Dainius Pūras is a professor of child psychiatry and public mental health at Vilnius University, Lithuania and the director of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, an NGO based in Vilnius. He has spent the past three decades being actively involved in national, regional, and global activities that promote human rights-based and evidence-based health policies and services, with a focus on mental health, child health, disabilities, and the prevention of violence.
In 2014, Dr. Pūras was appointed by the United Nations Human Right Council as the UN Special rapporteur on the right to physical and mental health. In 2007-2011, he was a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Dr. Pūras obtained his MD from Vilnius University.