Dr. Geir Gunnlaugsson (GG) is Emeritus Professor of Global Health at the Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology, and Folkloristics at the University of Iceland. He is a paediatrician with a PhD (1993) and MPH (1997) from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. GG was the head of preventive child health services within the Primary Health Care Organization for Reykjvík Greater Capital Area 2000-2009, and the Chief Medical Officer/Surgeon General for Iceland in 2010-2014. GG has since 1982 lived and worked in Guinea-Bissau for eight years and has conducted qualitative and epidemiological studies in Iceland and several sub-Saharan African countries, including Guinea-Bissau. Has conducted research and published on, e.g., breastfeeding, infant and child mortality, child development and abuse, measles, cholera, COVID-19 and health systems in Iceland, Guinea-Bissau and Malawi. He is a member of ISSOP – International Society for Social Pediatrics and Child Health, and sits on the Research Council of the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Uppsala, Sweden.
Dr Jónína Einarsdóttirn (JE) is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and the former Dean of the Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology and Folkloristics, University of Iceland. She has a PhD (2000) in Anthropology from Stockholm University, Sweden. JE has conducted extensive fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau and Iceland, and had shorter assignments in Mozambique, Malawi and Sierra Leone. In Guinea-Bissau, JE has studied maternal grief, child death, infanticide, breastfeeding and child trafficking. In Iceland, she has done research on ethical questions related to treatment of extremely preterm infants and the implications of their birth on the daily life of their families, domestic violence and punishment of children, as well as the 20th century customs to send urban children to stay and work on farms during the summertime. Additional themes of focus are failed states, aid and health care systems, as well as cholera, Ebola and COVID-19.
