June 7
,
2012
by: ASRM Office of Public Affairs
Orginally published in ASRM Bullentin Volume 14, Number 34
The World Health Organization has announced the appointment of Professor Marleen Temmerman as the next Director of the Department of Reproductive Health and Research and the UNDP/UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction. Professor Temmerman will begin in this position in mid-October 2012.
Professor Temmerman is a Belgian national with a medical degree from Ghent University. She also holds a diploma in tropical medicine from the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp; an MPh on epidemiological, statistical and operational methods applied in public health; a PhD in obstetrics and gynecology; and a diploma in management.
Professor Temmerman has a long and established career working for improvements in health care for disadvantaged populations and for the reproductive and sexual health and rights of women. She has conducted extensive research into HIV/AIDS and maternal health and was the first female gynecology professor in Belgium. She also created the International Centre for Reproductive Health, based in Ghent, Kenya and Mozambique. She has authored over 400 scientific papers and twenty books in three languages.
In 2007, she was elected as a Senator in the Belgian Parliament where she is member of the Commission on Social Affairs and the Commission on Foreign Affairs. She is also a member of the European Parliamentary Forum and chair of the HIV/AIDS Advisory Group of the Inter Parliamentary Union.
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