Dr. Eric D. McCollum, MD, MPH is the director of the Johns Hopkins Global Program in Pediatric Respiratory Sciences, an Associate Professor of Pediatric Pulmonology in the Eudowood Division of Pediatric Respiratory Sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of International Health. He has nearly 20 years of clinical and research experience in child respiratory diseases specific to low-and middle-income countries in southern Africa and South Asia, has authored >140 peer-reviewed publications, and advises the World Health Organization in multiple capacities in the area of pediatric respiratory diseases.

Gail Rodgers received her Doctorate in Medicine from Temple University School of Medicine. She did her pediatric residency and pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia where she served as attending physician and Associate Professor for nine years. In 2005 she moved to industry worked as Senior Director for Vaccines Scientific Affairs at Wyeth and Pfizer, where she led the strategy to incorporate pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in emerging markets. Prior to joining BMGF, worked as an independent consultant working to promote vaccine usage in Latin America and Asia. Since joining the Pneumonia Team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in October 2014, she has led the Pneumococcus Initiative with a focus on development of a low cost pneumococcal vaccine, assessment of alternate dosing strategies of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), and assessment of impact of PCVs in GAVI Alliance countries. Gail also leads the Meningococcal Initiative that focuses on the development and use of meningococcal vaccines to decrease the burden of meningitis globally and especially in the African meningitis belt. Additionally, she lead the effort to understand the role of household air pollution (HAP) on pneumonia in children and interventions that can be done to decrease pneumonia due to HAP.

Padmini Srikantiah, USA Dr. Padmini Srikantiah leads the foundation’s initiative to address respiratory syncytial virus, the leading cause of pneumonia in young infants globally, through the development of effective maternal and infant immunization strategies. She also leads the cross-foundation antimicrobial resistance strategy, which includes efforts to prevent newborn sepsis by developing a vaccine against Klebsiella pneumoniae, a frequently drug-resistant pathogen. Previously, she served as a senior medical epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), leading its AMR initiative in India, which encompassed efforts to strengthen AMR surveillance and reduce key health care–associated infections. She also led the CDC’s infectious disease surveillance in India, which included efforts to identify etiologies of encephalitis and acute febrile illness. Padmini earned a B.A. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.D. from the University of California San Diego, and an MPH in epidemiology from UC Berkeley. She is board certified in infectious diseases and served in the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service.