Don de Savigny is an Emeritus Professor of Health Systems and Policies Research at the Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute, University of Basel, Switzerland. He is also an honorary professor and former Heath Clark Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) with faculty appointments at the University of Melbourne and Columbia University. He is an epidemiologist and public health specialist with extensive experience conducting and facilitating health research in low-income countries and has lived and worked for many years in Africa, including as the lead facilitator for the Tanzania Essential Health Interventions Program for the Ministry of Health in Tanzania. Between 1988 and 2003, he was a Principal Health Specialist for the International Development Research Centre, Canada. Prior to that, he was the Head of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania. Most recently he led the Bloomberg Data for Health Initiative Innovation Hub at SwissTPH developing and testing new approaches to mortality surveillance. As a graduate of LSHTM (PhD) and the University of Guelph (BSc, MSc), he serves as a frequent advisor to WHO, UNICEF, the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria, the International Network of Demographic and Health Observatories, Gates Malaria Partnership, and the Council for Health Research for Development. His current research focuses on systems thinking for interventions to strengthen health systems.