Martin Cullip is a former company director and International Fellow of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, who has written and blogged on free market and lifestyle consumer issues for over a decade. As a user of e-cigarettes and other safer nicotine products, he is a particularly passionate consumer advocate for all forms of tobacco harm reduction and has a keen interest in the rapidly-evolving nicotine market and the politics surrounding it. Martin is a former Chair of UK educational charity The New Nicotine Alliance and has taken part in parliamentary evidence sessions and consumer, industry, and political events on the subject domestically and internationally.

Joseph Magero is an avid tobacco harm reduction advocate. He has spent a decade working in tobacco control as the former director of the Africa Tobacco-Free Initiative, but after extensive research, consultation, and direct engagement with ex-smokers, scientists and tobacco harm reduction consumer advocates, he became convinced that giving smokers the option of switching to significantly safer (and enjoyable) nicotine products could provide a vital addition in reducing smoking related diseases. He is currently the chairman of Campaign For Safer Alternatives, a regional organisation that advocates for the adoption of tobacco harm reduction policies in Africa. His commitment to a smoke-free future remains undiminished.

Jeffrey Zamora is President of Asovape Costa Rica, President of ARDT Iberoamerica, Social Media Director and Audiovisual Producer for INNCO, recipient of the Enhanced KAC THRSP Scholarship with a project on a documentary series called #Safer, and Project Leader for the Veritas Study of ECLAT (Spin-off of the University of Catania, Italy). Jeffrey Zamora has worked in Social Media and Marketing with NGOs, Governmental Entities, and Commercial Brands. Jeffrey Zamora es Presidente de Asovape Costa Rica (organización de consumidores adultos Pro Reducción de Daños para personas que no quieren o pueden dejar de fumar), Presidente de ARDT Iberoamérica, Director de Redes Sociales y Productor Audiovisual para INNCO, recipiente de la Enhanced Scholarship de KAC THRSP con un proyecto sobre una serie documental llamada #Safer, y Líder de Proyecto para el estudio Veritas de ECLAT (Spin off de la Universidad de Catania, Italia). Jeffrey Zamora ha estado trabajando en Redes Sociales y Marketing con ONGs, Entidades Gubernamentales y Marcas Comerciales.

Helen Redmond is an expert in substance use with over a decade of experience working with drug users and people with mental health problems. Her current focus is on helping smokers from vulnerable groups switch to e-cigarettes. At New York Harm Reduction Educators, Helen facilitates tobacco harm reduction/vaping groups. She is a senior editor at Filter and writes about vaping and creates short Op-Docs. Helen is adjunct faculty at the Silver School of Social Work at New York University.

Sudhanshu Patwardhan is a British-Indian, U.K.-licensed medical doctor, passionate about Healthtech innovation in cancer prevention. For the past two decades, he has lived and worked in three continents, doing senior roles in research, strategy and policy in the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries. 

In his early years in tobacco harm reduction, his team of clinical researchers and lab scientists set the foundations for the assessment of reduced-risk products, now accepted by regulators and the industry as the definitive approach for duty of care and regulatory compliance. At Nicoventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of BAT, he was instrumental in enabling the first e-cigarette company acquisition by a global tobacco business leading to a successful application for a medical license with the MHRA for an e-cigarette. In his policy role there, Patwardhan shaped the creation of a global key opinion leader network in consumer advocacy and public health champions. With the British Standards Institution (BSI), Patwardhan led the creation of the world’s first vaping product standards for safety and quality in 2015 and the BSI Online Age Checking specifications in collaboration with the Westminster-based Digital Policy Alliance in 2018. 

Patwardhan splits time between the U.K. and South Asia on projects that address the needs of the most disadvantaged tobacco users. In 2018, he co-founded the Centre for Health Research and Education that now has a team of over 100 medical and public health experts globally working in cancer prevention. Since 2021, Patwardhan is working with digital tech partners for innovating in oral cancer screening.

Miroslaw Dworniczak, PhD - chemist, freelance science journalist, former scientist and lecturer at the Department of Chemistry, Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan, Poland). Author (under the name "Stary Chemik" - "Old Chemist") of the first blog in Poland dealing with e-cigarettes and e-liquid chemistry and safety (http://starychemik.wordpress.com - in Polish) and the webpage for complete beginners (http://epapieros.edu.pl) including a manual for beginners in English (http://epapieros.edu.pl/manual-english/).

