Professional Experience
- Director, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Handa Professor of Global Health
- Founding Executive Director, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
- Under-Secretary-General, United Nations (1995–2008)
- Part of the team that isolated the Ebola virus in Zaire (1976)
- Visiting Professor, London School of Economics, UK
- Led pioneering research on HIV/AIDS, women’s health and infectious diseases, mostly in Africa
- Helped bring AIDS to the forefront of the world’s agenda, and ensured access to lifesaving antiretroviral medicines
- Long experience in leading both a large inter-governmental organization and academic institutions
- Authored 600+ scientific publications and 16 books
Recognition
- Canada Gairdner Global Health Award (2015)
- Robert Koch Gold Medal (2015)
- Time Person of the Year as one of ‘The Ebola Fighters’ (2014)
- Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health (2014)
- Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research (2013)
- Frank A. Calderone Prize in Public Health (2003)
- Senior Fellow in Infectious Diseases, University of Washington, US
Education
- MD, University of Ghent, Belgium
- PhD in Microbiology, University of Antwerp, Belgium
- Diploma of Tropical Medicine, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp
- Clinical Virology, Postgraduate Medical School, Manchester, UK
- Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Epidemic Intelligence Service, Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA
- Advanced Training in Biomedical Research Management, Harvard University, USA
- Senior Fellow in Infectious Diseases, University of Washington, USA
