Thomas Kerr, PhD Director, Urban Health Research Initiative, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS Senior Scientist, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of AIDS, University of British Columbia Dr. Kerr has extensive research experience in the areas of health psychology, behavioural science, community-based research, and public health, especially in evaluating programs and treatments designed to address addiction, injection drug use, and HIV/AIDS. His work has been instrumental in demonstrating the scientific basis for several critical public health interventions, and he has served as principal investigator on studies that evaluated the expansion of Vancouver’s needle exchange program and the initiation of a scientific pilot study of North America’s first medically supervised safer injecting facility. Dr. Kerr has also conducted work aimed at improving the health and human rights conditions of marginalized populations at national and international levels and is the principal investigator on a study of injection drug users in Bangkok, Thailand. Dr. Kerr was Director of Health Research & Policy at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, where he worked on HIV prevention and care projects for injection drug users and prisoners in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Thailand. He is the Past President of the Legal Network. Dr. Kerr has published more than 200 scientific papers in international peer-reviewed journals and received numerous local and national awards for his contributions to public health, human rights, and the fight against HIV/AIDS. Most recently, Dr. Kerr received the National Knowledge Translation Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for his efforts to promote scientific discussion on the topic of illicit drug policy. Dr. Kerr is also a member of the editorial boards of BMC Public Health, the International Journal of Drug Policy and the HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review.