Board members

The GAPA Board shall be representative of all continents. GAPA has adopted a Gender and Diversity Policy and is working towards gender balance.

Board members

Professor Sally Casswell

Chairperson

New Zealand

Sally Casswell holds a personal chair in social and health research and is Director of SHORE (a World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre) and Co-director of the SHORE & Whariki Research Centre, Massey University, New Zealand.

Her research interests are in social and public health policy, particularly in relation to alcohol and other unhealthy commodities.

She has interest in development and implementation of healthy public policy at the global level and in international collaborative research. She was selected by her peers to receive the Jellinek Memorial Award, the premier international award for alcohol research, for her contributions to ‘the understanding of social and cultural drinking patterns and public attitudes’ and has been Vice President and President of the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol.

She has published more than 200 articles in peer reviewed international journals, is a member of the World Health Organisation’s Expert Advisory Panel on Alcohol and Drug Dependence, Member of WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Disease and participant in the WHO Expert meetings on Economic and Commercial Determinants of Health.

Professor Isidore S Obot

Professor Isidore S Obot

Vice Chairperson

Nigeria

Isidore S. Obot, Ph.D., M.P.H. Isidore S. Obot is currently the Executive Director, Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA), Uyo, Nigeria.

He previously served as a tenured professor and Chairperson, Department of Behavioral Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Policy, Morgan State University, Baltimore MD; Professor and Head, Department of Psychology University of Uyo, Nigeria; and Scientist in the Department of Mental Health and Substance Dependence at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

Dr Obot has consulted for several national and international organisations on substance use issues and serves as editor of the African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies.

Professor David Jernigan

Professor David Jernigan

Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee

USA

David Jernigan, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health, and senior policy advisor to CityHealth, an initiative of the De Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, and the Maryland Collaborative to Reduce College Drinking and Related Problems.

He previously directed the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Jernigan’s career focus has been on public health practice with a special interest in alcohol and cannabis policy. He has served as an advisor to the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) and was the principal author of WHO’s first Global Status Report on Alcohol and Global Status Report on Alcohol and Youth.

Dr. Jernigan has written more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and contributed chapters to seven books. He has also written about and worked extensively in the field of media advocacy, and trained thousands of students and public health advocates in media advocacy and alcohol-problems prevention.

Mr. Øystein Bakke

Mr Øystein Bakke

GAPA Secretary

Norway

Øystein Bakke holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Oslo. He is presently Senior Advisor for the Alcohol, Drugs and Development programme of the Norwegian NGO FORUT, where he has been since 2000.

FORUT allocates part of Mr. Bakke’s time to function as GAPA Secretary. He has previously also held other positions in FORUT, including Assistant Resident Representative in Sri Lanka and worked in journalism.

Issah Ali

Mr. Issah Ali

BOARD MEMBER

Ghana

Issah Ali is Executive Director of VALD – The Vision for Alternative Development, Ghana, and is Head of the Secretariat of West African Alcohol Policy Alliance (WAAPA).  He has served on the board of the African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) as Chairman from 2010-2012.

Mr Ali is an Advance Member of the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP), Member of the International Network on Brief Interventions for Alcohol & other Drugs (INEBRIA) and represents VALD at the Word Federation Against Drugs (WFAD). He attended several international meetings on the control and prevention of alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.
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Gayle Amul

Ms. Gianna Gayle (Herrera) Amul

BOARD MEMBER

Philippines

Gayle Amul has a PhD from the University of Geneva’s Institute of Global Health. Her PhD project focused on examining alcohol and tobacco control policies and the power of the alcohol and tobacco industries in the policy process in Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines and Singapore. She is a member of Health Systems Global and the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol. She is also a member of the Editorial Board of Globalization and Health. Gayle Amul is coordinating the alcohol policy network in the Asia Pacific as Secretary of the Asia Pacific Alcohol Policy Alliance (APAPA).

Sawitri Assanangkornchai

Dr. Sawitri Assanangkornchai

BOARD MEMBER

Thailand

Sawitri Assanangkornchai is a Professor of Psychiatry working in Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University. She is also the Director of Centre for Alcohol Studies, a national granting agency under the support of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, with a mission to promote research and policy development on alcohol control.

Dr. Assanangkornchai’s research interests include epidemiological and clinical studies on alcohol- and substance-related problems, behavioural addiction and mental health problems.

Dr. Assanangkornchai is currently the President of the Asia Pacific Society for Alcohol and Addiction Research (APSAAR). She is also a member of the Workgroup on the Classification of Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders for the ICD-11 Mental and Behavioural Disorders and the Technical Expert Group on Alcohol and Drug Epidemiology of the WHO.

