Dr Gulrez Shah Azhar is an Indian-origin physician, public health researcher and policy scholar whose work examines the health effects of extreme heat and heatwave vulnerability in South Asia. He was a member of the multidisciplinary team that developed and evaluated Ahmedabad’s Heat Action Plan, the first comprehensive heat-health preparedness plan in South Asia, and has conducted influential research on heat-related mortality, occupational heat stress and the geographic distribution of heat vulnerability across India. Gulrez has worked at the World Health Organization, the Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar, the RAND Corporation, the University of Washington, and the World Bank. He holds a medical degree with residency in Community Medicine from Aligarh Muslim University, a European Master of Public Health completed through the universities of Sheffield, Copenhagen and EHESP in France, and M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Public Policy from the Pardee RAND Graduate School. A TED speaker and an Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow, Gulrez has communicated climate and public health research through academic publications, international conferences, policy engagement and public commentary.  His work and commentary have been featured on platforms including the BBC, CNN, NPR, NDTV, Nature India, the Indian Express, the Times of India, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Project Syndicate, The Conversation among others.