SPEAKERS 2023

Lion Shahab is Professor of Health Psychology. After graduating from the University of Oxford in psychology, philosophy and physiology in 2003, he gained an MRC-funded masters in health psychology from the Institute of Psychiatry in 2004 and went on to complete an MRC-funded PhD in 2008 on the role of smoking-related biomarkers in smoking cessation under the supervision of Professor Robert West at UCL. While working as a research associate in the Health Behaviour Research Centre, he also completed a masters in neuroscience and gained his Stage II training qualification in health psychology at UCL under the supervision of Professor Susan Michie. In 2011 he took up a lectureship in health psychology and continues his research into different aspects of tobacco use, more recently expanding into other health behaviours and mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. He is Co-Director of the UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group.

Debbie’s work focuses on the development and evaluation of tobacco harm reduction strategies, including e-cigarettes, in mental health and substance use settings.  She is a co-author of Public Health England commissioned annual evidence reviews of e-cigarettes and is a Trustee of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

Professor Dr. Sharifa Ezat Wan Puteh is a trained Medical Doctor from UKM, Malaysia. She obtained her Master’s in Public Health (Hospital and Health Management) and PhD on Health Economics from the United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH). Her main interests are in areas of health policy, health inequality and health economics. She previously sat as head of Hospital and Health Management Unit, Coordinator for Masters in Community Health Science, Associate Fellow for the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Small Medium Enterprise Development Faculty of Economics and previous head of International Training Centre for Casemix and Clinical Coding in UKM. From 1st December 2010 onwards, she has been appointed as a casemix consultant, coding specialist (with UNU-IIGH and ITCC UKM) in Kuala Lumpur to conduct research & capacity building on Accessibility, Efficiency and Quality of Care in Health System (especially in casemix management) to support casemix implementation in developing countries. Now she is the Deputy Dean (Relation, Alumni & Wealth Creation), Faculty of Medicine. She was a consultant to the Ministry of Human Resource on occupational diseases related burden, Ministry of Health on Cluster Hospital efficiency and Prime Minister’s Department on Prevalence of Autism among children in Malaysia. She was the assistant editor for the Malaysian Journal of Public Health (MJPHM), a Scopus indexed journal and reviewer of other journals locally and abroad. She has published papers locally and abroad, chapters in book and a book on cost effectiveness of vaccination against cervical cancer. She is a masters and PhD examiner, and conducts classes for masters and PhD graduates from UTM, OUM, USM on health economics and health outcomes research. She has presented many papers and proceedings locally and abroad and is a reviewer on HTA on cost effectiveness; member of the Health Economics Association Malaysia, the Malaysian Public Health Physicians Association, MySPOR (Malaysian Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research Group) and ‘One Health’ with MyHoun on zoonotic diseases. She also is an active member in community volunteerism, NGO activities and Corporate Social Responsibilities, with local companies and organisations.

Professor Tikki PANG is an Indonesian citizen and is presently a visiting professor at a leading academic institution in Asia. He was Director, Research Policy & Cooperation, World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland (1999-2012). Prior to joining WHO, he was Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Postgraduate Studies & Research, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1989-1999) and Lecturer/Associate Professor, Dept of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1977-1989). He was Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Dengue & Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1982-1995). He holds a PhD in Immunology-Microbiology from the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (UK), Institute of Biology (UK), American Academy of Microbiology (USA), Academy of Medicine of Malaysia, and Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS). He has served as Chair of the Board of Directors, Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance (APLMA) and the Southeast Asia Community Observatory (SEACO), and is presently Co-Chair of the Asia Pacific Immunization Coalition (APIC). He has published >250 scientific articles and 12 books and was lead author on several major WHO reports including the World Health Report 2013: Research for Universal Health Coverage (2013), Knowledge for Better Health (2004) and Genomics and World Health (2002). He has served as an independent consultant and board member of many organizations in the health sector, in both public, NGO and private sectors. Professor Pang has a recognisable profile as a public health expert both nationally and internationally. His research interests are in the epidemiology, pathogenesis, laboratory diagnosis and prevention of infectious diseases, biosecurity and dual-use research, genomics & health, and in health research policy, health research systems, global health governance, development of research capabilities in developing countries, linkages between research and policy, vaccine confidence and harm reduction approaches to mitigate health problems. .

