Team

The Executive Dean is responsible for the academic team, the provision and quality of the teaching and the strategic co-operation between SUSTech and King’s College London.

Thérèse has extensive experience as an educator, researcher, clinician, and manager in several countries, working with a range of organisations, including WHO and UNICEF. Most recently Therese has held leadership roles at University College London and Zhejiang University.

Originally trained in medicine, paediatrics and public health in Bristol and London, she started working in China in the late 1980s.  Based at Zhejiang University Medical School, she first worked on the development of the first neonatal and paediatric intensive care units in the country, carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. For Therese this was the beginning of lifelong research and development collaborations with Chinese partners.

Thérèse Hesketh completed her PhD at UCL in 2001, and became Professor of Global Health, and deputy director of the UCL Institute for Global Health in 2010.  In 2016 she established the Centre for Global Health, at Zhejiang University School of Medicine.  

Her research focus is large epidemiological and intervention studies related to population health in China, with a particular interest in child and adolescent health, infectious diseases, health system reform, quality improvement in healthcare, and rural-urban migration. She has first author publications in top journals including the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and the BMJ.  

For her work in Zhejiang, she received the prestigious award of Honorary Citizenship.