Mary Ethna Black is a medical doctor from Northern Ireland. Her current roles are Non-Executive Director of the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science, NED for the National Centre for Earth Observation, general member of the Thames Regional Flood and Coastal Committee, and elected board member of Patient Classification Systems International. She is a founding Fellow of Chapter Zero UK and an honorary Professor in the School of Medicine at St Andrews University.

Mary has held senior posts in medicine, social care, academia, government, and the UN and her experience spans Asia, Australia, Central America, Europe and USA. Her career has included clinical and public health work in Australia, Ireland, and the UK, and staff roles with WHO and UNICEF in Balkan countries. Senior roles include 20 months leading the public health response to Covid-19 in Scotland, establishing a medical school in far North Queensland, and designing the medical evacuation airlift from Sarajevo during the 1990s war. She has helped found two successful technology businesses.

As a senior physician, she is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians UK and the Faculty of Public Health UK. Mary holds a medical degree, a research doctorate in global household surveys from Trinity College Dublin, and a master’s degree in Health Policy & Management from the Harvard School of Public Health (as a Harkness Fellow). An award-winning writer, she publishes fiction and life-writing in the medical press and anthologies.