Dr Rui Pombal

Medical Director, UCS -TAP Group Health Services, and Medical Advisor to IATA.

Rui is Medical Director for UCS -TAP Air Portugal Group Health Services, and Incoming Medical Advisor to IATA.

He holds a Master’s in Aviation Medicine, is an EASA and FAA certified medical examiner, and is currently serving as President of the Portuguese Aerospace Medicine Association.

Dr Vincent Feuillie

Médecin Conseil - Medical Advisor, Air France

Gerard Forlin KC

Cornerstone Barristers

Call: 1984 | Silk year: 2010

Gerard Forlin KC is one of the UK’s most highly regarded barristers with specialism in civil, criminal and commercial litigation, environment, fire, corporate governance, major event planning & crowd safety, state, ceremonial and historical events, crisis management, health and safety, aviation, inquests and inquiries, local authority governance and services, and regulatory law.

Educated at Trinity Hall Cambridge, LSE and UCL, Gerard has been instructed in some of the most high-profile inquiries of recent years including the Grenfell Tower fire, the Shoreham air crash, an F1 case and numerous other cases both in the UK and internationally.

Gerard practices all over the globe in his various fields of practice. He has worked from Vancouver in Canada to Queenstown in New Zealand, from the Falkland Islands and South Georgia in the Antarctic Ocean to Seoul in Korea and Beijing in China. He has worked in over 65 countries, one of only a tiny handful of London Barristers to have ever achieved this. In 2020, Gerard was also called to the Bar of Ireland in 2020, after passing the Irish Bar Examination.

He has appeared in court in several jurisdictions across the world and advised numerous other parties including airlines, airports, manufacturers, mining companies, fishing companies, water companies, oil and gas companies, and tour companies.

In recent years, Gerard has been ranked in no fewer than seven areas in the leading independent legal directories including Health and Safety, Product Liability, Crime, Public Inquiries and Inquests, Consumer Law, Aviation and Environmental Law. He was also awarded the title of Regulatory Barrister of the Year in 2015, 2016 and 2023.

Dr Brian McCloskey

Chatham House

Brian McCloskey has worked in public health at local, regional, national and international level over a period of 25 years.

A director of public health in successive local health authorities in England from 1988 to 2002, Brian then worked as Deputy Regional Director of Public Health in the Regional Government Office, West Midlands, with an interest in health protection. In 2004 he joined the Health Protection Agency with a remit for emergency planning and responsibility for cross government aspects of the agency’s response to major emergencies. Brian was involved nationally in the HPA’s response to the London bombings in 2005, and the Buncefield Oil Depot fire in 2005, as well as flooding incidents in 2007, and pandemic flu in 2009.

In September 2008, Brian became Regional Director for the HPA in London where he had the lead role in planning for the 2012 London Olympics.

Brian has been working with WHO’s Mass Gatherings Advisory Group since 2008, helping develop their public health guidance and planning toolkit and is head of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Mass Gatherings working with mass gatherings such as the World Cup in South Africa as well as the London Olympics.

Brian took on the role of Director of Global Health for Public Health England in April 2013.

In the January 2013 New Year’s Honours List, Brian was awarded a CBE for services to public health and public safety.

Dr Kris M Belland

President & CEO, Aerospace Medical Strategic Consultation

Dr. Kris Belland is a highly accomplished aerospace medical professional with a distinguished career in the United States Navy and the aviation industry. He holds a master’s degree in business administration, Public Health, and Strategic Studies and is board-certified in Family and Aerospace Medicine. Dr. Belland served as a flight surgeon and F/A-18 Hornet pilot in the US Navy, accumulating 2,000 flight hours, participating in combat missions, and receiving numerous prestigious awards.

