Professor Jean-Paul Moatti was appointed Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the French Research Institute for Development (IRD) on 11 March 2015. Prior to his appointment, Jean-Paul Moatti, 63, was a professor of Economics at Aix-Marseille University (AMU) and Director of the IRD/Inserm/AMU joint research unit “Economic and social sciences for health and the process of medical information” (SESSTIM). Throughout his career, Professor Moatti has been head of many national scientific bodies. In particular, he was the director of the Institute for Public Health (ISP) of the French Alliance for Health and Life sciences (Aviesan).