Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, will deliver the David E. Barmes Global Health Lecture on Monday, Dec. 10 at 3 p.m. in Masur Auditorium, Bldg. 10. Her talk is titled “Climate Change and Health.”

Chan, who is from the People’s Republic of China, earned her medical degree from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She joined the Hong Kong department of health in 1978. In 1994, she was appointed director of health of Hong Kong. In her 9-year tenure as director, she launched new services to prevent the spread of disease and promote better health. She also introduced new initiatives to improve communicable disease surveillance and response, enhance training for public health professionals and establish better local and international collaboration. She effectively managed outbreaks of avian influenza and severe acute respiratory syndrome.

In 2003, Chan joined WHO and rose to the position of representative of the director-general for pandemic influenza as well as assistant director-general for communicable diseases. She was subsequently appointed to the post of WHO director-general in November 2006; her term runs through June 2012.

The annual lecture series honors the late David E. Barmes, a long-standing WHO employee, special expert for international health in the NIDCR Office of International Health and ardent spokesman for global health. The lecture is jointly sponsored by NIDCR and the Fogarty International Center.

All are welcome to attend the lecture, which will also be videocast live at http://videocast.nih.gov/.