Mark Wainberg Fellowship Programme Award Committees

Shamim Ali

Shamim Ali is a physician and lecturer at the Department of Internal Medicine at Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. She was in the first cohort of Mark Wainberg Fellows and received residential training at the Infectious Diseases Institute in Uganda and the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in the UK. Her research interests are HIV care and treatment and HIV drug resistance. She has extensive experiential knowledge of diagnostic and treatment challenges for people with infectious diseases, including HIV, in low-income settings. 

She works at the HIV drug resistance clinic at AMPATH, which is one of the largest HIV programmes in central, eastern, southern and western Africa for the management of clinical referrals from AMPATH sites for individuals with complex HIV-related disorders and those failing second- and third-line ART. She is also the Co-Chair of the regional HIV Technical Working Group, which covers five counties in western Kenya. In this role, she provides clinical support to healthcare workers in the region in HIV case management, including advanced HIV disease and reviews suspected protease inhibitor and dolutegravir treatment failure cases for approval for genotype drug resistance testing at the National HIV Reference Lab and management of HIV drug resistance.

Joseph Walter Arinaitwe

Joseph Walter Arinaitwe is the Deputy Head of Training at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI). With over seven years of experience in e-health and e-learning, he specializes in health worker capacity building and systems strengthening. As the head of the Learning Innovations Centre, he oversees strategic partnerships for the optimal growth and utilization of the Advanced Treatment Information Centre (ATIC) and IDI’s virtual learning environment (VLE). ATIC provides real-time support to frontline health workers while the VLE offers online training to local and international health workers through open-access educational resources.

Joseph is responsible for developing innovative and cost-effective capacity-building approaches that leverage technology, resources and IDI’s network of infectious diseases experts for sustainable health worker training. His work focuses on HIV clinical pharmacy, supply chain management and knowledge retention assessment and support.

Marta Boffito

Marta Boffito, MD, PhD, FRCP, MBA is a consultant physician at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and Imperial College London, London, UK. She is the Clinical Director of HIV, Sexual and Gender Health, and Dermatology at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where she runs numerous research projects and clinical trials (including on COVID-19, flu, HIV vaccines and treatments). She consults on complex pharmacological issues and sees people living with HIV (she founded the first over-50 HIV clinic in London, UK). She also teaches HIV medicine, infectious disease and pharmacology at Imperial College London and in national and international settings, including the Middle East and North Africa region, where she has established some training initiatives on the management of people living with HIV.

Marta trained in Italy, the USA and the UK, and has a special interest in antiviral drug pharmacology: from prevention to treatment. In these areas, she contributes to the educational, scientific and guideline-formulation activities of national and international bodies including the British HIV Association and the World Health Organization. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, editorials, and reviews. She has been involved in capacity-building programmes in resource-limited settings (such as Uganda) and is an applicant for numerous successful collaborative international grants.

Jean Yombi Cyr

Jean Cyr Yombi is an internal medicine and infectious diseases specialist physician. He graduated from UCLouvain School of Medicine in 1995. He is now a Full Professor at the UCLouvain School of Medicine. He is currently the Head of the Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases Department at Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc in Brussels, Belgium. He is also the Director of the HIV/AIDS Reference Center. Jean’s interests are complications related to HIV and its treatments and complex osteoarticular infections. He has published more than 250 papers.

Ka Daye

Daye Ka is an Associate Professor in the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at Fann Hospital. Among his responsibilities, he served as the focal point for the Ebola response in 2014 and was a member of the national management task force during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a teacher-researcher, he worked in several areas of infectiology, including epidemiological, clinical and paraclinical aspects of tuberculosis/HIV co-infection and the clinico-biological aspects of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, tetanus and meningitis. More recently, his work has focused on neurological infections, healthcare-associated infections, hepatitis and COVID-19.

He is currently co-investigator in a research project, entitled “SEN-B”, on the functional cure of the hepatitis B virus in Senegal, in collaboration with the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Daye is also a mentor in supporting Mark Wainberg Fellows placements at Fann University, supervising the fellows in healthcare client care, research and teaching. He also supervises students and physicians in their thesis and dissertation work.

