Giridhara R Babu is Professor and Head – Life Course Epidemiology at Public Health Foundation of India. After an MBBS from Kasturba medical college Manipal, and MPH and PhD from UCLA (University of California Los Angeles), he has worked for two decades in public health research, practice and academics. He began his career at the Center for Community Medicine of the AIIMS, New Delhi as a Junior Resident. Next, he worked with WHO where he led the efforts in stopping polio transmission in the state of Karnataka. He initiated advocacy for measles surveillance in Karnataka leading to constitution of Multi Year Plan (MYP) for Measles elimination in India. He is awarded the prestigious intermediate fellowship of Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance to start a cohort study. The cohort is named as MAASTHI (Maternal Antecedents of Adiposity Studying the Transgenerational role of Hyperglycemia and Insulin).
Giridhara has over 80 papers published in national and international high impact journals. He is the Member of Epidemiology and surveillance Research group constituted by ICMR National Task Force for COVID-I9. He is also on the Technical Analysis Committee of the Government of Karnataka to tackle COVID-19. He is actively involved in writing articles for general public, providing his expert opinion to media houses and consultation to several states. His work on COVID-19 can be accessed here https://giridhar.org/covid-19/.
