Gulrez Shah Azhar

Gulrez Shah Azhar is an assistant policy analyst at the nonprofit RAND Corporation and a public policy doctoral student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, where his work focuses on heat waves. Previously, he was an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Public Health, part of the Public Health Foundation of India, where he worked on issues of environmental health, climate change, and infectious diseases, focusing on surveillance and early warning systems. Prior to that, Azhar was with the Non-communicable Diseases and Mental Health Cluster at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. He worked on a systematic review of self-management of NCDs and on developing a prioritized research agenda for NCD research in LMICs. His other research has been on the utilization of healthcare services and a systematic review of DOTS-based treatment of tuberculosis in India.

Azhar completed his M.P.H. through the universities of Sheffield and Copenhagen and the École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique (EHESP) in Rennes, France. He is also a medical doctor with post-graduate medical residency training in Community Medicine from the J N Medical College, AMU, India. Azhar is the winner of the Erasmus Mundus scholarship of the European Commission and several other research grants including from the Wellcome Trust. He has published in several journals, presented at various conferences including as an invited speaker. He has also offered and completed short courses and trainings in related subjects. His interests are in health, environment, population, and development issues. A researcher who is passionate about health, the environment, and development, Azhar, along with other partners, helped develop India’s first heat-preparedness plan in Ahmedabad, India. He interned at World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva.