Founder and director of LAPA (Latin America Patients Academy) has more than 20 years of experience providing strategic leadership, development and global health policy analysis and implementation. She is a global leader in patient-based organizational capacity building, patient involvement and alliance development covering several therapeutic areas, including cancer, NCDs and rare diseases. She is expert at organizing forums and building coalitions of patient groups, physicians, public health specialists and government officials to generate dialogue and action plans to address a variety of public health issues. Eva Maria was Director General of the Peruvian Ministry of Health’s (MINSA) International Coordination office and, before that, served as MINSA’s Director General of Health Prevention and Promotion. An industrial engineer by training, Eva Maria has a Master’s degree in Political Science from the Sorbonne University in Paris and her DEA-PhD studies in Economic Development from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales EHESS in Paris.