2025 Speakers
FEATURE SPEAKER
Dr Daniel Buss
PAN AMERICAN HEALTH ORGANIZATION
Dr Daniel Buss is the Head of the Climate Change and Environmental Determinants of Health Unit at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), based in Washington, D.C.
This unit coordinates PAHO/WHO's actions in the 35 countries and 18 territories of the Americas on issues such as climate change, air quality, water, sanitation and hygiene, waste management, chemical safety, and environmental epidemiology and toxicology.
Dr Buss will deliver his feature presentation during the Opening Ceremony:
“Climate Change, Environment, and Public Health in the Americas”
FEATURE SPEAKER
Prof. Sandra Reid
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES
Professor Sandra Reid is a consultant psychiatrist and Professor of Public Health Psychiatry at The University of the West Indies (the UWI) with over 30 years of clinical experience. She holds an MBBS and a Doctor of Medicine in Psychiatry from the UWI, and was awarded a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship in Substance Abuse Research at Johns Hopkins University in 1992. While at Johns Hopkins, she earned a Master of Public Health degree and was inducted into the Delta Omega Honorary Society for academic excellence and leadership.
An outstanding psychiatrist, Professor Reid’s scholarly work spans a wide range of socially significant and interrelated areas, leading to a holistic bio-psychosocial-religiocultural approach to mental health care. Her early research explored the intersectionality and gendered dimensions of addiction, HIV, and child sexual abuse, which shaped trauma-informed clinical practice, culminating in the institutionalization of child sexual abuse assessment within routine mental health evaluations.
Professor Reid is well known for her role in developing the nationally recognized innovative, multidisciplinary Break the Silence (BTS) model to prevent and address child sexual abuse in Trinidad and Tobago. Backed by over $800,000 USD in grant funding, the BTS Project yielded public education tools, professional training across sectors, policy briefs, creative media content, legislative amendments, and nationally implemented protocols. It has been scaled up across the Caribbean, and is an impressive example of the regional impact of her applied research. In 2014, the project was awarded the UWI-NGC Award for Most Impacting Research Project at the UWI St. Augustine.
Recognized as the Caribbean’s current foremost leader in substance abuse education, Professor Reid launched the Caribbean Regional Certificate in Addiction Studies in 1994 through the UWI Open Campus. Since 2003, she has served as Director of the Caribbean Institute on Addictive Disorders, which has trained leaders throughout the region and promoted policy advocacy for alcohol and drug harm reduction.
Professor Sandra Reid has published over 60 academic works, including journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports, and presented at more than 40 conferences. She is co-editor of the book Sex, Power and Taboo: Gender and HIV in the Caribbean and Beyond (2009).
At The UWI, she serves as Deputy Dean of the clinical programmes in the Faculty of Medical Sciences and Research Associate at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies. Over her three decades of teaching, she has been a visionary educator, known for her student-centered pedagogy and commitment to more responsive, inclusive, developmentally supportive advising for students in higher education. She has received several honors, including the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2014) and the UWI/Guardian Life Premium Teaching Award (2012).
Professor Reid is the 2025 Recipient of the Research for Health Lifetime Achievement Award, and will deliver her feature presentation:
“Breaking the Silence of Child Sexual Abuse in the Caribbean: A Multidisciplinary Action Research Journey”