Dr. Verónica Schoj has 20 years of experience working on NCD issues, in both civil society and public administration. Most recently, she was the National Director of Health Promotion and NCD Control at the Ministry of Health of Argentina, where she was in charge of more than ten national programs, including nutrition and obesity prevention, tobacco control, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, among others. From 2007 to 2017, Dr. Schoj co-founded and served as Executive Director of the Interamerican Heart Foundation-Argentina (FIC Argentina), an NGO working on advocacy and research in non-communicable diseases. Previously, she was at the Family Medicine Department of the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, where she coordinated the Tobacco Control Program and integrated the Obesity Program. Dr. Schoj is an author of more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals, was the project leader on more than ten competitive grants awarded by donors including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK), the National Institutes of Health, IDRC/Canada, and UNICEF. She is the recipient of multiple awards and distinctions, notably including: the Judy Wilkenfeld Award for Tobacco Control Excellence from CTFK in 2012; the distinction of the Observatory of the Right to Health of the School of Law of the University of Buenos Aires, for her contribution in the protection of the right to health in 2018; the Bloomberg Philanthropies Award for Global Tobacco Control granted to the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Treasury, and FIC Argentina in 2018 and Recognition of the Health Commission of the Senate-National Parliament of Argentina in 2019.
