Gan Quan PhD ’07, MS ’02 is the Director of Tobacco Control at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. Between 2009 and 2016, under the capacity first as the Senior Project Officer and then as the Director of China Office, he managed China’s Bloomberg Initiative tobacco control grants and promoted national and subnational policies. Since 2017, as director of the Tobacco Control Department of the organization, he has managed the Bloomberg grants program that covers 20+ countries, including 10 countries with the most tobacco users in the world. He leads the Department of Tobacco Control in supporting Ministries of Health around the world in promoting tobacco control policies and fighting against interference from the tobacco industry.

“Berkeley moment”

I found great inspiration from the speech given by one of the School’s Commencement speakers, in which he said ‘If you choose something you are really interested in as your career path, you will not have mid-life crisis.’

A change to one U.S. policy that would transform public health

The political system in the country is under more and more manipulation by corporate entities. A mechanism of insulation needs to be set up or at least involvement by commercial interests in public policy making (particularly public health policy) should be closely scrutinized. Very often the profit generating goal of companies contradicts with the mission of saving lives in public health.

Movie of my life at SPH

Finding Neverland. The struggles I had with my PhD work and in my personal life at Berkeley helped me gain mental strength and know better what I want in life and career.