Dr Roberto A Sussman (PhD University of London) is a full time senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute for Nuclear Sciences of the National University of Mexico. His main research areas are General Relativity and Cosmology, but he has conducted research in other areas of Physics, including peer reviewed publications on e-cigarette aerosols. He is also the founder and Director of Pro-Vapeo Mexico, an association representing Mexican consumers of noncombustible nicotine products and is a member of INNCO. He is actively advocating for an appropriate regulation of Tobacco Harm Reduction products in Mexico. He directs and supervises the effort to spread scientific information on these products, as well as advising consumers on how to counter the governmental misinformation and prejudice about them that is rampant throughout Latin America.

Harry Shapiro is Director of DrugWise – an online drug information service - and Managing Editor of DS Daily - the daily online drug, alcohol and tobacco news service. He has worked in the drugs field for over 40 years, first with the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence and then from 2000 with DrugScope where he was Director of Communications until the charity folded in 2015.

Since 2015, he has been working with Knowledge-Action-Change promoting public health through harm reduction. He is the author and Executive Editor of the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction report, contributes a blog to Nicotine Science and Policy and is one of KAC’s media spokespeople.

Konstantinos Farsalinos, MD, MPH, is a physician and a research associate at the University of Patras and the University of West Attica in Greece. His field of expertise is Public Health. He has been conducting laboratory, clinical and epidemiological research on smoking, tobacco harm reduction and nicotine products as principal investigator since 2011. He authored the first systematic review on e-cigarette safety/risk profile, published in 2014. Additionally, he has performed research and published studies on heated tobacco products. His findings have been presented in major international scientific congresses and his studies were used in preparing the regulatory framework on e-cigarettes by the European Union in 2014. As of early 2024, he has published more than 100 studies and articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals, mostly about smoking, tobacco harm reduction and alternative-to-smoking nicotine products. He has presented in more than 80 international conferences and he was the handling editor and author of a book titled "Analytical assessment of e-cigarettes", published by Elsevier in 2017. In November 2020, he was declared a Highly Cited Researcher 2019 by the Web of Science, a list of researchers (6200 scientists out of 9 million examined) with the highest impact in global science in 21 scientific fields in the past decade. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has published 10 peer-reviewed articles and several pre-prints about COVID-19, including the association between smoking, nicotine and COVID-19.

Dr Brad Rodu is a professor of medicine and holds an endowed chair in tobacco harm reduction research at the University of Louisville, Kentucky USA. Since 1994 Rodu has authored 70 medical publications about tobacco, and he blogs at Rodu Tobacco Truth (http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/).

Martin Cullip is a former company director and International Fellow of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, who has written and blogged on free market and lifestyle consumer issues for over a decade. As a user of e-cigarettes and other safer nicotine products, he is a particularly passionate consumer advocate for all forms of tobacco harm reduction and has a keen interest in the rapidly-evolving nicotine market and the politics surrounding it. Martin is a former Chair of UK educational charity The New Nicotine Alliance and has taken part in parliamentary evidence sessions and consumer, industry, and political events on the subject domestically and internationally.

Samrat Chowdhery is a journalist and consumer advocate who has steered global and national movements for adult access to safer nicotine alternatives. He is the director of Association of Vapers India, among the oldest tobacco harm reduction-focused consumer nonprofits. He is a past president of International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations, an umbrella body of over 30 national groups. He was a recipient of Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarships to investigate the efficacy and affordability of vaping and smokeless alternatives among bidi and khaini users in India and offers mentorship on advocacy and research in advancing safer nicotine availability in low- and middle-income countries. He authors articles in the harm reduction magazine, Filter.

Marc Gunther is a veteran reporter whose interests include philanthropy, tobacco control, drug policy and psychedelic medicines. He began writing about vaping in the Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2021 with a story headlined Bloomberg’s Millions Funded an Effective Campaign Against Vaping: Could It Do More Harm Than Good? His coverage continues at The Great Vape Debate on Medium.

Marc was a senior writer at Fortune magazine from 1996 to 2008. His reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and Mother Jones. 

A graduate of Yale University, Marc lives in Bethesda, MD. 

Kevin McGirr is Clinical Professor in the School of Nursing; has taught in schools of medicine, social work and public health and was a Fulbright Scholar in Pondicherry India, 2013-2014.  He has over forty years experience in providing and managing behavioral health services; holds master’s degrees in public health, psychiatric nursing and ABD in public health. He has been involved in the training and development of harm reduction services and in particular utilizing Harm Reduction Tobacco interventions for persons with serious mental illness.