Prof Dr Mohamed Hussain Habil is currently head of school of School of medicine MAHSA University. A fellow for Malaysian Psychiatry Association. A founding president of My Hemp Malaysia. Past President of Malaysian Psychiatry Association and Past President ASEAN psychiatry association. He is the founder of Psychopharmacology research centre in University Malaya and has received many international research grant when he worked as director and head of department in University Malaya Centre of excellent for Addiction Science before joining MAHSA. Has been writing more than 100 journal articles paper in the relevant subjects. Has written more than 5 books. He has been active in supervising PhD and master students.

Ann McNeill is a Professor of Addictions in the National Addiction Centre with a focus on tobacco. She graduated from the University of Nottingham with a first class joint honours degree in zoology and psychology and then carried out her PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry focusing on the development of dependence on smoking. Since that time she has held a variety of academic and public sector posts focusing largely on tobacco control research. Ann has an established international reputation, receiving a World Health Organisation award for contributions to tobacco control in 1998. She has published more than 250 academic papers book chapters, reports and opinion pieces on the subject and her research ranges across prevention, cessation, harm reduction and local, national and international policy. Ann was a co-author of the recent systematic review of tobacco product packaging which underpinned the recent government consultation on plain packaging and has a particular interest in the relationship between smoking, mental health and inequalities. She is Deputy Director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies. Competing Interest: None Stated

Associate Professor Sivakumar A/L Thurairajasingam is Associate Professor (Practice) in Psychiatry and Deputy Head (Education) of the Clinical School Johor Bahru. Dr Sivakumar joined Monash University Malaysia on 1st August 2006 as a lecturer. He obtained his MBBS from the University of Mangalore, India (1994) and then went on to complete his Master in Medicine in Psychiatry in 2002, at the Universiti Sains Malaysia. He has served in the medical field for the past 10 years at the Kota Bharu General Hospital, Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital in Kubang Kerian, and Hospital Permai. He previously served as Head of the Substance Abuse Unit, Hospital Permai, Coordinator of the Psychiatry Research Unit at Hospital Permai and also as the State Coordinator of the National Methadone Maintenance Programme. His special interests are in the field of psychiatry research as well as drug and alcohol treatment/research. He is involved with Year 3 and Year 4 teaching of the Medical Programme at the Johor Bahru campus.

David Levy has a PhD in Economics from UCLA and is currently a Professor of Oncology at Georgetown. He has published over 200 papers, including articles in the American Economic Review, American Journal of Public Health, JAMA, Lancet, Medical Care, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Obesity Review, Tobacco Control, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. His work spans topics in public health and industry behavior.  Dr. Levy has been principal investigator of grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bloomberg/Gates Foundation, European Union, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  He is currently the principal investigator of an FDA TCORS, and grants from the National Cancer Institute to the ITC project and to the CISNET Lung group.  Dr. Levy oversees the design and development of the SimSmoke tobacco policy simulation model, which predicts the effect of tobacco policies, such as tax increases, smoke-free air laws, media campaigns, youth access policies, and cessation treatment policies, on smoking rates and tobacco-related deaths. He has developed models for 10 states and for over 60 countries. He is currently developing simulation models that incorporate the use of smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes.

Ben Youdan has campaigned professionally for nearly 20 years, and has over a decade of experience leading charitable organisations in the UK and New Zealand. His career has taken us from running the biggest health awareness day in the UK, to setting up a major community initiative in south Auckland. He's run government funded social marketing programmes the UK and New Zealand, headed political campaign teams and been a regular media commentator.  He moved to New Zealand in 2006 to run ASH, where he campaigned for the Smokefree 2025 goal. He left ASH in 2013 to lead the election campaign for the Green Party where he overhauled the campaign systems, delivering the biggest ever ground campaign in the Party’s history.