02 Sep Frank Cobelens, professor of Global Health

Prof. F.G.J. Cobelens (1959) has been appointed professor of Global Health at the University of Amsterdam’s Faculty of Medicine (AMC-UvA).

Frank Cobelens is an epidemiologist specialised in infectious diseases, particularly in resource-poor countries. His research primarily centres on tuberculosis (TB), currently the world’s deadliest infectious disease. Besides TB, Cobelens will use his new chair to stimulate research into other diseases, both infectious diseases and growing global epidemics like cardiovascular disease. As such, he will focus on diseases that transcend national borders in terms of the challenges they pose and solutions they require, as well as on inequality in access to quality healthcare and the improvement of healthcare systems.

At the AMC-UvA, Cobelens lectures on the subject of global health to students in the fields of medicine, medical informatics and biomedical sciences. Cobelens developed the Global Health Research Master’s programme in collaboration with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam).

Cobelens heads the AMC-UvA’s department of Global Health and is director of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD). Since 2012, Cobelens has held the special chair in Epidemiology and Control of Poverty-related Infectious Diseases at the UvA, established on behalf of the Society for the Advancement of Natural Science, Medicine and Surgery. In addition to his duties at the AIGHD and the department of Global Health, Cobelens is also scientific advisor at the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation and a member of the supervisory board of the Health(e) Foundation. Prior to this he was, among other things, a senior epidemiologist at the AMC’s department of Infectious Diseases, Tropical Diseases and AIDS, and at the research unit of the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation. He has conducted research in various countries, including Vietnam, Uganda and Brazil. Cobelens is a member of several expert committees of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and is closely involved in formulating international research policy in the field of global health.