Serge Paul Eholié

Serge Paul Eholié is Professor of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at Treichville University Teaching Hospital and a senior lecturer at the Medical School of University Felix Houphouet Boigny, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.  

He received his medical degree from the University of Abidjan and later specialized in infectious and tropical diseases. He was trained in HIV management in Marseille and Paris, France, and has served as a trainer in HIV in several African countries. He is currently the President of the Réseau Africain des Praticiens Assurant la prise en charge des personnes vivant avec le VIH/SIDA (African Network of HIV Practitioners for People living with HIV/AIDS), the President of the African Society of Infectious Diseases, and the Vice President of Alliance Francophone des Acteurs de la Santé contre le VIH.  

He is currently involved in research around HIV therapeutic strategies, HIV and hepatitis co-morbidities, HIV and non-communicable diseases, and HIV and ageing. Serge is the co-recipient with Xavier Anglaret of the 2017 Christophe Merieux Prize for Research in Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries. 

Alison Grant

Alison Grant is a physician and epidemiologist specializing in infectious and tropical diseases, with a focus on HIV medicine and tuberculosis. Based in London, she practices as an HIV doctor and serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

Her teaching spans epidemiology, research skills, HIV medicine and TB, particularly for MSc Tropical Medicine and International Health students and the LSHTM Diplomas in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. While her teaching is largely on hold during her tenure as Dean, her commitment to education remains central to her career.

Her research centres on improving care for people with HIV in high-prevalence settings and advancing TB prevention strategies. She has led major projects in South Africa, including trials of TB diagnostic tools, innovative treatment algorithms and the evaluation of national TB diagnostic roll outs. Her work also encompasses implementation science, focusing on holistic approaches to TB prevention and exploring cutting-edge diagnostic techniques, like thoracic ultrasound.

As a faculty member at the Africa Health Research Institute in KwaZulu-Natal, Alison continues to contribute to groundbreaking research addressing public health challenges in central, eastern, southern and western Africa, with a commitment to improving healthcare across all income levels.

Karine Lacombe

Karine Lacombe, MD, PhD, is an infectious diseases specialist whose clinical practice, teaching and research are focusing on viral infections. She grew up in the French Alps, where she completed her undergraduate studies at Grenoble Science University (Université Joseph Fourier). She graduated from Pierre et Marie Curie Medical University in Paris and completed her residency at St Antoine Hospital, Paris, and St André Hospital, Bordeaux. In 2006, she got her PhD in epidemiology on HIV/hepatitis B co-infection and the determinants of liver fibrosis. She became an Associate Professor in Infectious Diseases in 2007 and got a full professorship position at Sorbonne Universite in 2016.

Recent publications include results of Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials in HIV, chronic hepatitis and respiratory viral infections. She is an international leader in chronic viral infections and has been giving plenary lectures at international conferences on infectious diseases. In March 2020, she became deeply involved as a clinician and researcher, as well as at a political level, in the management of the COVID-19 crisis. As a specialist in epidemiology and methodology of Phase 1 to 3 clinical trials, she has been involved in the development of numerous innovative drugs for the clinical stage for biotech companies, such as Spikimm or Evexta-Bio. She is the head of the Infectious Diseases Department in St Antoine Hospital, AP-HP, Paris, and supervises the clinical research commission of the Board of Physicians of AP-HP.

Maria Do Rosário Martins

Maria do Rosário Oliveira Martins is a Full Professor at NOVA University of Lisbon, where she teaches statistics, econometrics and research methods. She serves as Deputy Director and President of the Pedagogical Board and Scientific Coordinator of the PhD in International Health, as well as leading the GHTM-PPS research group. She is a member of the IAS Award Committee, NOVA University Ethics Committee and the European Mathematical Society Ethics Commission.

Previous leadership roles include IHMT Deputy Director, Pro-Rector of NOVA University and member of national and international advisory committees, such as the EDCTP Strategic Advisory Committee and the WHO Health Information Systems team. She has also contributed extensively to the development of e-learning programmes and capacity-building initiatives in Portuguese-speaking African countries.

An accomplished researcher and educator, Maria has supervised over 50 Master’s dissertations and eight PhD theses, led more than 10 national and EU-funded projects, and organized training activities in statistics and research methods. Her work on the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 earned her the Portuguese Parliament's Gold Medal for Human Rights in 2020.

Yunus Moosa

Yunus Moosa is an Associate Professor, Chief Specialist and the Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His work focuses on the care of inpatients and outpatients with complex infectious disease issues. He is involved in bedside teaching and training of medical students, postgraduates at all levels and infectious diseases sub-specialists. His research interests include HIV drug resistance, diagnosis of smear-negative tuberculosis and TB drug-induced liver injury. He is the recent past President and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society.

Kenneth Ngure

Kenneth Ngure is an Associate Professor of Global Health and Dean of the School of Public Health of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya. He is an Affiliate Associate Professor of the Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Visiting Scientist at Kenyatta National Hospital and, recently, a visiting Professor at the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health. He is also a member of the Expert Committee on Clinical Trials of the Kenyan Pharmacy and Poisons Board. 

Kenneth is a member of the Behavioral Research Group of the Microbicides Trials Network (MTN), the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Network (IMPAACT), the Socio-Behavioral and Structural Working Group of the HIV Prevent Trials Network (HPTN), and Office of HIV/AIDS Network Coordination (HANC) Cross-Network Behavioral Science Consultative Group (BSCG). He is Pillar 1 co-lead for Microbicide R&D to Advance HIV Prevention Technologies through Responsive Innovation and eXcellence (MATRIX). These groups are directed towards the development of new biomedical strategies to prevent HIV.

Kenneth is an HIV prevention expert, having been a site investigator in the landmark Partners PrEP trial, which was followed by the Partners (PrEP) Demonstration Project and, more recently, the Partners Scale-UP Project. He is also a member of the PrEP Technical Working Group of the Ministry of Health, Kenya. Recently, Kenneth co-chaired a protocol (MTN-034) to evaluate the safety of and adherence to a vaginal matrix ring containing dapivirine and oral emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate in an African adolescent female population. He is co-lead on a randomized trial that tests how HIV self-testing might support PrEP delivery among men and women in Kenya (R01MH113572) and is currently leading the behavioural component of several other multinational studies that are looking into simplifying PrEP delivery.

Kenneth has over 25 years of public health leadership experience gained in diverse HIV and AIDS research settings in central, eastern, southern and western Africa. This includes working as a Program Director for the Organization of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA – Kenyan Chapter) and consulting for organizations that include the World Health Organization. He was recently re-elected to represent Africa on the Governing Council of the IAS, where he also sits on the Executive Board. Kenneth has authored or co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed conference abstracts and 160 peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Tacília Nhampossa

Tacilta Nhampossa is a paediatrician with a Master of Public Health and a doctorate in medicine with over 20 years of experience. Immediately after graduating from medical school at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, Mozambique, in 2003, she joined the Training Fellowship Program at the Manhiça Health Research Center (CISM) while maintaining an affiliation with the National Institute of Health (INS), the research branch of the Ministry of Health in Mozambique.

She is the head of the maternal and child health research programme at the CISM. Previously, she was the Head of the Ministry of Health clinical activities in Homoine District, Inhambane province, in 2004-2006, the Head of the Clinical Department at the CISM during 2006-2009 and the Head of the HIV research programme from 2017 to 2021. She has a strong background in clinical research, including malnutrition, diarrheal disease, HIV and recently malaria. Her career goal is to be a reference paediatrician and researcher in public health, contributing to diminishing the burden of infectious diseases among women and their children in Mozambique and other low-income countries.

