Professor Gerry Stimson is a leading advocate for tobacco harm reduction and an Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London. A public health social scientist, with over 50 years’ experience of research and advocacy, he was one of the founders of drugs harm reduction in the 1990s, helping to develop and evaluate harm reduction in the UK as a response to HIV/AIDS. Gerry has advised the UK Government, WHO, UNAIDS, UNODC, the World Bank and numerous governments around the world on issues relating to drugs, HIV infection and AIDS, and alcohol. He has also published over 220 scientific publications and several books. 

Currently, Gerry is Director of Research and Policy at Knowledge•Action•Change, and is involved in the FSFW-funded Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction and Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship programmes. He is also a co-founder of the Global Forum on Nicotine, which has been delivered by KAC Communications since 2014. 

Marewa Glover is director of the independent Centre of Research Excellence: Indigenous Sovereignty & Smoking based in Auckland, New Zealand. Funded by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, the center aims to reduce the harms associated with tobacco use among all indigenous people globally. Glover is also tobacco section editor for the international Harm Reduction Journal.

As a behavioral scientist, Glover has led and collaborated on many studies resulting in more than 100 scientific publications. In 2019, she was one of three finalists for the prestigious New Zealander of the Year Award in recognition of her dedication to reducing tobacco smoking harm over the past 30 years and advocating for a harm-reduction approach to combustible cigarette smoking.

In June 2019, Glover won awards for Best Picture and Best Director at the Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw, Poland, for a short video series that she wrote and commissioned. At the 2018 Global Forum on Nicotine Glover received the Outstanding Advocate award from the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations. Glover is a former professor of public health at Massey University and a former chair of End Smoking NZ, a charitable trust that has lobbied for tobacco harm reduction for more than a decade.