Thomas F Babor

Professor Thomas F Babor

Board Member

USA

Thomas Babor is a Professor and former Chairman in the Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, USA. His academic training is in social psychology and psychiatric epidemiology. His research interests include screening, diagnosis, early intervention, and treatment evaluation, as well as alcohol and drug policy.

He has worked with the World Health Organization on the development of Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Alcohol, Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST). He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, and the co-author of Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity (2022 forthcoming) and Drug Policy and the Public Good. (2018).

Portrait of Beatriz Champagne

Dr. Beatriz Champagne

BOARD MEMBER

Argentina

Beatriz Champagne is a Psychologist from Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a Master of Science and PhD from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, and a Bachelor of Science summa cum laude from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

Dr Champagne is Director of CLAS, the Coalition for Americas’ Health, and former executive director of the InterAmerican Heart Foundation. CLAS is an alliance of over 200 Non-Governmental Organizations from Latin America, whose purpose is to prevent and control NCDs in the region. Its members include medical societies, patient organizations, healthcare NGOs, consumers NGOs, religious and academic entities. Founded in March 2011, its aim is to reduce inequity, promote human rights, and facilitate effective polices with impact on NCDs risk factors and its determinants. CLAS’ overall goal is to strengthen Civil Society’s action on preventing and controlling NCDs in Latin America through advocacy, education, awareness building, and research, at the national and regional levels, for the implementation of effective policies, in line with the United Nations’ and PAHO-WHO’s goals. In 2018, she was designated World Heart Federation Advocacy Committee Chair, with a global sphere of action. Within CLAS, she helped create an actively engaged Alcohol group focused on advocacy and research. The Coalition became a part of the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance in March 2020.

Sungsoo Chun

Professor Sungsoo Chun

Board Member

South Korea

Sungsoo Chun is Professor, Department of Counseling and Psychology, Sahmyook University in Seoul, South Korea.

Aadielah Maker Diedricks

Ms. Aadielah Maker Diedricks

BOARD MEMBER

South Africa

Aadielah Maker Diedricks has a Masters in Community Health from UNSW, Sydney, Australia; is a public health advocate with experience in developing and producing edutainment and multi-media interventions, training, social mobilisation and campaign management.

She has worked in the civil society sector for over 25 years in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, HIV and AIDS, gender and alcohol. She managed the award winning Soul Buddyz programme and Soul City Phuza Wise campaign. Currently, she is coordinating the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance bringing together civil society organisations from 7 countries lobbying for health promoting and evidence-based alcohol policies.

Paula Johns

Mrs. Paula Johns

Board Member

Brazil

Paula Johns is Program Developer for REDEH – Human Development Network, a feminist organization based in Rio de Janeiro and founder and director of the ACT Tobacco Control Alliance in Brazil

Charles Parry

Professor Charles Parry

Board Member

South Africa

Charles Parry is the director of the Alcohol, Tobacco & Other Drug Research Unit at the South African Medical Research Council. He is currently registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa as a Clinical and Research Psychologist.

Trained in South Africa and the USA in clinical and community psychology and mathematical statistics, his research centres on alcohol and drug epidemiology, burden of disease and policy; alcohol use and HIV/TB; and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Since 2006 he has been a member of the WHO Expert Panel on Drug Dependence and Alcohol Problems and in 2010 was appointed to the board of GAPA.

Mr. Derek Rutherford

Mr. Derek Rutherford

Board Member

United Kingdom

Derek Rutherford has worked for over 40 years in the field of alcohol policy, having left teaching in 1969. In 1973 he was appointed Director of the National Council on Alcoholism.

In 1982 he helped establish and became co-Director of the Institute of Alcohol Studies, London and in 1989 spearheaded the formation of Eurocare, acting as its Honorary Secretary until September 2006. In 2001 he was a co-organiser of an international conference in Syracuse, which led to the establishment of the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance. In 2008 he was the recipient of a special Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal Thai Government.

Mr Rutherford has accounted his experience in the autobiography The boy who ‘joined for jelly’; A 66 year journey.

Mr. Pubudu Sumanasekara

BOARD MEMBER

Sri Lanka

Pubudu Sumanasekara is the Executive Director of the Colombo based Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (ADIC) and is Vice President of Movendi International. Pubudu is a visiting lecturer of University of Colombo and Rajara University Sri Lanka.

Dr. Perihan Torun

Dr. Perihan Torun

BOARD MEMBER

Turkey

Dr. Perihan Torun is Associate Professor in Public Health at the University of Health Sciences, İstanbul, Turkey.

She is a member of the scientific committee of the Turkish Green Crescent Society and has a background as Manager of the Department of Scientific Research and Advocacy with the same organisation.