Gorik Ooms is a distinguished human rights lawyer and scholar whose work focuses primarily on the right to health. In September 2024, he was appointed Professor of International Health Policy and Head of the Unit of Health Policy within the Department of Public Health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine.

Ooms graduated with a Licentiate in Law from the Catholic University of Leuven in 1989. His early career was marked by significant contributions to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), where he held various positions, including Executive Director of MSF Belgium / Operational Centre Brussels from 2004 to 2008.

In 2008, he obtained a PhD from Ghent University with a dissertation entitled 'The Right to Health and the Sustainability of Healthcare: Why a New Global Health Aid Paradigm Is Needed'. Following a postdoctoral position at the Institute of Tropical Medicine and a year as a Global Justice Fellow at Yale University, he joined the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) as Professor of Global Health Law and Governance.

Ooms is internationally recognised as a leading voice on the right to health and global health equity. His advisory work has included contributions to the World Health Organization on universal health coverage and the right to health, UNAIDS on HIV and human rights, and the United Nations Development Programme on access to medicines and the right to health, among others.

He served on the advisory committee to the Board of Friends of the Global Fund Europe and was a member of both the Lancet–University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health and the Lancet–O’Neill Institute of Georgetown University Commission on Global Health and the Law. In addition, he convened the Lancet Commission on Synergies between Universal Health Coverage, Health Security, and Health Promotion.

His current research focuses on international health policy, with a particular interest in international financing mechanisms for health and how they interact with national health policies and systems.