Omur Cinar Elci, MD, PhD

Dr. Elci is a distinguished physician and public health leader with more than three decades of experience in global health, epidemiology, and primary care. He earned his MD from Ege University School of Medicine and a PhD in Public Health from Dokuz Eylul University School of Medicine in Izmir, Türkiye. He completed a Fogarty postdoctoral fellowship in epidemiology at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and gained field epidemiology experience at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), where he received the Bullard Sherwood Research to Practice Award. He also served as a consultant research coordinator in the WHO Syrian Refugee Health Program.

His professional credentials include certifications in Higher Education from Harvard University’s Derek Bok Center and in Project Management from the WHO Project Management Center of Excellence. Throughout his career, Dr. Elci has combined academic leadership with sustainable public health initiatives. He established two United Nations Collaborating Centers—the WHO Regional Collaborating Center for Environmental and Occupational Health (2011) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Regional Collaboration Center (2012)—the first of their kind in the Caribbean region.

Before joining WAUSM, he served as the Takeda Chair in Public Health at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh. His work emphasizes sustainable solutions to public health challenges through community engagement, translational research, and a strong commitment to social justice and human rights. In recognition of his contributions, Dr. Elci was elected to the Delta Omega Honor Society in Public Health in 2015.