Professor Marewa Glover is one of New Zealand’s leading tobacco control researchers. She has worked on reducing smoking-related harm for 31 years. She is recognized internationally for her advocacy on tobacco harm reduction; and locally was a Finalist in the New Zealander of the Year Supreme Award in 2019 recognising her contribution to reducing smoking in NZ. In 2018, Dr Glover was appointed Tobacco Section Editor for the Harm Reduction Journal. In that year she also established the Centre of Research Excellence: Indigenous Sovereignty & Smoking an international program of research aimed at reducing smoking-related harms among Indigenous peoples globally. The Centre’s research was funded with grants from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, Inc. (“FSFW”), a US nonprofit 501(c)(3) private foundation.

Dr. Sree T.Sucharitha, M.D currently Professor in Department of Community Medicine and Research Co-ordinator at Tagore Medical College and Hospital Chennai, India holds Fellowship in HIV Medicine from I-Tech India which is a joint program with collaboration with Tamil Nadu government. She is also Fellow of Asian Human Rights and Drug Policy. Won Best paper awards for presentations at Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR University (2018), IJRULA- Best Research Scientist-Environment Science (2018), Tamil Nadu Physical Education and Sports University (2019). She is the Founding-Director of AHRER-Association for Harm Reduction Education and Research, a first-ever registered medical professionals body in India for increasing the public awareness of harms resulting due to various human behaviours associated with tobacco consumption, narcotics, alcohol, and obesity.

Dr Brad Rodu is a professor of medicine and holds an endowed chair in tobacco harm reduction research at the University of Louisville, Kentucky USA. Since 1994 Rodu has authored 70 medical publications about tobacco, and he blogs at Rodu Tobacco Truth (http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/).

Derek Yach MBChB MPH, is a global health expert focused on addressing major chronic diseases, mental health and their underlying risks. He has led major initiatives to address tobacco use, healthy diets, and mental health at the World Health Organization, Yale, PepsiCo, the Vitality Group, and most recently as President and founder of the Foundation for a Smoke Free World. Derek has published over 250 peer reviewed publications. He has served on several advisory boards including those led by the World Economic Forum, Wellcome Trust, NIH's Fogarty Center, and Cornerstone Capital. He currently is a member of APCO's International Advisory Board. He lives in Connecticut, USA and swims most days.

Peter Hajek is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary University of London. His research is concerned primarily with understanding health behaviours, and developing and evaluating both behavioural and pharmacological treatments for dependent smokers and for people with weight problems. Professor Hajek is a member of a number of expert groups, advisory bodies and editorial boards, and has authored or co-authored over 350 publications.

Ernest Groman is the Scientific Director of the Nicotine Institut Vienna, the Scientific Advisor to the Austrian Chamber of Pharmacists and an Austrian Delegate at the FCTC of the WHO. He got his post-doctorate degree at the University of Vienna for his thesis on tobacco harm reduction in 2001. In the following years he developed and implemented a smoking cessation program in Lower Austria and worked on programs for workplace health. His current main interest are on workplace health and harm reduction. He is the author of 160 publications in the area of tobacco harm reduction.

Tomas Hammargren has a Batchelor of Science and a MBA with a long international experience from leading pharmaceutical and start-up MedTech industry. Served as Industrial Counsellor at the Swedish Embassy in Tokyo and co-founded an Orphan drug company in Japan. Tomas has been engaged in Tobacco Harm Reduction since 2004 ranging from snus, NRT, e-cigarettes, heated products and nicotine pouches. Since 2015 Tomas is an independent advisor on international strategy & policy in life science with an in-depth knowledge of nicotine and the new generation of smoke-free nicotine products.

Dr. Rachel Murkett is the project director at Biochromex, a life sciences consulting company focused on public health and pharmaceuticals. Dr Murkett holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge and has over six years experience advising Fortune 500 companies, venture-backed start-ups and international research organisations.

Since graduating with a degree in Politics and Government in 1978, Paddy has worked in a number of aspects of public health and social care, including alcohol and drug services, the probation service and public health advocacy. In addition to these he has worked in event management, including directing five editions of the International Harm Reduction conference. Since 2012 he has been mainly involved in the development and promotion of Tobacco Harm Reduction, including directing the Global Forum on Nicotine.

