Dr. Charles A. Gardner
(CARTHA Board member, September 2006 to March 2009)
Head, Research & Programmes Unit, Global Forum for Health Research. Geneva, SwitzerlandDr. Charles A. Gardner (Chad) is Senior Innovation Specialist at the Global Forum for Health Research and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. Previously, he served as Senior Advisor on Health Research Strategy with the World Health Organization, working from the WHO Offices at the United Nations in New York, and holding a joint appointment with the Earth Institute and the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University . Chad’s professional career has revolved around the intersection of government, philanthropic, university and private sector R&D. His expertise and interests include global health, innovation systems and the growing capacity for technological and social innovation in some “innovative developing countries.” From 2003-2007, Chad was Associate Director for Health Equity at the Rockefeller Foundation where he managed a program that supported public-private partnerships to develop drugs and vaccines for diseases of the poor. From 1998-2003, he served as the Official Representative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to South Asia, with the title of Science Attaché, based at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India. Prior to 1998, Chad was the Program Officer for Africa , the Middle East and South Asia at the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. During that time, he also taught bioethics as an Assistant Professor at Howard University in Washington DC. From 1991 to 1992, Chad served on the staff of the House Government Operations Committee in the United States Congress (as a AAAS Congressional Science Fellow). He received his Ph.D. in Cell, Developmental and Neurobiology from the University of Michigan in 1991.