Ziad Memish, appointed Professor of Medicine, Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Adjunct Professor, Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, USA.
He received his medical degree in Canada in 1987. Following this he returned to Saudi Arabia to serve as a consultant Infectious Disease Specialist at the Saudi Security Forces hospital and soon after he was appointed head of Infectious Disease and chairman of Infection Control at the Saudi Arabian National Guard Health Affairs. From 2012 to 2014 he was appointed the first Deputy Minister of Health for Public Health in the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health.
Dr. Memish’s research has focused on infection control and infectious diseases with special focus on health hazards at the Hajj. He went on to pioneer the field of Mass gathering medicine first by establishing and becoming the inaugural Director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Infection control and the WHO Collaborating Center for Mass Gathering Medicine. In this capacity he organized the world’s first conferences on Mass Gathering Medicine in Jeddah Saudi Arabia, bringing together this nascent field into a formal discipline. Dr. Memish has been on the frontline of the MERS-Coronavirus response. He spearheaded development of Saudi Arabian Center for Disease Control, and created a nation-wide electronic disease surveillance system among the region’s first of its kind.
He is a member of many international societies, and a recipient of numerous awards and honors, including The King Abdulaziz Medal from the First Degree (2007) awarded by the King of Saudi Arabia in recognition for his service to the Kingdom. He holds Fellowships at the Royal College of Physicians in both Edinburgh and London , and Honorary Professorship of Infectious diseases from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (2012).