Prof Dirk Pfeiffer graduated in Veterinary Medicine at the Justus-Liebig University, Giessen, Germany in 1984. This was followed by postgraduate research towards a Dr.med.vet degree at the same university. After that, he obtained a PhD from Massey University, New Zealand, in 1994, and worked there as an academic for 9 years. Since 1999, he has held the Chair in Veterinary Epidemiology at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), London, UK. Since September 2014, he has been Adjunct Professor at China Animal Health and Epidemiology Centre, Qingdao, China. In 2016, Prof Pfeiffer joined City University of Hong Kong as Chow Tak Fung Chair Professor of One Health, while still maintaining a 20% appointment at RVC. He has worked on the epidemiology of animal health and welfare problems in many low, medium and high-income countries around the world. In the last 20 years, he has been particularly active at the science-policy interface through advisory roles for the EU, the FAO, WOAH and a wide range of national governments.