Will is the founding editor-in-chief of Filter, an online magazine that launched in 2018 to cover drug use, drug policy and human rights through a harm reduction lens. He's also the executive director of The Influence Foundation, the New York nonprofit behind Filter. His past work in the drugs and human rights spaces has included founding and/or editing a number of other publications, and consulting for various organizations. Originally from England, he now lives in Vermont.

Dr Roberto A Sussman (PhD University of London) is a full time senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute for Nuclear Sciences of the National University of Mexico. His main research areas are General Relativity and Cosmology, but he has conducted research in other areas of Physics, including peer reviewed publications on e-cigarette aerosols. He is also the founder and Director of Pro-Vapeo Mexico, an association representing Mexican consumers of noncombustible nicotine products and is a member of INNCO. He is actively advocating for an appropriate regulation of Tobacco Harm Reduction products in Mexico. He directs and supervises the effort to spread scientific information on these products, as well as advising consumers on how to counter the governmental misinformation and prejudice about them that is rampant throughout Latin America.

Dr. Oyston graduated in 1980 from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, with two degrees: a medical degree and a degree in medical research. He trained as an anesthesiologist from 1983 to 1990, qualifying as a specialist in both the UK and Canada. He has also worked as an anesthesiologist in New Zealand, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. He was appointed Chief of Anesthesiology four times. He was also an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, and a peer assessor for the College of Physicians Surgeons of Ontario.

In November 2019, Dr. Oyston retired from clinical practice to work on smoking cessation advocacy and knowledge translation related to safer nicotine products for people who smoke.

He has published editorials on tobacco control topics in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia and the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

William Stewart is the President and Founder of Povaddo, a firm specializing in public opinion and societal expectations research. He has built a firm that helps clients develop better strategies and stronger communications to address complex issues and challenges facing their businesses. William has over 25 years of research consulting experience that spans political campaigns, public affairs initiatives, and a wide range of corporate matters – from issues management to corporate reputation. Prior to launching Povaddo in 2009, William was the global head of research for FleishmanHillard, one the largest PR firms in the world. He started his research career doing political polling in Washington, DC.

Cother Hajat is a Public Health Physician and Epidemiologist. She is an adjunct Professor, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Faculty of Public Health in the UK. Her work for over two decades has focussed on the prevention of chronic disease and its risk factors through thought leadership, policy development, health system redesign and research in academic, commercial and governmental settings.

Cother’s tobacco related work has included the smoking in public places laws in the UK and the United Arab Emirates, and serving as a member on the advisory board for the Tobacco Transformation Index. She has conducted extensive research on the prevalence and impact of tobacco use, most recently systematic reviews on the health impact of ecigarettes and smokeless tobacco, and a narrative article on methodological issues with tobacco harm reduction research. 

Martin Cawley joined Beatson Cancer Charity as CEO in July 2019.  Martin has been involved in the area of health and social care his entire his career.  He previously held senior positions in a number of Scotland’s charities and spent 3 years as Director of the National Lottery Community Fund in Scotland working with charities and community organisations. Martin has a comprehensive understanding of the wide-ranging challenges facing charitable organisations in Scotland.  Over the years he has been involved in a range of national forums and working groups related to areas of his work.  

Paul Newhouse, M.D. holds the Jim Turner Chair in Cognitive Disorders at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and is Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology, and Medicine. He is Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Cognitive Medicine (VCCM) in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He directs the Clinical Core for the Vanderbilt Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and is also a physician-scientist at the Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley Health Systems Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC). He is an Army veteran and served in Operation Desert Storm.

Dr. Newhouse received his undergraduate education at Kansas State University, attended medical school at Loyola University, Stritch School of Medicine, and completed his residency training in psychiatry at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center followed by a fellowship in Geriatric Psychopharmacology Research at the National Institute of Mental Health. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in both General Psychiatry and Geriatric Psychiatry and was awarded the American Psychiatric Association Profiles in Courage award in 2002 and the Loyola University Alumnus of the Year Award for Research in 2017.

Dr. Newhouse's research has focused on brain cholinergic mechanisms in cognitive aging and the role of nicotinic cholinergic receptor systems in normal and impaired cognitive functioning in humans. His work established the importance of brain nicotinic cholinergic receptor systems in normal cognitive processes and established these receptors as a therapeutic target in Alzheimer’s disease and related conditions. He has pioneered the development of human models for new cognitive drug development including early first-in-human studies to the design and implementation of national multicenter trials. He has emphasized the development of novel cholinergic agents for clinical use in cognitive disorders and has established novel brain imaging and biomarker-based measures of brain drug effects through the use of novel pharmacologic‐imaging methodologies. His research has been continuously funded by NIH since 1989 and he is funded currently by the National Institute on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, and other private companies and foundations.

