Bio

Padmashree Gehl Sampath is currently a Direcctor of the Global Access in Action Program at the Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University, and Visiting Professor at the South African Research Chair in Industrial Development (SARChI ID), University of Johannesburg. She is also the Senior Advisor to the President of the African Development Bank on Pharmaceuticals and Health and the Chair Person of the Technical Advisory Group of the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (CTAP) of the World Health Organisation. A well-respected thought leader in the field of global health and development studies, Professor Gehl Sampath is working on some of the world’s most pressing challenges, predominantly from technology, trade, and industrialisation perspectives. She has worked for over two decades on these topics assessing competitiveness risks for governments, private sector actors at the global and regional levels, think tanks and academia, helping to designing policies and strategies for market shaping and market design, industrial performance and transformations, innovation support, and resilient growth. She also has an extensive background in policy management and policy reform. Since 2021, she has advised the German International Agency (GIZ) and Germany’s Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) on accelerating vaccine production in Africa. She currently serves on the Advisory Council of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and also leads a large regional project focused on building regional centers of excellence for vaccine production in Africa. She holds adjunct positions in several institutions, including as Professorial Fellow, United Nations University-MERIT, and teaches courses regularly on her areas of specialization. She is on several boards and is the recipient of two awards (one from Rockefeller Foundation) for her work.