He also served as the Southwest Regional Deputy Flight Surgeon for the FAA, played a vital role in the Aerospace Medical Association’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and worked as an Aviation Medicine Specialist and Consultant for Commercial Aircrew Unions. Dr. Belland‘s expertise led him to serve as the Global Corporate Medical Director and Chief Medical Officer for American Airlines. He has actively contributed to professional organizations such as the Aerospace Medical Association representative to ICAO and CAPSCA.

Dr. Belland‘s remarkable background, extensive experience, and contributions have made a significant impact on aerospace medicine and the well-being of aviation professionals and passengers.

Dr Paul Wynn-Hatton

Group Technical Director, Callington

Dr Wynn-Hatton is the Group Technical Director for the Callington Group of companies and has been involved in the global disinfectant and pesticide industries for over 30 years.

He has held senior technical and regulatory positions within multinational organisations globally, and continues to contribute to the framing of specific legislation on disinfection testing and efficacy for the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia. He is particularly concerned with the intersection of necessary and competing aviation biosecurity and health requirements, such as the effect of ongoing cleaning and disinfection on the disinsection requirements to prevent the spread of vector transmitted diseases.

Dr Sanjay Pooran

Ross University School of Medicine, Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Qualifications: MD, FRCPI, FFPHMI, FFPH, LLB, MBA, MSc, FAcadMed, MFFLM, MCFP

Dr Sanjay Pooran is a uniquely qualified public health physician with qualifications in internal medicine, public health, law, business administration and international relations.

He is visiting Professor at Ross University School of Medicine, Fellow at The Geneva Centre for Security, Public Governor at University College London Hospital UCLH NHS , and Chief Scientific Officer for Bloomsbury Primary Care Trust.

His interest lies in infectious diseases and bio terrorism and the importance of simulation in better health emergency and preparedness response mechanisms. During the early part of 2023 he presented at both the American Congress of Legal Medicine in Orlando and The Australasian College of Legal Medicine in Hobart focusing on pandemic legislation and regulation of vaccine providers.

He was recently invited to present to capitol hill policy advisers in Washington by The Centre for Arms Control and Non-proliferation on bioterrorism and infectious diseases at the intersection of public health and homeland security.

Dr Daniel Olaiya

UK Health Security Agency

Dr. Daniel Olaiya primarily an Anaesthesia and Critical Care doctor at The Royal Free London Hospital. He also fulfils his role as Fixed Wing Air Ambulance Flight physician and a Port Health Doctor at Heathrow Airport for UKHSA. Having successfully completed the Aviation Medicine diploma in 2019, he applied his by knowledge joining Public Health England’s Covid response team stationed at Heathrow Airport – an around-the-clock medical and operational team dedicated to monitoring and managing various acute public health challenges especially aviation Infection related threats.

James Wiltshire

IATA

James Wiltshire is Assistant Director External Affairs, a position he took up in January 2019. In this role he is responsible for developing global policy for IATA across a broad range of topics. As part of his role, James is the assistant to IATA’s Medical Advisor and has therefore been at the forefront of developing IATA’s policy response to COVID and its work on preparedness for future health emergencies, including engagement with UN agencies such as ICAO and WHO.

 James is a professional economist by background and joined IATA’s Economics Department in 2013. He also has government and regulatory experience having worked for over 10 years within the UK Government Economic Service and the Civil Aviation regulator. James has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics with Hispanic Studies from the University of Nottingham, UK and a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Graduate Institute Geneva, Switzerland.

Dr Cindy Friedman

CDC

Dr. Cindy Friedman is the chief of The Travelers’ Health Branch in the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.  She came to CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Officer in 1995 after completing an Infectious Diseases Fellowship at Cornell University Medical College.  She has over 25 years of experience working in a variety of Federal Public Health positions, including leading the Traveler Genomic Surveillance Program, an early warning system to detect new and rare variants of SARS-CoV-2, leading CDC’s 2020 COVID-19 response Cruise Ship Task Force, that helped navigate the safe disembarkation and repatriation of more than 250,000 passengers and crew.