Viviane Marie Pierre Cisse

Viviane Marie Pierre Cisse is a Professor of Infectious Diseases, with her work focusing on HIV, viral hepatitis, malaria, emerging and re-emerging diseases, antimicrobial resistance and meningitis. She is also part of the mentorship team at SMIT in Dakar, supporting Mark Wainberg Fellows in their placements. 

Moussa Seydi

Moussa Seydi is a physician and Professor of Medicine with 20 years of experience in infectious disease research and clinical work. He is the head of the Infectious and Tropical Disease Department at Fann University Teaching Hospital, as well as the head of the Antibiotics Committee of Senegal. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Technology of Senegal.

He is the principal investigator of University of Washington Seattle studies on the effect of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on HIV-2 outcomes, emergence of drug resistance and genital shedding in Dakar and Ziguinchor, Senegal.
He is also the site investigator for the IeDEA West Africa network and several American studies involving adults living with HIV in Senegal.

Moussa is a member of the jury of African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (CAMES), an Associate Professor at the University of Washington, and a member of the External Advisory Board of Northwestern University, Chicago.

He served as a coordinator of the Regional Center for Clinical Research and Training, an ANRS (National Agency for Research on AIDS and Hepatitis) site, and is a former president of the African Society of Infectious Pathology.

Moussa Seydi is part of the mentorship team supporting Mark Wainberg Fellows during their placements in Dakar.

Miguel Viveiros

Miguel Viveiros is a Full Professor and Vice-Director of the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at NOVA University Lisbon. He is an expert in drug-resistant infections, focusing on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDRTB). His research includes developing new diagnostic tools and alternative therapies for infectious diseases.

He coordinates the Global Health and Tropical Medicine Research Center and serves in leadership roles with the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and the Portuguese Society for Microbiology. He is also the Director of Ciência LP, a UNESCO-affiliated training centre for Portuguese-speaking scientists.

With over 200 scientific publications and extensive mentorship experience, Miguel has made significant contributions to mycobacteriology, antibiotic resistance and microbial genetics, supervising numerous PhD and MSc students.

Keerti Gedela

Keerti Gedela is a consultant physician and researcher at 56 Dean Street, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, specializing in HIV and sexual health medicine. She has an MSc in Tropical Medicine & International Health and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and an honorary senior lecturer at Imperial College.

She has worked as an infectious diseases and HIV physician, researcher and lecturer in southern Africa (Johannesburg, Soweto and Zambia), India, Brazil and Indonesia. Her experience includes senior clinical, technical and leadership roles in diverse healthcare settings within programme development, clinical care and education. She has provided senior clinical support for hospital and outpatient care in central and rural settings, also focusing on building clinical research capacity. Her project work has involved negotiating with multi-sector organisations and stakeholders, including WHO and UN agencies, ministries of health, non-governmental organizations, commercial/creative agencies, local community organizations and healthcare client groups.

Keerti is currently leading projects with a UK-Indonesian multidisciplinary and multi-institution collaboration. Her current work focuses on implementation science, clinical/social science research and utilizing creative public engagement in low- and middle-income countries to drive innovative and sustainable healthcare solutions.

Adeeba Kamarulzaman

Adeeba Kamarulzaman is the Chief Executive Officer of Monash University Malaysia and Pro Vice-Chancellor and President (Malaysia) of Monash University Australia. She is also a former President of the IAS. She is an internationally recognized expert on HIV and AIDS and infectious diseases, focusing on pragmatic prevention approaches for key populations, including people who use drugs and people in prisons.

Adeeba has held significant leadership roles, including being the first woman of Asian descent to serve as President of the IAS (2020-2022). She also founded Malaysia’s Centre of Excellence for Research in AIDS (CERiA) and was instrumental in implementing the country’s needle syringe and methadone maintenance programmes.

A member of the WHO Science Council since 2021, she chairs the Malaysian AIDS Foundation and the ROSE Foundation, which aims to eliminate cervical cancer globally. She is also a Commissioner for the Global Commission on Drug Policy and the Global Commission on Inequality, AIDS, and Pandemics.