Michelle Minton is a senior policy analyst at the Reason Foundation specializing in consumer policy, covering regulatory issues around gambling, tobacco harm reduction, cannabis legalization, alcohol, and nutrition. The author of numerous studies, her analyses have been published and cited in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today and peer-reviewed journals, and Michelle regularly appears in news media to discuss the unintended effects of laws designed to save adults from their own choices which not only conflicts with the principle of individual liberty, but often the goals of public health. She holds a BA from Johns Hopkins and an MSc from the University of New England.

Riccardo Polosa is the Founder of the Center of Excellence for the acceleration of HArm Reduction (CoEHAR - University of Catania, Italy). Dr Polosa is Full Professor of Internal Medicine for the same University and Director of the Center for Smoking Prevention and Treatment at the University Hospital "Policlinico-V. Emanuele” of Catania. Dr. Polosa and the CoEHAR team of researchers conduct several high-profile clinical and behavioral research in the field of smoking-related diseases. According to a bibliometric analysis, Professor Polosa is considered the most productive scientist in the world in the field of electronic cigarette research.

Sudhanshu Patwardhan is a British-Indian, U.K.-licensed medical doctor, passionate about Healthtech innovation in cancer prevention. For the past two decades, he has lived and worked in three continents, doing senior roles in research, strategy and policy in the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries. 

In his early years in tobacco harm reduction, his team of clinical researchers and lab scientists set the foundations for the assessment of reduced-risk products, now accepted by regulators and the industry as the definitive approach for duty of care and regulatory compliance. At Nicoventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of BAT, he was instrumental in enabling the first e-cigarette company acquisition by a global tobacco business leading to a successful application for a medical license with the MHRA for an e-cigarette. In his policy role there, Patwardhan shaped the creation of a global key opinion leader network in consumer advocacy and public health champions. With the British Standards Institution (BSI), Patwardhan led the creation of the world’s first vaping product standards for safety and quality in 2015 and the BSI Online Age Checking specifications in collaboration with the Westminster-based Digital Policy Alliance in 2018. 

Patwardhan splits time between the U.K. and South Asia on projects that address the needs of the most disadvantaged tobacco users. In 2018, he co-founded the Centre for Health Research and Education that now has a team of over 100 medical and public health experts globally working in cancer prevention. Since 2021, Patwardhan is working with digital tech partners for innovating in oral cancer screening.

Flora Okereke is Head of Global Regulatory Insights and Foresights at BAT, responsible for the analysis and forecasting of international regulatory developments on behalf of BAT’s 180-plus global markets. Flora also coordinates BAT’s policy responses to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and other global institutions. She has previously held several senior country, regional and global roles at BAT, including legal, corporate and regulatory affairs director for West Africa; head of regulatory affairs for Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe; global head of regulatory strategy and engagement; and senior director of government affairs and international policy at Reynolds American Incorporated Services, a subsidiary of RJR Tobacco based in Washington, D.C. Flora was called to the Bar of England and Wales (Middle Temple) and later admitted as a solicitor by the Law Society. Flora is a renowned speaker at the global policy conferences.

Sacha Sadan is the Director of ESG at the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority). Facilitating the UK financial regulator to embed ESG across the wide spectrum of regulatory activities and reporting to the CEO. He has been named a City Influencer by Financial News as one of the biggest 25 names who have been instrumental in shaping the UK's financial services industry. Previously Sacha was Director of Investment Stewardship (10 years) and on the board at LGIM, one of the world’s largest asset managers. Sacha had responsibility for investment stewardship, including environmental, social and governance (ESG). He was recognised in the Financial Times as one of ‘the 30 most influential people in the City of London’. Sacha was previously a UK equity portfolio manager at Gartmore. He was voted the top-rated Pan European fund manager in the Thomson Reuters Extel awards. He started his career at Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension fund. Sacha is a Fellow of ICSA and a founding member of the UK Investor Forum and was a member of their board for 6 years.

Dr Peter Stanbury works with a range of organisations on issues of economic, social and political development in emerging economies. He has worked with international institutions such as the IFC, for whom he developed the post-Ebola economic reconstruction strategy for Sierra Leone, and the OECD, where he developed their private sector development programme for Iraq. 