Dr Friedman spent several years at as Lead for The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System in CDC’s Enteric Diseases Epidemiology Branch. She has also worked at CDC’s Respiratory Diseases Branch as Medical Director for CDC’s Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work, as CDC’s liaison to The Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Anthrax bioterrorism response, and at The Fogarty International Center at NIH. Dr Friedman has co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, served on several advisory boards, and holds an adjunct faculty appointment at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Dr Ian Hosegood

Qantas

Professor Davey Jones

Bangor University and Murdoch University

Davey Jones holds a joint Professorship in Environmental Science between Bangor University and Murdoch University, Australia. His research focuses on the cycling of human pathogens in the environment and new ways to undertake cost-effective public health surveillance. He has undertaken several studies on the analysis of pathogens in wastewater from transnational ferries and aircraft looking at the import rate of disease and the success of post-departure testing and mass-quarantining facilities at airports. On-going projects include PI of several national public health wastewater surveillance projects (UKHSA-ACE, Welsh Government, GCRF and NERC), two UKRI projects on microplastic and pathogen dispersal in the freshwater and coastal zone. Recently finished projects include the NERC-EMHH VIRAQUA programme on environmental virology and the Food Standards Agency project on active pathogen management in shellfisheries and bathing waters. He advises Welsh Government and Defra on their public health, climate change and land use policy. He was a member of the SAGE COVID-19 sub-committee ‘Transmission of Covid-19 in the Wider Environment Group (TWEG)’ and was head of the Covid-19 Technical Advisory Group – Environment (TAG-E) for Welsh Government. He has published 614 ISI journal articles, has >37,000 ISI citations and an ISI h-index of 92.

Dr Joerg Hedtmann

BG Verkehr

Born 1960, Medical Doctor and consultant in occupational and aerospace medicine.
Former flight surgeon in the German Air Force with international, clinical, research and staff assignments. Since 1997 with the BG Verkehr, starting as head of the occupational and traffic health branch, since 2006 in the actual position as head of the occupational safety and health directorate. Member in several associations e.g. International Academy of Aviation and Space Medicine (IAASM) and Senior Vice President of the Section on Prevention in Transportation of the International Social Security Association (ISSA).

Commitment: “Vision Zero” – A world without fatal and severe occupational accidents and diseases.

Dr Richard Pleus

Founder & CEO, Intertox

Founder, CEO, Chief Toxicologist

RICHARD C. PLEUS, Ph.D., heads Intertox Inc., the scientific research and consulting company he founded in 1995. Within Intertox, he brings deep knowledge of toxicology to assist in protecting public health. To date, he has performed more than 600 toxicological assessments and has analyzed the impact of hundreds of chemicals on human health for aviation and space travel, medicine, medical products, consumer products, air, soil, water, food and waste.

Dr Paulo Alves

Global Medical Director, MedAire

A trained cardiologist, Dr Alves started in the industry in 1983 at Varig Brazilian Airlines – the first airline founded in Brazil – for 23 years. He was the airline’s General Medical Manager for ten years.

Dr Alves then joined MedAire in 2007.

In addition to making a career of this passion, he offers his time to many organisations within the industry. He served as an IATA Medical Advisory Group member from 2002 to 2006. Dr Alves has been continuously supporting IATA by providing his depth of knowledge and experience in forums, webinars and panel discussions, in addition to his close contact with the previous and current IATA’s medical advisor.

Dr Alves is also a member of the International Airlines Medical Association, where he served as President in 2014. The International Airline Medical Association (formerly known as the Airline Medical Directors Association – AMDA) provides a forum for any stakeholder in Aviation Medicine. As a former President of the Brazilian Society of Aerospace Medicine, Dr Alves played an essential role in maintaining a scientific development forum in Brazilian aerospace medicine.

Dr Alves has also supported the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) as the Air Transport Medicine Committee Chairman.

