Speakers
ICUH 2026 is proud to bring together thought leaders, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, city leaders, and community voices from around the world to Mexico City for three days of exchange, collaboration, and action on the most pressing challenges shaping urban health.
Under this year’s theme, Healthy Cities by Design: Climate, Care, and Community from Latin America to the World, the conference will spotlight the powerful ways cities and communities are developing solutions grounded in local realities, while sharing lessons with global relevance. Our program will explore six thematic areas spanning climate and urban resilience, food and mobility, healthy living across the lifecourse, mental health and belonging, urban health systems and governance, and a dedicated regional spotlight on Latin America and the Caribbean.
We are delighted to welcome an exceptional group of speakers who will bring diverse perspectives, innovative ideas, and practical experience to the global urban health conversation. Together, they will help us explore how healthier, more equitable, resilient, and inclusive cities can be designed and supported through collaboration, evidence, policy, and community action.
Additional speakers to be announced soon!
THEME 1
Climate, Environment, & Urban Resilience
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Horacio Riojas Rodríguez, Ph.D., is a medical doctor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) 1983.
He has a Master’s degree in Sciences in Environmental Health (1994–1997) and a Ph.D. degree in Epidemiology with honors from the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) (2005) in Mexico.
He has been working in this area for the last 28 years on different issues but especially on the effects of indoor and outdoor air pollution and climate change and health.
Other projects and publications include exposure to persistent organic pollutants and metals.
His experience in air pollution includes analyses of the effect of wood smoke on women and children and the effects of ambient air pollution in cities.
More recently, he has been involved in health impact assessment studies in different cities in Mexico. The first one estimated annual avoidable deaths in Mexico City.
Director of Environmental Health Department at the Center for Population Health Research at the National Institute of Public Health Mexico. Leader of the Research line with a mission on health and the environment. Founder and Academic Coordinator of the Environmental Health Sciences Ph.D. program at the Mexican Public Health School (INSP).
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Liliana Miranda, architect, urban planner, environmentalist, Phd, lead author of the IPCC cities report, combines scientific research and academic teaching with direct practice in cities and poor neighborhoods working with local, urban and national actors. She is executive director of the Cities for Life Foro.
She works with municipalities, government agencies, companies, and cooperation at multiple levels.
She has published several books and indexed articles, is a columnist in magazines and newspapers in Peru and the region, and has contributed to the approval of 8 laws in Peru, including the Climate Change Framework Law.
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Economist graduated from UNAM with master's and doctoral studies in Environmental Sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
He is a full-time, permanent researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico where he is attached to the Institute of Geography.
He is a member of the National System of Researchers of Mexico, level 3. He currently serves as CLA of the IPCC special report on Climate Change and Cities.
THEME 2
Food, Movement, & Noncommunicable Disease Prevention
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Paola Abril Campos Rivera is a research professor at the School of Government and Public Transformation and the Institute for Obesity Research at Tec de Monterrey, where she co-directs the Center for Evidence-to-Action Impact on Health Equity.
She specializes in the implementation of public policy for global health, with extensive experience in low- and middle-income countries and in applied political analysis for health reform.
Most recently, she helped establish the Delivery for Impact team at the World Health Organization in Geneva, where she tracked progress toward the health-related Sustainable Development Goals, particularly universal health coverage.
She has worked at the Carlos Slim Foundation on strengthening primary health care nationwide and has also served in the Office of the President of Mexico.
Her current applied research focuses on food policy and improving food environments, with an emphasis on health equity.
Abril holds a Doctor of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Born in Mexico City, she studied at the Mahindra United World College in India, and has lived and worked in Ghana, Kazakhstan, India, Switzerland, and the United States.
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Dr. David Rojas-Rueda is an environmental epidemiologist and Associate Professor at Colorado State University.
His research quantifies the health impacts of urban environments, including air quality, transport, green space, noise, and climate, and translates that evidence into tools and policies cities can act on.
He has contributed to the design and development of health impact assessment tools and methods with WHO, PAHO, and other international organizations, supporting evidence-based decision making in cities around the world.
His recent work spans a national assessment of transportation noise and health in the United States, environmental justice screening and community engagement in Colorado, and the health co-benefits of climate action in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Western Asia.
His work bridges epidemiology, urban planning, and policy, with a focus on healthy, equitable, and climate-resilient cities.
He serves on the Colorado Environmental Justice Advisory Board and advises governments, multilateral organizations, and philanthropies worldwide.
He was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2022
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James F. Sallis, Ph.D. is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health at University of California San Diego and Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University, Melbourne.