With companies, he works extensively on sustainability in agricultural supply chains. He is a strategic advisor to Nestle on their cocoa programme, to Golden Agri Resources in Indonesia, and works with JTI in Zambia and Malawi. He is a graduate of the University of Oxford, holds a doctorate in international relations from the University of London.

Dr. Oyston graduated in 1980 from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, with two degrees: a medical degree and a degree in medical research. He trained as an anesthesiologist from 1983 to 1990, qualifying as a specialist in both the UK and Canada. He has also worked as an anesthesiologist in New Zealand, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. He was appointed Chief of Anesthesiology four times. He was also an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, and a peer assessor for the College of Physicians Surgeons of Ontario.

In November 2019, Dr. Oyston retired from clinical practice to work on smoking cessation advocacy and knowledge translation related to safer nicotine products for people who smoke.

He has published editorials on tobacco control topics in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia and the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Dr Brad Rodu is a professor of medicine and holds an endowed chair in tobacco harm reduction research at the University of Louisville, Kentucky USA. Since 1994 Rodu has authored 70 medical publications about tobacco, and he blogs at Rodu Tobacco Truth (http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/).

Michelle Minton is a senior policy analyst at the Reason Foundation specializing in consumer policy, covering regulatory issues around gambling, tobacco harm reduction, cannabis legalization, alcohol, and nutrition. The author of numerous studies, her analyses have been published and cited in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today and peer-reviewed journals, and Michelle regularly appears in news media to discuss the unintended effects of laws designed to save adults from their own choices which not only conflicts with the principle of individual liberty, but often the goals of public health. She holds a BA from Johns Hopkins and an MSc from the University of New England.

Professor Marewa Glover is one of New Zealand’s leading tobacco control researchers. She has worked on reducing smoking-related harm for 31 years. She is recognized internationally for her advocacy on tobacco harm reduction; and locally was a Finalist in the New Zealander of the Year Supreme Award in 2019 recognising her contribution to reducing smoking in NZ. In 2018, Dr Glover was appointed Tobacco Section Editor for the Harm Reduction Journal. In that year she also established the Centre of Research Excellence: Indigenous Sovereignty & Smoking an international program of research aimed at reducing smoking-related harms among Indigenous peoples globally. The Centre’s research was funded with grants from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, Inc. (“FSFW”), a US nonprofit 501(c)(3) private foundation.

Dr. Mark Tyndall is an infectious diseases specialist, epidemiologist and public health physician with a focus on urban health, drug use and harm reduction. He has held a number of academic leadership positions and most recently was the Director of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC). He is an author on over 300 peer-reviewed publications, and was co-lead investigator on the evaluation of Insite, North America’s first supervised injection site. His current work includes innovative solutions to prevent overdoses through safe supply programs and the use of biometric dispensing machines for opioids (MySafe). Dr. Tyndall is a strong Canadian advocate for public health through the lens of human rights and has championed the scale-up of vaping as a response to reducing the harms associated with tobacco use.

Mark Oates is the Director of We Vape and the Snus Users Association, which are both consumer groups standing up for the right of individuals to use safer nicotine products. He advocates for evidence-based harm reduction in a range of areas from tobacco to drug policy, a subject he has written on for the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute, where he is a Fellow. He also provided consumer evidence in the 2018 ECJ case to overturn the ban of snus across the European Union and worked on the successful 2018 campaign to legalise medical cannabis in the UK.

Kasia runs the Global Public Health Foundation, which aims to share research and experience in public health across all relevant sectors. She is also a lecturer at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Kasia's area of experience includes harm reduction, public health and event management.

Jagannath Sarangapani is an active tobacco harm reduction advocate from India and a former member of the board of Association of Vapers India (AVI). Vaping helped him quit a 20-year 40 cigarette a day habit about seven years ago and he has been smoke-free since. He passionately believes smokers need to retain the right to safer alternatives which help transition from smoking, and those who have switched should be allowed to remain smoke-free.

An industrialist for 30 years, Jagannath has managed his family concern which pioneered cellular plastics and insulated panels in India. He holds a Masters’ degree in Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and is also an alumnus of Columbia Business School.

Tomás is a Mexican lawyer and teaches Corporation Law and Successions Law at Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. An ex-smoker and vaper since 2016, he is co-founder of "Pro-Vapeo Mexico", a Mexican consumer association (registered in 2017), that advocates for tobacco harm reduction and non- combustible alternatives. He is a member of INNCO’s Board.

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 advisor to Knowledge•Action•Change, and is involved in the FSFW-funded Global Tobacco Harm Reduction Initiative. He is also a co-founder of the Global Forum on Nicotine, which has been delivered by KAC Communications since 2014.

