Visiting Professors at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments

Hugh Barton

MPhil, DipTP, MRTPI, FRSA, AoU
Emeritus Professor at WHO Collaborating Centre
Subject specialism: Healthy planning

Hugh Barton is a town planner and Emeritus Professor of planning, health and sustainability in the WHO Collaborating Centre at UWE Bristol. In the early eighties, he founded the Urban Centre for Appropriate Technology. His books include Sustainable Settlements, a Guide to Local Authority Auditing, Sustainable Communities, and Healthy Urban Planning (translated into six languages). He was lead editor of the Routledge Handbook of Planning for Health and Well-being (2015), and is working on City of Well-being – a radical new guide to town planning (publication 2016). His recreational hobbies include walking, choral music, grandchildren, and preparing a Neighbourhood Development Plan.

Dr Aude Bicquelet-Lock

Deputy Head of Policy and Research, Royal Town Planning Institute.

Michael Chang

HMFPH, CMRTPI, MCMI
Lead on Healthy Places at Town and Country Planning Association; recently appointed project manager to the Healthy Places team, Public Health England.

Nicholas Falk

Founder and Director, URBED

Professor Herbert Girardet

Subject specialism: Sustainability

Since the 1980s, Herbert has been working as a cultural and urban ecologist; a writer, film maker and as an international consultant on sustainable development. For many years, he has focussed primarily on the challenges of creating sustainable cities and enterprises. He grew up in Germany but has been based in the UK since 1964. He is married with two grown-up sons. He was a Londoner for many years but now lives in Monmouthshire. Since the 1980s, Herbert has delivered lectures at major conferences and events in over 30 countries and over 60 cities.

Herbert is a recipient of a UN 'Global 500 Award for Outstanding Environmental Achievements'. He is a member of the Club of Rome. In 2004, he was a co-founder of the World Future Council and, from 2005 to 2010, he was its Director of Programmes. He has worked as a consultant to UN-Habitat and UNEP. He has developed sustainability strategies for major cities such as London and Bristol. He also worked as a senior adviser to the Dongtan Eco-City project on Chongming Island (Shanghai), and for the Riyadh-based Saudi Sustainability Initiative.

In 2003, Herbert was the inaugural ‘Thinker in Residence’ in Adelaide, developing sustainable development strategies for the region. South Australia Premier, Mike Rann, said: “South Australia is fast becoming a leader in adopting a ‘green’ approach to the way we live, and much of that credit must go to Herbert Girardet”. In early 2012, Herbert wrote a report about the many environment initiatives that have been implemented there in the last 10 years.

Herbert is visiting professor at UWE Bristol. From 1996 to 2008, he was Chairman of the Schumacher Society, UK, and founder-editor of the highly acclaimed Schumacher Briefings. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects; a patron of the Soil Association, UK; and a trustee of Artists Project Earth.

Herbert is author and co-author of 13 books, amongst these: BLUEPRINT FOR A GREEN PLANET (1986); THE Gaia Atlass Of Cities (1992 and 1996); Cities, People, Planet – Urban Development and Climate Change (2004 and 2008); Surviving the century– Facing climate change and other global challenges (2008); A Renewable World– Energy, Ecology, Equality (2009). His books have been translated in a total of 16 languages. Herbert has also written many other reports and chapters for books. His book, Creating Regenerative Cities, published by Routledge, was named by Huffington Post as the most important green book of 2014.

From 1985 to 2000, Herbert also worked as writer, producer and director of 50 TV documentaries on environmental topics, including three films made in the Amazon – Jungle Pharmacy (1987), The Altamira Gathering (1989), Halting the Fires (1990) and the international TV series, The People's Planet (2000).

Video lectures by Herbert Girardet can be found on YouTube.

Liz Green

FFPH, ACIEH
Principal Health Impact Assessment Development Officer, Research and International Development Directorate, Public Health Wales; and HIA Lead in the new WHOCC on investment for health and well-being.

Richard Guise

Sole practitioner at Context4D.

Carl Petrokofsky

Public Health Specialist, Healthy Places Team, Public Health England.

Mark Pietroni

MA(Cantab) MA(Open) MBA (Open) MBBChir MRCP(UK) FRCP(London) DTM&H
Visiting Professor in the School of Social Sciences
Subject specialism: Public health

My wife, Teresa, and I trained at Cambridge University and the London Hospital in Whitechapel in east London. The large Bengali community in east London sparked an interest in working in Bangladesh and we left the UK in 1997 to work at a small mission hospital in a very rural part of north west Bangladesh. We expected to stay for three to five years but returned with our three daughters (two of whom were born in Bangladesh) after almost 15 years.

During that time, we had amazing opportunities to learn from and take part in the dynamic health and development sector in Bangladesh working with the Government of Bangladesh, donors such as the Department for International Development (DFID), and many NGOs and other voluntary sector organisations.

From 1997 to 2007, we worked at LAMB. The project was at the cutting edge of community managed and financed primary and secondary health care services, ran nationally accredited training programmes, and latterly developed international research partnerships. I became Executive Director of LAMB in 2002 and Chief Financial Officer in 2003.

In 2007, we moved to Dhaka where I joined ICDDR,B, an international public health research centre, as Medical Director. My responsibilities included running a hospital that treated up to 1,000 patients a day with diarrhoea caused by cholera, rota virus and other pathogens; providing teams to help WHO manage cholera outbreaks worldwide; managing diarrhoea and HIV surveillance programmes; designing and implementing a paperless medical record across three sites; setting up the first structured training programme and clinical governance programme in Bangladesh; research in a number of areas; and national and international media and fundraising work.

Returning to the UK, I have been looking for roles that match my rather eclectic set of skills and Public Health seems a good fit. I have been encouraged by the support of a number of people in the specialty who have appreciated the value that overseas experience can add. I am delighted to be able to join the team at South Gloucestershire as Interim Director of Public Health. I share the enthusiasm about the return of Public Health to local government and the opportunities it brings to integrate systems and services to improve the health of the community.

Gabriel Scally

President of the Epidemiology and Public Health Section at the Royal Society of Medicine.