Chief Physician, Deputy Head, Unit Infectious Diseases Control and Vaccines, Department Health Security, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, FINLAND

She completed her medical studies, PhD and international health competence in Helsinki. She serves as secretary of the Finnish NITAG, and the subgroup of the Strategic Development of the influenza vaccination programme. In addition, she practices clinical medicine at the travel health clinic Aava, Helsinki. She was instrumental in designing the HPV vaccine introduction to the national immunization programme. Her research interests are register-based vaccine impact studies, evidence-based policy/decision making, vaccine safety, hesitancy, RSV, influenza, and pneumococcus. She coordinates the work package on communications in IMI DRIVE (www.drive-eu.org). She has authored >130 original articles (incl the first scientific report on the association between pandemic influenza vaccination vs narcolepsy), and teaches, guides elective, graduate, and PhD students. She has served on expert committees evaluating HBV, PCV, and rotavirus vaccine in Finland, and as an advisor to EU, IMI, IVI, WHO, GAVI, SIDA/SRC, and Finnish MOFA. She was the Chairman of the WHO SAGE external evaluation (EAGSE), Chairman EPIET 1998-2001, EDCTP 2002-3. She presently is a member of the WHO SAGE subgroup Influenza Vaccines, a member of the ECDC NITAG coordinating committee, and Vice-chair and Board Member International Vaccine Institute. She belongs to the Faculty of ADVAC since its initiation in 2000-, and initiated the EPIET vaccine module in 1997, and Finnish Diploma Course in Global Health 2000.