction space. He lives in New York.

Neil Hunt is a freelance researcher/educator. He mainly works as a forensic mental health nurse, and also supervises a young persons’ early intervention substance use team. He has previously held positions as a lecturer and Honorary Senior Research Associate at the University of Kent and as Honorary Research Fellow with the Centre for Research on Drugs and Health Behaviour, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has published extensively in peer reviewed journals and books covering areas such as: transitions to injecting; reviews of the harm reduction evidence base; cannabis and mental health; drug consumption rooms; young persons’ substance use, and stigma relating to substance use.

Tomasz Jerzyński is a Sociologist and data scientist at Knowledge Action Change and The Robert B. Zajonc Institute for Social Studies University of Warsaw. Co-author in a team of Polish General Social Survey (PGSS). Co-author in a team of a Polish edition of International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Member of team of Social Diagnosis – Objective and Subjective Quality of Life in Poland. Co-founder and member of the Polish Social Data Archive team. (www.ads.org.pl.) Head of Centre for Sociological Research at The Robert B. Zajonc Institute for Social Studies University of Warsaw.

Axel Klein is a social anthropologist with a special interest in mind and mood altering substances. For twenty years Axel has been studying the production, distribution and consumption of licit and illicit drugs, working with farmers, consumers and policy makers. Working at the University of Kent, the UK NGO DrugScope, and for the European Commission, UNODC, DfID and GIZ, his work has always been driven by two objectives: to deconstruct myths and to promote practices that reduce harm. In the context of different projects Axel has conducted field works in various locations, including Afghanistan, Jamaica and Nigeria.

Kasia is a director of the Global Public Health Network and an academic lecturer. Her field of expertise and interest includes: harm reduction, mental health, international event management and organization, third sector. She supports scholars from Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia in the area of conducting research, running NGO’s, organizing events.

Grzegorz Król, Ph.D. - Director at a British public health agency, Knowledge•Action•Change. Social psychologist & IT specialist, author of publications on psychology, data analysis and harm reduction. Since 2003 Grzegorz manages international projects in the area of public health, drugs and tobacco harm reduction. Between 2012 and 2018 lecturer at the Faculty of Management & MBA School, University of Warsaw. Since 2016, member of the European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (ENRESSH), part of the COST Action: European Cooperation in Science and Technology. Co-founder of a harm reduction knowledge hub at harmreduction.eu.

Chairman: Campaign for Safer Alternatives

Joseph Magero is the Chairman of Campaign for Safer Alternatives (CASA), a pan-African organisation that advocates for the adoption of tobacco harm reduction policies in Africa. As the unifying voice for consumer organisations, CASA promotes the exchange of information and potential actions to reduce exposure to tobacco-related harm.

Mr Magero previously worked in the tobacco control arena for nearly a decade. His involvement entailed creating smoke-free environments, mandating bigger health warnings, making cigarettes more expensive as well as restricting advertising and marketing.

Despite these efforts, smoking deaths continued to increase. This resulted in Mr Magero rethinking his approach towards tobacco control. He has since become an ardent tobacco harm reductionist, lobbying for the reduction of smoking-related diseases and mortality in Africa by advocating for reduced risk products for cigarette smokers. He is also a mentor on the Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarships Program (THRSP), which focuses on promoting safer alternatives to smoking.

In 2019, Mr Magero was awarded Advocate of the Year by the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations (INNCO). He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration (Marketing) from the University of Greenwich, England and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Public policy. 

Kevin McGirr, Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Nursing; has taught in schools of medicine, social work and public health and was a Nehru-Fulbright Scholar in Pondicherry India, 2013-2014. He has extensive experience in providing and managing behavioral health services in Boston, San Francisco and New York. He holds masters degrees in public health, psychiatric nursing and an all but dissertation doctorate in public health. He has an interest in the utilization of harm reduction in substance use services and in particular utilizing Harm Reduction Tobacco interventions for persons with serious mental illness.

Chimwemwe Ngoma is a MA. Media Studies student at the University of Malawi, a passionate tobacco harm reduction advocate managing the THR Malawi project and a mentor on the Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarships Programme (THRSP). Chimwemwe has worked as a Content Writer (Consultant) at Solimar International and as a Project Officer at the Network for Youth Development. He now works a THRSP manager for KAC.

Dr Sudhanshu Patwardhan is a British-Indian licensed medical doctor. He has proven global regulatory strategy and science engagement expertise, built on unique international experience across corporate affairs, biomedical research, consumer advocacy and business management in pharmaceutical and tobacco industries. To follow their commitment to global cancer prevention, Sud and his practising physician wife co-founded the Centre for Health Research and Education (CHRE), an independent healthcare startup. CHRE is leading the development of products and services for effectively delivering smoking cessation to every smoker in the world.

Prof. Dr. Mihaela Raescu is a Ph.D. in Medical Sciences – Dentistry (2002) who teaches Oral and Dental Prevention at the Titu Maiorescu Univesity School of Dentistry in Bucharest, Romania since 2003 and is a tenured University Professor since 2015, in addition to being an active practitioner and primarius doctor.She is the Erasmus coordinator and the President of Ethical Commitee .

Helen Redmond is an expert in substance use with over a decade of experience working with drug users and people with mental health problems in medical and mental health settings and in community supportive housing. Her current focus is on helping vulnerable and stigmatized populations transition to e-cigarettes. She is an independent journalist and writes about vaping, mental health and drug policy. Helen is a filmmaker and made a short documentary about people with serious mental health problems and smoking. She provides tobacco harm reduction training via her consulting firm, Nicotine Harm Reduction Consultants. She is adjunct faculty at New York University - Silver School of Social Work.

I describe myself as a socio-cultural researcher who has a particular interest in social movements, inequity, and political and social geographies of 'outsiders'. I gained my Master in Sociology from the Waikato University, and my PhD from Victoria University, Wellington. I have supervised masters students at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa (an Indigenous tertiary institution). My passion for social justice change has seen me involved in many community and social justice organisations, as well as being a board member for Indigenous and queer community groups. For two years running (2017 and 2018), I coordinated a week of events celebrating International Women’s Day in Hamilton. I identify as queer and non-binary.

Rajesh N. Sharan, Ph.D., is a Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Director of the Design Innovation Center at North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) at Shillong (India). He is currently participating in an international clinical CRP funded by IAEA, Vienna (2017-21). His research interest lies in the domain of cancer and radiation molecular biology with special interest in molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis of betel (Areca) nut, radiation induced DNA damage and biomarker discovery for cancer and radiation damage assessment for their clinical applications, with a keen interest in the field of tobacco related human cancer and harm reduction in India.

Professor Gerry Stimson is a public health social scientist, with over 40 years’ experience of research and advocacy. He was one of the founders of drugs harm reduction in the 1980s and helped develop and evaluate harm reduction in the UK as a response to HIV/AIDS. He has advised the UK Government, WHO, UNAIDS, UNODC, World Bank and numerous governments on issues relating to drugs, HIV infection and AIDS, and alcohol. He is an advocate for tobacco harm reduction as a key public health strategy for reducing smoking related harms. He has published over 220 scientific publications and several books. He is Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London.