Martin McKEE, Prof. MD, DSc

Professor of European Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Research director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies

Martin McKee qualified in medicine in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with subsequent training in internal medicine and public health. He is Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he co-directs of the European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition (ECOHOST), a WHO Collaborating Centre that comprises the largest team of researchers working on health and health policy in central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He is also research director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, a unique partnership of universities, national and regional governments, and international agencies.

He has published almost 470 scientific papers, 35 books, and 103 book chapters. He served as an editor of the European Journal of Public Health for 15 years (six as editor in chief) and a member of 16 editorial boards. He has given many endowed lectures, including the Milroy Lecture (Royal College of Physicians), the Cochrane Lecture (UK Society for Social Medicine), Ferenc Bojan Lecture (European Public Health Association), and DARE Lecture (UK Faculty of Public Health) and in 2010 will give one of the British Medical Associations Victor Horsley lectures.

He is chair of the UK Society for Social Medicine and a trustee of the UK Public Health Association. He sits on a number of advisory boards in Europe and North America, in both the public and private sectors. He is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London, Edinburgh and Ireland and the UK Faculty of Public Health. His contributions to European health policy have been recognised by, among others, election to the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences, and the US Institute of Medicine, by the award of honorary doctorates from Hungary and The Netherlands, visiting professorships at the Universities of Zagreb and Belgrade and the London School of Economics, and appointment as a distinguished international scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2003 he was awarded the Andrija Stampar medal for contributions to European public health and in 2005 was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by HM Queen Elizabeth II.