In this Trailblazers episode, Garry sits down with Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown, Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, to talk about the future of public health education, learning health systems and the core competencies tomorrow’s leaders will need to make an impact on public health.

Professor Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown has served as the Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH) since 2017. His research now focuses on the use of evidence and data in public policy. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, a dozen book chapters and over 100 reports, editorials and commentaries. Prior to serving as Dean, Steini was the Director of the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) in the DLSPH, an Assistant Deputy Minister in two different Ontario government ministries, and worked in start-up and Fortune 500 companies in the US.

Step inside the Wellcome Trust in London with our next trailblazer, the newly appointed CEO John-Arne Røttingen — former head of CEPI and Norway’s Ambassador for Global Health — traces his leadership journey and vision for the foundation. He explains why bolder citizen-scientist partnerships are crucial to navigating the global-health funding crunch ahead.

John-Arne Røttingen is a Norwegian medical scientist, research administrator and civil servant. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Wellcome Trust.

Our first trailblazer is Tulio de Oliviera, Director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Tulio was recognized by Time magazine in 2024 as one of the 100 most influential people in global health. He led the research group that confirmed the Beta and Omicron variants of COVID-19 and led the early trials in testing COVID-19 vaccine efficacy in South Africa. Garry sat down with Tulio in his lab to hear about his experience behind the discoveries and also to discuss the progress made in pandemic preparedness.

Tulio de Oliveira is a Brazilian, Portuguese, and South African permanent resident professor of bioinformatics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and associate professor of global health at the University of Washington.