International Longevity Centre Global Alliance - Designing the Future of Ageing

30th September 2025

ILC-Brazil’s president, and former ILC Global Alliance co-President, Dr Alexandre Kalache turns 80 this month, October 2025.

A medical epidemiologist, Alex has dedicated his career to the study of ageing.

Following his medical training in Brazil, and then his MSc and PhD in the United Kingdom, Dr. Kalache held research and teaching positions at both the Universities of Oxford and London for almost twenty years. During this time, he founded the Epidemiology of Ageing Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1983) and created the first European Masters degree in Health Promotion (1991). From 1995-2008, he directed the World Health Organization’s global Ageing and Life Course Programme from the Geneva headquarters. During his thirteen years at WHO, he launched the Active Ageing Policy Framework and the global movement on Age-Friendly Cities, among many other enduring initiatives.

In 2012, Alexandre Kalache took up the Presidency of the newly created International Longevity Centre-Brazil in his home city of Rio de Janeiro. ILC-Brazil is an autonomous think tank which is part of the ILC Global Alliance, an international consortium of sixteen such centres. Concurrently, Dr Kalache serves as Global Ambassador of HelpAge International and has sat on a multitude of boards ranging from the World Economic Forum to the Gulbenkian Foundation.

The members of the ILC Global Alliance took this opportunity to wish him a happy birthday and thank him for the many years of guidance and friendship.