1. Soumya Swaminathan was born on 2 May 1959 and is an Indian paediatrician and clinical scientist known for her research on tuberculosis and HIV.
12 Facts About Soumya Swaminathan
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Soumya Swaminathan has two siblings, Madhura Soumya Swaminathan, a professor of economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, and Nitya Rao, a professor of gender and development at the University of East Anglia.
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Soumya Swaminathan is a Diplomate of National Board from National Board of Examinations.
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From 1989 to 1990, Soumya Swaminathan was a research fellow in the Department of Pediatric Respiratory Diseases at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom.
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Soumya Swaminathan then worked as a senior research officer, Cardiopulmonary Medicine Unit, as well as an adjunct associate clinical professor at the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.
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Soumya Swaminathan later became the director of the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis.
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From August 2015 to November 2017, Soumya Swaminathan was director general of the Indian Council of Medical Research and secretary of the Department of Health Research for the Government of India.
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From October 2017 to March 2019, Soumya Swaminathan was deputy director-general of the World Health Organization.
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In March 2019, Soumya Swaminathan became chief scientist of the World Health Organization, where she notably participated in regular twice weekly press briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Soumya Swaminathan has urged countries to conduct whole genome sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus more frequently and to upload sequences to the GISAID project.
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Soumya Swaminathan was part of the TB Zero City Project which aimed to create "Islands of elimination" working with local governments, institutions and grassroots associations.
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In 2021, Soumya Swaminathan was appointed to the Pandemic Preparedness Partnership, an expert group chaired by Patrick Vallance to advise the G7 presidency held by the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.