Walter Bruchhausen

Walter Bruchhausen is professor for ‘Global Health – Social and Cultural Aspects’ at the University Hospital Bonn since May 2020. He had developed this focus of interest early, during his double degree in medicine and theology at the universities of Bonn and Wuerzburg and his postgraduate studies in Philosophy of Medicine/Health Care Ethics at the University of Glasgow. After the medical doctorate in Wuerzburg, preparatory surgical training as well as courses in tropical medicine and development assistance, he worked as project manager and doctor in Rwanda and East Congo. Returning to Bonn University in 1997, he developed a field of research with which he was one of the first in Germany to take the path from ‘health care in developing countries’ and medical anthropology to global health. His field research investigated the development of pluralistic health care in Tanzania, applying different research methods to thematically highly various diseases, actors and periods. Since his habilitation in the history, anthropology and ethics of medicine in 2004, which won the German Africa Award for academia, he has conducted or promoted global health teaching and research on his positions at the Universities of Excellence in Bonn, Aachen and Cologne and in programs of other universities in Germany, Europe and Africa. He was a founding member of the Global Health Alliance for education at German universities in 2011 and participates in the NRW Forschungskolleg One Health and Urban Transformation at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) of Bonn University since 2016. In his new position, he heads the international master's program in Global Health – Risk Management and Hygiene Policies in cooperation with the UN University in Bonn. In the new BMBF-funded German Academy for Global Health Research he is elected for social sciences and humanities into the Steering committee and as Co-Speaker with special responsibility for the Academy supporting early career researchers.