Join us for a conversation with
Stewart Simonson
Assistant Director-General
WHO New York Office, United Nations
Moderated by
Dr. Lily Khidr
Executive Publisher, Elsevier
Guest Speaker
STEWART SIMONSON
Stewart Simonson is Assistant Director-General at the World Health Organization office at the United Nations in New York.
Mr. Simonson, from the United States of America, was most recently Assistant Director-General for General Management. He brings more than 20 years of experience in corporate governance, risk management and administration that spans across the government, nongovernmental and private sectors. His past roles include serving as Senior Vice President and General Counsel to the Futures Group Global LLC, and most recently, as Legal Advisor for the Crudem Foundation, where he functioned as legal counsel to the foundation and technical advisor to its partner hospital in Haiti.
From 2001 to 2006, he served in the United States Department of Health and Human Services in different capacities, including as Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness. In this role, he served as the Secretary’s principal advisor on matters related to bioterrorism and other public health emergencies and coordinated the development of the United States government’s position on the revision of the International Health Regulations. He has degrees in law and political science.
Moderator
LILY KHIDR
Dr. Lily Khidr is an academic research scientist and Executive Publisher for Elsevier, a publishing and analytics company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Elsevier is a part of the RELX Group, a company that works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell.
Lily received a BS in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley; an MS in physiological sciences from UCLA, and a MS/PhD in biochemistry & cancer genetics from UC Irvine School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of United Nations Association of New York's Worldview Institute and has served as an adjunct faculty member in the School of Biological Sciences at Columbia University.
Her graduate training was spent focusing on uncovering the mechanisms by which mitochondrial genetics influence human cancer formation, with Professors Wen-Hwa Lee and Douglas C. Wallace, and she has been an instructor at undergraduate, graduate and medical school levels domestically and internationally. Alongside her academic work, she concomitantly upheld a position with the National Academy of Sciences, managing projects that enable successful university and industry partnerships.
Lily began her publishing career as an Editor for Nature Genetics. Her focus on personalized genomics led her to Science magazine, where she was an Editor at the inception and launch of Science Translational Medicine. For the past 10 years, Lily oversees editorial research publications, manages global academic and industrial strategic alliances, actively drives projects to enhance university-owned research commercialization, and pursues ways to develop the business of knowledge dissemination in emerging regions, like Africa.
Her work brings her around the world where she advises on science, technical, and medical topics using research publication driven data analytics. Her broad experience, along with her multiple global strategic alliances has allowed her on behalf of RELX to strategically position Elsevier to play an influential role in the success of the U.S. White House Cancer Moonshot Initiative.