He has co-led research to understand policy and environmental influences on physical activity, nutrition, and obesity, with studies conducted across all age groups in the US. Dr. Sallis is co-founder of the International Physical Activity and Environment Network (IPEN) that conducted coordinated studies of adults and adolescents in about 20 countries.
He was Director of Active Living Research (2001-2016) that helped establish an interdisciplinary field of research to identify effective environmental and policy strategies to increase physical activity.
More recently he has integrated human and planetary health into his research and advocacy.
He was co-founder of the Global Observatory of Healthy Sustainable Cities that promotes use of evidence-based policy and spatial (GIS) indicators to guide city policies.
He has authored over 850 scientific publications and is one of the world’s most cited authors in any field, with over 270,000 citations.
He is currently focusing on getting research used to create active, healthy, and sustainable cities.
Dr. Sallis is Past-President of Society of Behavioral Medicine, elected member of the US National Academy of Medicine, and has won numerous national and international awards. www.drjimsallis.org
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Dr. Salvo is an associate professor of Health Behavior and Health Education in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education of the College of Education.
Dr. Salvo is a physical activity and public health scientist. Through her work, she seeks to understand the role of context on physical activity and health disparities, with a special emphasis on Latin American populations, both in the U.S. and abroad.
Dr. Salvo's work takes place both in the U.S. and internationally. She has led or collaborated in projects based in Texas, Missouri, Alabama, Illinois and California. Internationally, she has led projects and has close working relationships with researchers and institutions across Latin America and, in particular, has strong ties with the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico, the leading public health research institution in Latin America.
Dr. Salvo is an active member of multiple highly productive, multinational research teams focused on developing and applying state-of-the-art physical activity and spatial epidemiological methods for advancing globally-focused physical activity and built environment research. Some of these studies include: the International Physical Activity and the Environment Network study (IPEN), the Our Voice Global Network Project, the Lancet Series for Physical Activity working group, the Lancet Global Indicators for Urban Livability and Sustainability working group, the Global Observatory for Physical Activity and the Global Observatory for Healthy and Sustainable Cities.In addition, Dr. Salvo has served as an advisor for several local, state, and national departments of chronic disease prevention/healthy lifestyle promotion/urbanism and health; funding agencies (e.g., Fogarty International Center/NIH; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation); and international organizations, including the Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization.
In parallel to her research on space, place and physical activity, a critical priority of Dr. Salvo is to build capacity for physical activity and public health research in settings or among populations for which contextually-relevant evidence to guide policy action is lacking the most.Dr. Salvo has led several training programs to install and enhance research capacity in physical activity and public health in Latin America. In 2021, she organized the first Latin American Congress on Physical Activity and Health Research.
Prior to joining UT Austin, Dr. Salvo held academic appointments at Washington University in St. Louis, UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, and Stanford University.She earned her Ph.D. from Emory University and her Bachelor in Science from Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City, Mexico).
THEME 3
Healthy Urban Living Across the Lifecourse
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Gil Penalosa is passionate about cities for all people. Because of his unique blend of experience, pragmatism, and passion, many cities worldwide seek his leadership and valuable advice. He has worked in over 350 cities.
Gil is the Founder and Chair of the successful Canadian non-profit organization 8 80 Cities and founder of Cities for Everyone.
In 2022 Gil ran for mayor of Toronto. In 100 days, he got 100,000 votes.
Currently Gil is an academic chair at the Norman Foster Institute for Sustainable Cities, as well as Expert Advisor to the International Society for Urban Health, and to the Danish based world initiative, Cities for Better Health.
He hosts his bi-weekly webinar series with over 30 countries connected. Gil also runs his consultancy, Gil Penalosa & Associates.
Gil was elected twice as chair of World Urban Parks. He holds an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, received a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the Faculty of Urban Planning at Swedish SLU.
In 2023 Gil was voted to Planetizen’s Top 100 Most Influential Contemporary Urbanists, at #13.
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Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Morehouse School of Medicine, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Director, Break the Cycle Program, Pediatric Environmental Specialty Unit (PEHSU), Emory University, Medical Director, The Rubin Center for Autism and Developmental Pediatrics, President and Founder, Break the Cycle of Health Disparities, Inc.
Dr. Rubin is originally from South Africa, where he trained in pediatrics, then went to Case Western Reserve in Cleveland Ohio, then Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, and now at Morehouse School of Medicine and Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Rubin is a Developmental Pediatrician who provides pediatric and interdisciplinary coordinated care for children with developmental disabilities and their families and is the primary editor of 3 editions of a textbook addressing health care for children and adults with developmental disabilities.
