Policy Advisory Group

Michelle Halligan is the Director of Prevention at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, an organisation funded by the Canadian federal government to accelerate action on cancer control.

She currently leads work with partners on pan-Canadian system change initiatives related to the elimination of cervical cancer, including improving immunisation rates, smoking cessation within oncology settings, and evidence-informed healthy public policy for cancer prevention. She has worked on cancer and chronic disease prevention, injury prevention, organisational culture and evaluation at national, provincial and local levels in Canada.

Michelle is a member of several scientific and advisory committees related to public and population health. She holds a Master of Science in Health Sciences from Western University, and an Honours Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Integrative Biology from the University of Toronto.

Sir Trevor is Adjunct Professor of Medicine, University of the West Indies, Barbados, and Honorary Consultant Physician and Cardiologist, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Barbados. He is Chairman of the National Commission for Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases, and Barbados Special Envoy for NCDs. He is also President of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, a civil society alliance for combating chronic diseases, and Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Chronic Disease Research Centre, University of the West Indies. Positions held by Sir Trevor include Vice President of the World Heart Federation, President of the InterAmerican Heart Foundation, and President of the Caribbean Cardiac Society.

Sir Trevor has developed national programmes for the provision of comprehensive cardiovascular care, including the development of community-based primary prevention cardiovascular, healthy lifestyle and wellness programmes. He has played a leading role locally, regionally and internationally in efforts aimed at slowing the epidemic of chronic non-communicable diseases.

Sir Trevor has received many awards, including the appointment to the Order of Barbados as a Knight of St Andrew in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the medical profession.

Hasan Hutchinson is currently a Dialogue Associate with the Morris J Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. As well as serving on the Policy Advisory Group at the World Cancer Research Fund International, he serves on boards/advisory committees at a number of other organizations, including Ryerson University’s Centre for Studies in Food Security, UNICEF’s Expert Advisory Committee on Childhood Overweight and Obesity Prevention and UNESCO’s Atl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound Biosphere Region Initiative.

Until 2019, and for the previous decade, Dr Hutchinson was Director General of the Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion of Health Canada, the focal point for public health nutrition within the federal government. The Office’s main functions include dietary guidance, food and nutrition surveillance, research and data analysis, health promotion and public health nutrition policy. Recent initiatives at Health Canada included the development and implementation of Canada’s Healthy Eating Strategy, policy development for Restricting Advertising to Children and development of the new Food Guide

Dr Hutchinson was chair of the Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada and of the Network on Healthy Eating, co-chair of Canada’s Dietary Reference Intakes Steering Committee and of the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Group on Nutrition and was Health Canada’s representative developing the whole of government Food Policy for Canada. He has also been on a number of nutrition and health-related committees at the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and at the United Nations.

Previously, Dr Hutchinson was Associate Director of the Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Before working in the public service, he was a faculty member in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University. His formal education includes a PhD in Quantitative Genetics and an ND in Naturopathic Medicine.

Maisha Hutton has been the Executive Director of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC), the only regional alliance of NCD-focused civil society organisations, since 2012. Prior to joining the HCC, Maisha worked in HIV/AIDS/STI prevention for over a decade.

At the HCC Maisha is responsible for the daily operations, providing strategic oversight and management across all areas. Maisha also serves as a member on the NCD Child Governing Council and the World Cancer Research Fund International Policy Advisory Group.

Knut-Inge Klepp is Executive Director of Mental and Physical Health at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Prior to this he was Director General of Public Health at the Norwegian Directorate of Health from 2006–15. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Oslo, where he served as a full professor in public health nutrition from 1996–2006. Prior to this he was a professor in international health promotion at Norway’s University of Bergen.

Dr Klepp has published extensively in the fields of adolescent health promotion and evaluation of public health education and policy measures. He has coordinated and served as an investigator on many European Union research projects, including as project coordinator for the ongoing Horison2020 project “Confronting Obesity: Co-creating policy with adolescents (CO-CREATE).

