Unni Karunakara
Unni Karunakara M.D. is an Indian-born physician, an academic, and was the international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from 2010–2013. Karunakara has worked in humanitarian emergencies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and held leadership roles at MSF headquarters in the Netherlands and Switzerland. He has held fellowships and has been faculty at universities in Africa, Asia, and Europe. After his three years leading MSF, he cycled 5,637 km to raise funds to pay back his salary. He has served on the board of directors of MSF Netherlands, MSF India, and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases  Initiative. Early life. Karunakara was born in Alappuzha. Education. Karunakara has a degree in medicine from Kasturba Medical College. He has a degrees in public health from Johns Hopkins University and Yale University. Career. Academic career. Karunakara has held research and academic fellowships at universities in Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe, including as a senior Fellow at Jackson Institute for Global Affairs from 2014 to 2017. His research centered around forced migration, and healthcare for people in humanitarian crises. Karunakara was the Deputy Director of Health at Columbia University's The Earth Institute, Millennium Villages Project, and  the Assistant Clinical Professor at the Mailman School of Public Health. As of 2020, he was a visiting faculty at Tshinghua University, and a Shinhan Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yonsei University. Humanitarian career. Karunakara joined Médecins Sans Frontières in 1995 where he managed a tuberculosis program in Ethiopia, before working in Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, and the Democratic Republic of Congo as a medical coordinator. In 2002, he moved to MSF's Amsterdam headquarters to work as the medical director before leading the Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines from 2005 to 2007. While at MSF, Karunakara led a process to  reform the governing International Statutes as part of a wider reform of the organization's governance. Other governance roles. Karunakara served on the board of directors of MSF Netherlands, MSF India, and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (2010 to 2013). Personal life. Over 112 days in 2014, Karunakara cycled 5,673 km from Srinagar to Thiruvananthapuram to raise funds to pay his salary back to MSF. He raised $120,000.