In 2004, he founded the non-profit Break the Cycle of Health Disparities, Inc. and started the annual Break the Cycle of Children’s Environmental Health Disparities program in partnership with the Southeast PEHSU to raise awareness among university students of children’s environmental health disparities and to cultivate future leaders to address these challenges.
To date there have been 21 annual programs with over 200 students from over 50 different academic departments in over 20 states in the USA as well as from 6 countries in Latin American and 2 Countries in Africa. In 2024 he started a Break the Cycle Africa program now in its 4th year.
To date, there have been more than 200 papers published in international journals as well as 20 books in a Public Health Series with Nova Publishers.
The program received The Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award from the US EPA in 2016.
Dr. Rubin’s personal mission is to collaborate with others to improve the health and well-being of children and adults with developmental disabilities and reducing children’s health disparities and promoting health equity for all children, locally, nationally, and globally in the context of environmental and social justice and in the face climate change.
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Luciana Renner is an architect and urbanist and the Executive Director of Fundación Placemaking, where she leads projects and partnerships focused on creating more inclusive, healthy, and people-centered cities.
For more than a decade, her work has explored how public space can support wellbeing, strengthen communities, and create better environments for children and families.
She has contributed to the development and implementation of more than 100 urban and architectural projects across Mexico and Latin America, working alongside communities, governments, civil society, and private-sector partners.
A significant part of Luciana’s work focuses on early childhood, Nature-based Solutions, and the relationship between public space, health, and everyday life.
She has led initiatives such as LAPIS — Lugares Amigables para la Primera Infancia — bringing together participation, play, care, and place-based design to create spaces that respond to the needs of children and their caregivers.
Across her work, Luciana promotes collaborative approaches that give communities the tools to actively shape the places they inhabit, while advancing healthier, more resilient, and more connected urban environments.
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Nélida Escobedo Ruiz is an architect from Tecnológico de Monterrey and holds a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan.
Her work focuses on public space, affordable housing, and the relationship between urban environments and early childhood development.
She serves as Academic Director of the Urban95 Academy Latin America Program, a collaboration among LSE Cities, the Van Leer Foundation, Fundación FEMSA, and Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Nélida is currently a Fellow at the Center for the Future of Cities and an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, Art and Design at Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Throughout her career, she has participated in international cooperation initiatives, including projects with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) through the C40 Cities Finance Facility program.
She also worked as a Research Associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Her work bridges research, teaching, and practice to advance more inclusive, healthy, and child-friendly urban environments, with a particular focus on supporting caregivers, strengthening communities, and improving quality of life across generations.
THEME 4
Mental Health, Social Connection, & Belonging
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Kat Vellos is an author and speaker who views the loneliness epidemic as both an inevitability of the past 75 years of urban and technological design, and as a surmountable challenge that can be overcome using reliable design patterns.
Her bestselling book We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships is loved around the world and Kat is a passionate advocate for connection-oriented urban design and policy. Through her bootcamp, Platonic Action Lab, Kat teaches individuals how to turn a street of strangers into a block of buddies. Through the media released in her Better Places Studio column, Kat helps neighbors, organizations, and civic leaders understand how our built environment either supports or sabotages community formation.
With a background in human-centered UX design and a knack for translating research into plain language and practical action, she shows audiences how tactical interventions and smart policy can transform places designed for isolation into ones where community thrives. Kat’s writing is read in over 100 countries, and she’s been featured by The New York Times, NPR, Strong Towns, The New Urban Order, Congress for The New Urbanism (CNU), and the official Meetup HQ podcast. Learn more at katvellos.com and weshouldgettogether.com
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Michelle Meza Paredes is a Mexican landscape architect, professor, and sustainability specialist whose work focuses on the relationship between landscape, urban environments, ecological resilience, and human well-being.
She holds a degree in Landscape Architecture from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and a Master’s degree in Sustainable Development from FLACAM–National University of Lanús (UNLa), Argentina.
She is a Professor of Landscape Architecture at UNAM, where she teaches and contributes to academic initiatives addressing landscape planning, sustainable design, and socioecological approaches to urban and territorial challenges.
Her academic and professional experience includes landscape planning and design projects in Mexico, with particular interest in green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, ecological restoration, and the development of healthier and more resilient urban environments.
Through teaching, research, and professional practice, she promotes interdisciplinary approaches that recognize landscape as essential to environmental quality, human well-being, and urban sustainability. She also participates in Latin American academic networks fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange on sustainable and regenerative approaches to landscape and territory.
THEME 5
Urban Health Systems, Primary Care, & Governance for Impact
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Cross-cutting Lead Urban Health, World Health Organization, Geneva
Nathalie Röbbel is the Lead for WHO’s work on Urban Health at the WHO, in the Department on Determinants, Health Promotion and Prevention. She is currently in charge of developing a comprehensive guide for decisionmakers on now to take an integrated approach to urban health. She is also leading the development of a comprehensive training course on urban heath capacities and related assessment tools.
