Professor Dr Kulanthayan K.C. Mani has been announced as the new chair of the Board of Directors of Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety for a two-year term from 2022 to 2024 - the first Malaysian and Asian, to get the honour.

Kulanthayan, who is from the Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in Serdang, Selangor, has been a board member of the organisation since 2019, UPM said in a statement, reported Bernama.

He is the third person to chair the alliance since its inception and the first from Asia, after Jeffrey Witte and Rochelle Sobel, both of whom are from the US.

In his acceptance speech, Kulanthayan pledged to do his best towards achieving the target of 50 percent reduction in the number of deaths and injuries as set in the Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030. He further called for action from all member countries to advocate to get their country leaders to attend the High Level Meeting on Global Road Safety in New York, US on June 30.

Kulanthayan, who hails from Kota Bharu, Kelantan, graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Resource Economics from UPM (known then as Universiti Pertanian Malaysia) in 1995, before acquiring a Master of Science Degree in Transport Planning from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, two years later.

He later obtained a Doctoral Degree in the field of Transport Engineering from UPM in 2002, and then a Diploma in Traffic Safety from Lund University in Sweden in 2007.

Besides, Kulanthayan is also Prince Michael International Road Safety Award recipient in 2017, a member of the National Road Safety Council of Malaysia (MKJR) since 2013 and a Road Safety Affiliate of the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) since 2020.

Congratulations on this impressive appointment Professor!


Source: Bernama
Photo source: Bernama, Facebook