Dr Valerie Curtis is Director of the Hygiene Centre of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine where she teaches design of disease control programs as well as tropical environmental health. Val is trained in engineering, epidemiology and anthropology. Her research focuses on a behaviour-centred design, which couples behavioural theory with marketing practices to improve health-related behaviour. She has helped to develop and test successful hand washing programs in Africa and Asia and is now working on improving infant feeding, diarrhoea control and sanitation-related behaviour. Val helped found the Global Public-Private Partnership for Hand Washing with Soap and advises public and private sector organisations on behaviour change. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is a world-leading centre for research and postgraduate education in public and global health.