Prior to this she was leading WHOs work on air pollution and housing in the Department for Environment, Climate Change and Health. One of her main areas of work was the development of WHO Housing and Health Guidelines and WHO’s efforts to address slum upgrading through housing policies and other social policies and interventions.
Before joining WHO HQ, she worked as a technical officer at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, in Bonn and Copenhagen, where she was responsible for environmental health performance reviews and involved in several urban health related projects. Ms Röbbel holds a Ph.D. from the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn, Germany.
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Representative of the Pan American Health Organization / World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) in Mexico
Medical Doctor from the National University Federico Villarreal in Lima, Peru.
Specialized in Field Epidemiology and holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from the Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia.
Doctor of Collective Health Sciences from the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico.
He worked for seven years at the Ministry of Health of Peru, serving as Director of Epidemiology in the Ayacucho Health Sub-Region.
He has completed three missions with Médecins Sans Frontières: Guatemala (1990), Mozambique (1991), and Nigeria (1997).
Since 2000, he has served as a Consultant with the Pan American Health Organization in the areas of health analysis, disease surveillance, and disease control.
He has worked in PAHO/WHO country offices in Peru, Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Argentina.
In June 2016, he was appointed PAHO/WHO Representative in Venezuela, and in 2019, PAHO/WHO Representative in Cuba.
Since September 2023, he has served as PAHO/WHO Representative in Mexico.
THEME 6
Regional Spotlight: Latin America & the Caribbean
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Daniela is a public-sector and nonprofit leader with over a decade of experience advancing more inclusive, responsive, and sustainable cities.
She is Co-founder and President of TANDEM, where she leads strategy, research, and partnerships at the intersection of urban governance, data, institutional capacity, gender equity, and citizen participation.
Throughout her career, she has designed and scaled programs, built cross-sector partnerships, led multidisciplinary teams, and managed donor-funded initiatives in collaboration with local governments, universities, civil society, and international funders.
Daniela previously served as Vice Mayor and City Councilor of Quito and was a 2026 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Her work focuses on translating evidence, innovation, and collaboration into stronger institutions, better public policy, and measurable outcomes for cities and communities.
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Eduardo Santana Castellón. Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Museum of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guadalajara (UdeG).
He holds a PhD in Ecology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he serves as an adjunct professor. He was a member of the team that established the Sierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve, the Intermunicipal Agency for the Integrated Management of the Ayuquila River Basin, and the La Primavera Forest Public Decentralized Agency.
He is the founder and co-coordinator of the José Emilio Pacheco City and Nature Literature Prize and the Socio-environmental Film Prize.
He has served on the boards of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (permanent emeritus member), the Society for Conservation Biology, the Association for Tropical Biology, the Aldo Leopold Foundation, and FONNOR (a Mexican conservation fund).
He coordinated the metropolitan sustainability assessment of Guadalajara for UN-Habitat, as well as projects supporting the defense of territory and natural resources for the Wixárika and Nahua communities in western Mexico.
He has been a guest speaker at three World Urban Forums and two Biodiversity COPs.
He has supervised and served on the juries for over 55 graduate and undergraduate theses covering ecology, environmental education, and urban sustainability.
His professional impact is underscored by more than 190 technical and outreach publications, along with over 40 individual and institutional awards and distinctions.
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Olga L. Sarmiento is a Full Professor of Public Health and Research Director at the School of Medicine at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá.
Her transdisciplinary research examines the relationship between the built environment, public policies, and health, with a particular focus on inclusive and sustainable community-based programs in Latin America.
She has led health evaluations of public policies in Bogotá, including cycling infrastructure, Ciclovías, the TransMilenio Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, and the city’s cable car system.
Dr. Sarmiento is currently Co-Principal Investigator of the SALURBAL-Climate project (Urban Health in Latin America), funded by the Wellcome Trust, and of the Air Quality, Health and Equity Study in Bogotá, supported by Breathe Cities, Clean Air Fund, and C40.
She has also served as Co-Principal Investigator of the ESCALA project (Study of Climate Change in Informal Settlements) and the CIVICA project (Connected and Intelligent Living City), and has contributed to initiatives such as On the way to school and GAC-PAQ (Global Adolescent and Children Physical Activity Questionnaire).
She is a member of international research networks including IPEN, the Urban Health Network for Latin America and the Caribbean, and CRA.
With more than 20 years of academic experience, she has taught and mentored undergraduate and graduate students in Colombia and across Latin America.