Dr Klepp has been involved in WHO efforts to reduce non-communicable diseases and has chaired the WHO EURO Member State network on reducing marketing pressure on children. He served as rapporteur for the Working Group on Implementation, Monitoring and Accountability for the WHO Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity.

Previously, Dr Klepp has served as chair of the Norwegian National Council on Nutrition and Physical Activity, and he is former president of the International Society of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity.

Shiriki Kumanyika is an Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania and Research Professor of Community Health and Prevention, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health, both located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Prof Kumanyika’s research and policy activities focus on food and obesity, related health consequences, and approaches to addressing health inequities. She is an elected member of the USA National Academy of Medicine (formerly known as the Institute of Medicine) and Chairs the National Academies Food and Nutrition Board. Prof Kumanyika is also a past president of the American Public Health Association.

In the global sphere, Prof Kumanyika is a nutrition advisor to the World Health Organization and a member of the Lancet Commission on Obesity. She served on the World Cancer Research Fund Expert Panels on Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer Prevention (2002–07) and Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention (2007–09).

Feisul Mustapha is a consultant public health physician best known for his leadership in the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Malaysia. His special areas of interest include diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and obesity. At the Ministry of Health Malaysia, he is the Deputy Director (NCDs) at the Disease Control Division, and his main roles include policy and program development, and strategic implementation of interventions for the prevention and control of NCDs. In addition, Dr Feisul has a special interest in leveraging technology for catalysing behavioural modification to reduce exposure to NCD risk factors.

He combines his high-level experiences in the government with active engagement of civil society and multilateral institutions. Dr Feisul is currently Chair of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Monash University South East Asia Community Observatory (SEACO). In addition, he is a Board Member for the Advisory Board of the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) and also a Member of the Policy Advisory Group of the World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF).

Prof Anna Peeters is Director of the Institute for Health Transformation and Professor of Epidemiology and Equity in Public Health at Deakin University. She is Principal Research Translation Investigator at Western Alliance, an NHMRC Investigator Grant fellow, Board Member for the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) and Obesity Australia, and Past President of the Australian and New Zealand Obesity Society. Anna is a member of the Deeble Institute for Health Policy Research Advisory Board and the World Cancer Research Fund’s Policy Advisory Group. She is internationally recognised for her work building the evidence for effective and equitable policy and practice to improve health outcomes.

Anna has led large programmes of research into population prevention and health services research, with a focus on research-policy-practice partnerships and translational outputs. She currently leads RE-FRESH, an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence into Healthy Food Retail involving six universities nationally and internationally, and policy and practice collaborators including the YMCA, Western District Health Services, Obesity Policy Coalition and the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation. The research partnerships within RE-FRESH have led to sustained changes in provision of healthier food and drink through small supermarkets, remote indigenous stores, hospitals and sports and recreation centres around Australia and New Zealand.

Mike Rayner is a Professor of Population Health at the Nuffield Department of Population Health of the University of Oxford and Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Population Approaches for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention, based in the department. The centre carries out research and conducts other activities related to the prevention of NCDs.

Mike is also Chair of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming in the UK and Chair of its Children’s Food Campaign. He is Chair of the Nutrition Expert Group for the European Heart Network. He is also an ordained priest in the Church of England.

Suzanne Zhou is the Manager for Prevention at the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, a joint initiative of Cancer Council Victoria, the Union for International Cancer Control, and Cancer Council Australia.

Suzanne leads the McCabe Centre’s work with countries to adopt effective regulatory measures to prevent non-communicable diseases, defend public health laws from legal challenge, and ensure policy coherence between health and trade and investment law.

The McCabe Centre is the WHO Collaborating Centre for Law and Noncommunicable Disease and a Knowledge Hub for the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and has trained more than 200 people in 70 countries on the effective use of law to address noncommunicable diseases.

Suzanne previously worked at Lawyers Collective in New Delhi as a research officer supporting the mandate of Anand Grover as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, and holds an LLM in international law from Cambridge, an LLB/BMus from the University of Melbourne, and the Hague Academy of International Law’s Diploma in Public International Law. She served as co-director of the Hague Academy’s Centre for Studies and Research on epidemics and international law in 2020-2021.