David Sweanor is an adjunct professor, Faculty of Law, and chair of the advisory board of the Centre for Health Law, Policy & Ethics at the University of Ottawa and has been actively involved in tobacco and health policy issues since the beginning of the 1980s. He has worked globally, and with numerous groups, including the International Union Against Cancer, World Health Organization, World Bank and the Pan American Health Organization and played a key role in achieving many global precedents in tobacco policy. He currently focuses much of his tobacco and nicotine related efforts on risk reduction strategies.

Norbert is a software developer in Germany. Master in computer science (Dipl.-Inform.). He enjoyed smoking for 30+ years. Became an accidental quitter in 2012, when curiosity lead to experimenting with vaping. The growing variety of flavours was pivotal for enjoying vaping more than smoking. Later joined the German vaping consumers organization IG-ED. Now a member of the board and liaison to INNCO and ETHRA.

Lindsey Stroud is a Senior Fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which provides data and analysis to inform and assist policymakers when addressing consumer products. Her main areas of focus are goods including alcohol, tobacco and vapor products, and regulatory policies that affect adult access, including harm reduction, technology, innovation, antitrust and privacy. At The Heartland Institute, she authored policy resources and hosted a podcast on tobacco harm reduction, and has also worked for state lawmakers in two states. Creator and manager of Tobacco Harm Reduction 101 (thr101.org), she holds senior positions at the American Vapor Manufacturers Association and the Independent Women's Forum.

Federico N. Fernández is Executive Director at Somos Innovación (a Latin American pro-innovation alliance) and CEO at We Are Innovation (Somos Innovación’s sister organization for Europe). Federico is Founder and President of Fundación Internacional Bases (Rosario, Argentina) and also the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the International Conference “The Austrian School of Economics in the 21st Century.”  Under Federico's leadership, in less than two years, the Somos Innovación Network published the largest innovation opinion survey conducted in LatAm, a sharing economy index, and the documentary “Behind the Cloud,” of which he was Executive Producer. 

Agnieszka Wyszyńka-Szulc is the Global Head of Regulatory Policy in the External Affairs team at Philip Morris International (PMI), an international tobacco company working to deliver a smoke-free future and evolving its portfolio for the long term to include products outside of the tobacco and nicotine sector. Agnieszka joined the Corporate Affairs Team in the Polish affiliate of PMI in 2004, and since then she has held various roles in the organisation, including as Director of Regulatory Strategy in the EU Region External Affairs Team. Agnieszka holds a Masters degree in Management and Administration and a postgraduate degree in Public Affairs, both from Warsaw University, Poland, as well as an Executive MBA from the Warsaw University of Technology Business School, Poland.

Sudhanshu Patwardhan is a British-Indian, U.K.-licensed medical doctor, passionate about Healthtech innovation in cancer prevention. For the past two decades, he has lived and worked in three continents, doing senior roles in research, strategy and policy in the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries. 

In his early years in tobacco harm reduction, his team of clinical researchers and lab scientists set the foundations for the assessment of reduced-risk products, now accepted by regulators and the industry as the definitive approach for duty of care and regulatory compliance. At Nicoventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of BAT, he was instrumental in enabling the first e-cigarette company acquisition by a global tobacco business leading to a successful application for a medical license with the MHRA for an e-cigarette. In his policy role there, Patwardhan shaped the creation of a global key opinion leader network in consumer advocacy and public health champions. With the British Standards Institution (BSI), Patwardhan led the creation of the world’s first vaping product standards for safety and quality in 2015 and the BSI Online Age Checking specifications in collaboration with the Westminster-based Digital Policy Alliance in 2018. 

Patwardhan splits time between the U.K. and South Asia on projects that address the needs of the most disadvantaged tobacco users. In 2018, he co-founded the Centre for Health Research and Education that now has a team of over 100 medical and public health experts globally working in cancer prevention. Since 2021, Patwardhan is working with digital tech partners for innovating in oral cancer screening.

Chim Ngoma is a passionate advocate for tobacco harm reduction and has led the THR Malawi project since 2018. He also works as an Assistant Manager on KAC’s THR Scholarship Programme. Chim has been involved in a number of notable THR projects and activities including the Burning Issues report and briefing paper on THR and the Right to Health as a reviewer. He also participated in a multi-stakeholder smoke-free dialogue in Cape Town aimed at informing the creation of the Smoke-Free Index, an initiative of the FSFW. Previously, Chim worked as a content writer consultant at Solimar International, as a citizen journalist at Nation Publications Limited and as a communications, visibility and M&E consultant at International Cooperation (GIZ).

