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Charles Gardner

As Director of Health Science and Technology, Dr. Charles A. Gardner manages the Foundation’s investments in innovation to catalyze and accelerate the development of higher-efficacy smoking cessation products and services, and to ensure that options to quit and reduce harm are accessible in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr. Gardner has over two decades of experience creating and managing international health R&D programs and partnerships in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. He has served as the Program Officer for Africa and the Middle East at the US National Institutes of Health; Science Attaché at the US Embassy in India; Associate Director for Health Equity in the Rockefeller Foundation; Senior Advisor on Research Strategy to the WHO; and Director of Child Health in the UBS Optimus Foundation in Zurich, Switzerland.

A seasoned leader in global health innovation, Dr. Gardner has served on the boards of the University of Michigan’s Center for Global Health, the Rockefeller Foundation’s pioneering impact investment fund (ProVenEx), and international non-profits. He currently serves on the board of a non-profit that promotes an innovative approach to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) training in low-income countries.

After completing his PhD, Dr. Gardner was awarded a Congressional Science Fellowship to advise the US Congress on health and science policy issues. He has also taught healthcare ethics as an Associate Professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and has over 90 publications.

Dr. Gardner is based in New York City. He holds a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology from the University of Michigan Medical School.

Posts by Author

HOW TO WIN THE WAR ON HARM REDUCTION

Charles Gardner
August 21, 2019

The Foundation recently consulted with external experts from the fields of HIV and drug harm reduction to learn how they were able to tilt the needle away from moral panic, toward evidence-informed policies. Drawing on decades of experience, they told us that success requires a concerted effort to harness not just data, but emotion and personal narratives.

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Unraveling the Pleasure of Smoking

Charles Gardner
July 22, 2019

In the 1950s, if you asked a smoker why he or she smoked, they would not have replied, “because I am hopelessly addicted.” More likely, they would have told you about the pleasure they experienced from smoking.

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Researchers must listen to vapers who say, “Nothing about us without us”

Charles Gardner
January 30, 2019

Years ago, at a global health research meeting, I remember one of the speakers complaining that researchers from high-income countries often “behave like a flock of seagulls” when working in low- and middle-income countries. She explained, “We have an ethical obligation not...

The value of peers in research is their lived experience…[and their potential] to identify emerging themes that to researchers may be simply ‘lost in the noise’, and further analysis can provide novel avenues for investigation which otherwise might be missed.

In other words, whether scientists are studying users or the products used, they should welcome vapers as “peers.” They should listen and try to understand vapers’ stories and learn what research questions are most important to them. This imperative echoes the effective...

Research strategies which emphasize participation are increasingly used in health research. Breaking the linear mould of conventional research, participatory research focuses on a process of sequential reflection and action, carried out with and by local people rather...

Today, participatory research and community engagement are far more common in global health research. When I served as Director of Child Health at the Optimus Foundation in Zurich, Switzerland, almost all of our 100+ grants supported community-based, participatory child...

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Geneva Conference to Renew Fight Against Tobacco Industry

Charles Gardner
October 3, 2018

The eighth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP8) to the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) opened on Monday, October 1, 2018, in Geneva, Switzerland. This weeklong series of discussions will focus on global progress that has been made in the fight against tobacco. The FCTC, a treaty that has 168 signatories, entered into force in 2005 after it had been acceded to, ratified, accepted, or approved by 40 Member States.

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