Dr Justin Devlin

Medical Director for Aviation Services, MedAire

Dr. Devlin is the Medical Director for Aviation Services for MedAire based in Phoenix, AZ, and is responsible for providing oversight and leadership in the delivery of medical services for Aviation clients.  Dr. Devlin was an Emergency Medicine physician providing MedLink ground to air medical support until officially joining International SOS in 2018.  He transitioned from International SOS to MedAire in 2019 where he was functioning as Medical Case Lead, serving as the primary escalation point and providing oversight for all MedAire platform assistance cases. Dr. Devlin also contributes significantly to the medical team education agenda, and he has recent assumed the position of Medical Director for MedAire’s Aviation Services. 

Dr Rosirene Gessinger

AZUL Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras

Medical doctor specialising in Occupational Medicine and Otorhinolaryngology.

PhD student at UFCSPA Brazil
Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering (PUCRS, Brazil)
Postgraduate in Aerospace Medicine (Estácio de Sá University, Brazil)
AZUL Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras Medical Doctor
Brazilian Aerospace Medical Society  Vice Presidente 2022-2024

Captain Augusto Dalazen

AZUL Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras

Linda Porter

Senior Manager Health, Virgin Atlantic

Linda Porter is Senior Manager Health, at Virgin Atlantic Airways. A critical care nurse who has spent nearly 3 decades in aviation in various AvMed roles. In her current role she leads a small dedicated team, delivering a 24/7 advisory and core risk management and oversight to Virgin operations, its passengers and employees, plus providing an internal Passenger Medical Clearance service.

Linda has a particular interest in resuscitation and remains an active Advanced Life Support Instructor for the Resuscitation Council (UK).  She has been actively involved in all of Virgin’s defibrillation programmes, in the air and on the ground and is particularly proud of the programme she led to equip all Virgin offices with AEDs, resulting in the saving of a 21yr old employee in 2016.

She has qualifications in aviation medicine, critical care nursing and leadership, is a Mental Health First Aider and holds full membership of IAMA, AsMA, IATA MCG, European Resuscitation Council, RCUK and RCN Critical Care and Flight Nursing Forum.

Her achievements at Virgin have included;

• Introduction of medical simulation and extended skills training into the Virgin crew training programme, including supraglottic airway insertion training for all crew – significantly reducing aspiration events and BBP exposures during inflight SCA
• Development and introduction of a 1st , 2nd and recently 3rd generation ‘end to end’ inflight telemedicine system for use by Cabin Crew, contributing to a decrease in medical diversions by >50% and lives saved
• Together with Dr Anthony Handley, conducted a study into alternate chest compression methods for confined spaces using VA Crew – published findings uplifted into the national guidelines
• Setting up a ‘Heartbeats’ roadshow service, delivering ‘en masse’ rapid CPR/AED training to Virgin Atlantic employees
• Standing up a unique in house COVID-19 Molecular and Antigen testing centre and lab for Virgin Crew, Pilots and Ground colleagues – testing every crew member nd pilot before every flight from Sept 2020 and throughout the pandemic
• Leading the Virgin Atlantic Health response through SARS, Ebola, Zika, COVID-19 and MPox

Along with the great passion for her ‘job’ she is also a keen skier and high-altitude climber, as well as loving hiking nearer home in the Lake District fells with Cooper her rescue dog and ‘Parkrunning’ on Saturday mornings.

David Brown

Passenger Health Specialist, VA Telemedicine Futures Delivery lead, Virgin Atlantic

Capt. Robert Gobac MD

RwandAir

Medical Doctor with 30 years’ experience in medicine and aviation related medicine
Airline Pilot and Instructor

Education:

• Medical Doctor: Graduated at Medical Faculty, University of Zagreb, Croatia,
• Aviation Medicine health care provider (Diploma) (WITS University, Medical School, Johannesburg, South Africa)
• AME: Aviation Medicine Examiner SA
• Flying Instructor Rwanda and South Africa: TRI, TRE, DPE
• Test pilot
• Aviation medicine (Avmed) course trainer and examiner

CRJ Captain and Bombardier Fleet Manager at Rwandair
Bombardier Fleet manager and CRJ 900 captain at Rwandair, as well as TRI and TRE on over 25 different aircraft types. Total time of 7000 hours, of which over 4000 on airline operations.

Simulator Flight Instructor

Designated Pilot Examiner

Test Pilot

 Head of Medical and Occupational Health at Rwandair

Established and running successful medical department at RwandAir.
Providing medical care, occupational health day to day management, managing regulatory Compliance for crew and licensed employees.

Dr T J Doyle

Medical Director, STAT-MD

TJ Doyle MD MPH is the Medical Director for UPMC Communications and Aviation Consultation. He is also the Medical Director for the STAT-MD Ground Based Airline Medical Support Service.

Dr. Doyle has been providing Airline Medical Consultation services for 16 years. He is also one of the Medical Directors for the STAT MedEvac critical care helicopter service. This service provides rotary wing transport services to 8 US states using 17 base sites. Dr. Doyle is Board Certified in Emergency Medicine and Subspecialty Board Certified in Emergency Medical Services.

Dr. Doyle is a member of the Airlines Medical Director’s Association and the Aerospace Medical Association. Dr. Doyle is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine.

Dr Geoff Thompson

Australian Paralympics Team Doctor

Present Position:
Practice Principal & Owner, Thompson Medical Practice P/L
Medical Officer Paralympics Australia. (2008 to present)

Professional Qualifications
Graduated Adelaide University Medical School, 1969, MB BS
Specialist training: Fellowship of Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians. Sept 1990

Relevant Experience:
Flight Surgeon Specialist Royal Australian Airforce (1969-1976)
General Practitioner, Darwin, NT, Australia (1977 – 1990)
Medical Director, Royal Flying Doctor Service, WA Branch (1980)
Chief Medical Officer, Central Australian Masters Games (‘86 – ’12)
Medical Officer, Australian Men’s Hockey Team, (1986 – 2000)
Sports Physician, Olympic Games, Sydney Australia, 2000
Chief Medical Officer, Arafura Games, Darwin, (1991-2019)

Dr Stephen Houston

British Airways

Dr Stephen Houston completed his fellowship in Ophthalmology in 1997 before taking up an airline scholarship to become a commercial pilot in 1999. He has flown over 7000 hours on the Airbus 320 series, most recently at British Airways. Returning to full-time medical practice in 2012 he specialised in Occupational and Aviation Medicine. He is a full-time consultant physician in Occupational Medicine at British Airways Health Services and an AME for the UK CAA.

Dr Eleanor Ivory

British Airways

Dr Jim Chung

Chief Medical Officer, Air Canada

Dr. Jim Chung has been Air Canada’s Chief Medical Officer since 2016.  In this role, he has oversight for
both employee and passenger medical regulatory issues including first aid training, onboard medical
procedures and pilot medical certification.

Dr. Chung is a graduate of the University of Toronto Medical Program and undergraduate studies at
McMaster University.
Following completion of his residency in Family Medicine, he served in the Canadian Forces in various
roles while stationed at CFB Petawawa. Dr. Chung also deployed to Bosnia on Canada’s NATO SFOR
mission and to Turkey with Canada’s DART team in response to a major earthquake in 1999.

Dr. Chung attained his flight surgeon training through the Canadian Forces and also received his Master
in Aviation Medicine and Post graduate diploma in Occupational Medicine through Otago University.
Dr. Chung also completed his emergency medicine training and certification at the University of Toronto
following his retirement from the Canadian Forces, practicing as an emergency medicine physician in
Toronto prior to joining Air Canada in 2009.

Dr Marcus Wong

British Airways

Dr Marcus Wong is a full-time Consultant Occupational Physician at British Airways Health Services and an AME.