Dr. Waleed Alsalem has been CEO of the National Health Laboratory at the Saudi Ministry of Health since November 2017 and director of the ministry’s National Center for Tropical Disease since May 2015.  Before studying abroad, he was a laboratory specialist and manager of the ministry’s vector-borne diseases laboratory between 2007 and 2010. Alsalem is a specialist in rare tropical diseases and biosecurity. He joined Saudi Arabia’s national vector-borne disease control program and has been working on an assessment of the impact of human movement caused by forced displacement and migration in the Middle East and North Africa.  Alsalem holds a bachelor’s degree in clinical laboratory sciences from King Saud University in Riyadh, and a master’s degree in molecular biology and a Ph.D. in tropical medicine from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK. He worked as a researcher at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine for six months between 2015 and 2016.  Alsalem has been awarded first place in professional achievement at the Study UK Alumni Awards 2019. Simon Collis, British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, presented the award at the embassy in Riyadh.