Professor Ziad Ahmed Memish

Ziad Memish is currently a senior advisor to His Excellency the Supervisor General of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid & Relief Centre (KSrelief). He is Professor of Infectious Diseases at the College of Medicine, Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Adjunct Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

He obtained his MD from the University of Ottawa, Canada, in 1987 and is board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Infectious Diseases. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Physicians of London, and the American College of Physicians.

He served as First Deputy Minister for Public Health in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 2009 to 2014.

He established the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Infection Prevention and Control and Antimicrobial Resistance at the Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs in 2007 and was its first director. He subsequently established the WHO Collaborating Center for Mass Gathering Medicine at the Saudi Ministry of Health in 2011 and was its first director.

He received the King Abdulaziz Medal of the First Class in 2007 for his achievements in infectious diseases and infection control in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In 2019, he received the Minister of Health Award for Leadership in Research for more than 10 years.

In October 2024, he was awarded the Health Research Excellence: Lifetime Achievement Award by the Research Development & Innovation Authority. He was a “Highly Cited Researcher” from 2018 through 2024.