Hans Rosling (born 1948 in Uppsala, Sweden) is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet and Director of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system. From 1967 to 1974 he studied statistics and medicine at Uppsala University, and in 1972 he studied public health at St John's Medical College, Bangalore. He became a licenced physician in 1976 and from 1979 to 1981 he served as District Medical Officer in Nacala in northern Mozambique.

On 21 August 1981, Rosling discovered an outbreak of a formerly unknown paralytic disease and the investigations that followed earned him a Ph.D. degree at Uppsala University in 1986. He spent two decades studying outbreaks of this disease in remote rural areas across Africa and supervised more than ten PhD students. His research group named the new disease konzo, the local designation by the first affected population.

Outbreaks occur among hunger stricken rural populations in Africa where a diet dominated by insufficiently processed cassava results in simultaneous malnutrition and high dietary cyanide intake. Rosling's research has also focused on other links between economic development, agriculture, poverty and health in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He has been health adviser to WHO, UNICEF and several aid agencies.

In 1993 he co-founded Médecins sans frontières in Sweden and since 2005 he has been a member of the International Group of the Swedish Academy of Science. At Karolinska Institutet he was head of the Division of International Health (IHCAR) from 2001 to 2007. As chairman of Karolinska International Research and Training Committee (1998—2004) he started health research collaborations with universities in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

He started new courses on Global Health and co-authored a textbook on Global Health that promotes a fact-based world view. He is also an advisory board member at the Open Knowledge Foundation.

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