Amanda Wheeler is the president of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association. She also owns Jvapes, established in 2011 to provide smokers in her community access to the tools that helped her quit. Amanda is the mother of two daughters, a cancer survivor, and holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology. She is also the executive director of the Arizona Smoke Free Business Alliance, and president of the Rocky Mountain Smoke Free Alliance in Colorado.  

CECILIA KINDSTRAND-ISAKSSON, SWEDEN Cecilia Kindstrand is Director of Public Affairs for Swedish Match, a company with tobacco harm reduction at the core of its business. The company divested its cigarette business in 1999 and is now offering products that are recognized as safer alternatives to cigarettes. She is based in Brussels and has worked extensively with the EU regulatory matters, especially the TPD 2014/40 a legislation banning the ‘proof of concept’ of tobacco harm reduction in 26 of the 27 Member States.

Ángeles Muntadas-Prim chairs the Spanish Association Supporting Vapers (ANESVAP). Formed in 2014, ANESVAP is the only association

in Spain defending vapers’ rights. ANESVAP is also a founding member of INNCO, and she serves on INNCO’s Governing Board. She’s cofounder/organizer of the THR Summit Spain (2018), which gathered tobacco harm reduction experts from around the world. She has been

instrumental in promoting the Tobacco Harm Reduction Platform in Spain (2019) for doctors and scientists and in the creation of AHL

Provape, a network of organisations in Latin America focused on vaping and THR. She meets with various politicians, medical associations, and media and also attends various events and political rallies in order to ensure that consumers are represented.

Konstantinos Farsalinos, MD, MPH, is a physician and a research associate at the University of Patras and the University of West Attica in Greece. His field of expertise is Public Health. He has been conducting laboratory, clinical and epidemiological research on smoking, tobacco harm reduction and nicotine products as principal investigator since 2011. He authored the first systematic review on e-cigarette safety/risk profile, published in 2014. Additionally, he has performed research and published studies on heated tobacco products. His findings have been presented in major international scientific congresses and his studies were used in preparing the regulatory framework on e-cigarettes by the European Union in 2014. As of early 2024, he has published more than 100 studies and articles in international peer-reviewed scientific journals, mostly about smoking, tobacco harm reduction and alternative-to-smoking nicotine products. He has presented in more than 80 international conferences and he was the handling editor and author of a book titled "Analytical assessment of e-cigarettes", published by Elsevier in 2017. In November 2020, he was declared a Highly Cited Researcher 2019 by the Web of Science, a list of researchers (6200 scientists out of 9 million examined) with the highest impact in global science in 21 scientific fields in the past decade. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has published 10 peer-reviewed articles and several pre-prints about COVID-19, including the association between smoking, nicotine and COVID-19.

Harry Shapiro is Director of DrugWise – an online drug information service - and Managing Editor of DS Daily - the daily online drug, alcohol and tobacco news service. He has worked in the drugs field for over 40 years, first with the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence and then from 2000 with DrugScope where he was Director of Communications until the charity folded in 2015.

Since 2015, he has been working with Knowledge-Action-Change promoting public health through harm reduction. He is the author and Executive Editor of the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction report, contributes a blog to Nicotine Science and Policy and is one of KAC’s media spokespeople.

Dr Brad Rodu is a professor of medicine and holds an endowed chair in tobacco harm reduction research at the University of Louisville, Kentucky USA. Since 1994 Rodu has authored 70 medical publications about tobacco, and he blogs at Rodu Tobacco Truth (http://rodutobaccotruth.blogspot.com/).

Professor Marewa Glover is one of New Zealand’s leading tobacco control researchers. She has worked on reducing smoking-related harm for 31 years. She is recognized internationally for her advocacy on tobacco harm reduction; and locally was a Finalist in the New Zealander of the Year Supreme Award in 2019 recognising her contribution to reducing smoking in NZ. In 2018, Dr Glover was appointed Tobacco Section Editor for the Harm Reduction Journal. In that year she also established the Centre of Research Excellence: Indigenous Sovereignty & Smoking an international program of research aimed at reducing smoking-related harms among Indigenous peoples globally. The Centre’s research was funded with grants from the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, Inc. (“FSFW”), a US nonprofit 501(c)(3) private foundation.