John Grove

Director of Quality Assurance for Norms & Standards, World Health Organization

Dr John Grove became the first director of Quality Assurance for Norms & Standards (QNS) on July 1, 2019 at WHO, Headquarters in the new Science Division announced in March 2019. He is establishing and leading functions and assurance services for all WHO global norms and standards products, and oversees the WHO Press, and WHO Global Library and Digital Information Services. Prior, he was director of the Department of Information, Evidence and Research (IER), overseeing global health statistics, monitoring and evaluation, applied ethics, research coordination, and guidelines development. He joined WHO on 1 September 2017.

Before joining WHO, Dr. Grove was Deputy Director for Evidence and Policy in the MNCH team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). He was responsible for the investment portfolio on evidence and research and also worked within the organization to set strategy and guide related health analytics, in addition to being a representative on evidence and policy with the foundation’s external partners, including the UN system. He also served on the global health strategy team in the Office of the President and worked across HIV, TB, pneumonia, diarrhea, and immunization teams on strategy development and evaluation.

Prior to BMGF, Dr. Grove was with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for 8 years in team lead and section chief roles based in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam), Zambia (Lusaka), and Cote d’Ivoire (Abidjan) supervising disease surveillance, program monitoring and evaluation, health informatics, nurse, lab, and medical training programs, and as a lead US diplomat with host country governments on technical assistance and resource negotiation.

Past affiliations include director and analyst roles at the Public Health Institute (Berkeley, CA), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (Los Altos, CA), the Futures Group International (Wash., DC) and consulting for the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health Services. He holds a PhD in health services research from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, a Masters in applied anthropology from the University of San Francisco, and a Bachelors’ in International Relations from Kent State University.

He has authored several peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and reviews.

John spoke at 'Virtually Cochrane', a virtual event we co-hosted with Cochrane Ireland in April 2021. Watch the recording Covid and beyond: Perspectives on how Cochrane can respond to the needs of users