With over 300 published articles and numerous accolades, including the Merdeka Award and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Monash University, Adeeba continues to champion evidence-based, public health approaches to tackling infectious diseases and inequality.

Sharon Lewin

Sharon Lewin is an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist and has worked in HIV-related clinical medicine and research for over 25 years. She is Director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture of the University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. The Doherty Institute has over 850 staff working on infection and immunity through research, education and public health, and has a significant focus on virology, including HIV. She is an active clinician, working at the Alfred Hospital and Royal Melbourne Hospital, and a Melbourne Laureate Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne.   

Sharon is internationally recognized for her expertise in HIV cure, HIV-hepatitis B virus (HBV) co-infection and SARS-CoV-2 infection. She leads a large group focused on basic and translational science and early-phase clinical trials for cure interventions and is actively developing antiviral strategies for novel RNA viruses using RNA editing. She collaborates widely, including a long-standing partnership with researchers in Thailand on living with both HIV and HBV, and is a co-PI on DARE, a large NIH-funded network of researchers working on HIV cure. She has published over 350 manuscripts, predominately related to HIV cure and understanding HIV disease and related conditions, including HBV, cryptococcal infection and cytomegalovirus. She is also active in COVID-19 research. The Doherty Institute was the first to isolate SARS-CoV-2 and share the virus globally. 

She has been an IAS Member since 2007, when she was Deputy Chair of IAS 2007 in Sydney. As Local Co-Chair for AIDS 2014 in Melbourne, she leveraged significant in-kind and financial support from the Australian and Victorian Governments and the city of Melbourne. With her Australian colleagues, she led several advocacy programmes in relation to AIDS 2014, which resulted in every Australian state health minister signing a declaration to see the end of new HIV acquisitions in Australia by 2020. She is the key opinion leader for Melbourne as a UNAIDS Fast-Track City. She chairs the Advisory Board for the IAS Towards an HIV Cure initiative, and with Steve Deeks, co-chairs the annual IAS workshop on HIV cure and the HIV cure research academies.   

Her work has been recognized with the following major awards:   

• Melburnian of the Year (2014), awarded to a role model who has made an outstanding contribution to the city in their field, as well as a significant contribution to the community 

• Peter Wills Medal (2015), awarded by Research Australia to an Australian who has made an outstanding contribution to building Australia’s reputation in health and medical research, and fostering collaboration for better health 

• Officer of the Order of Australia (2019) for distinguished service of a high degree to Australia in the field of infectious diseases and HIV and AIDS 

• Committee for Melbourne Achiever Award (2020) for making a major contribution to the city of Melbourne, which will transform its future 

• The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) (2020) of Australia Outstanding Contribution Award 

She was a member of the council of the NHMRC, the peak funding body for medical research in Australia, and chaired its Health Translation Advisory Committee (2016-2021). She is a member of the Governing Board of the International Coalition for the Elimination of Hepatitis B virus (ICE-HBV) and the executive of the Global Virology Network. She was previously President of the Australian Society for HIV Medicine. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Vaccine Research Centre at the NIH and President of the Scientific Advisory Board of the newly formed ANRS/MIE (Maladies Infectiouses Emergentes) in France. 

Vidya Mave

Vidya Mave is Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Infectious Diseases in India. She is an Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, as well as Director and Clinical Research Site Leader of the Johns Hopkins University Baltimore-India Clinical Trials Unit (JHUBI-CTU) in Pune, India. The Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) is a collaborative research partnership between BJ Medical College (BJMC) in Pune, India, and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; it is part of the world’s largest HIV therapeutic trial networks (the AIDS Clinical Trials Group, or ACTG, and the International Maternal Pediatric and Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trial Network, or IMPAACT).

Vidya has more than 20 years of experience in clinical practice, education and research in infectious diseases and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed research articles. Following a short tenure as Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases at Tulane University School of Medicine, she joined Johns Hopkins in 2010. She now leads and coordinates all clinical research activities for the JHUBI-CTU, which conducts Phase I, II and III clinical trials of therapeutic drug interventions for HIV and co-morbidities, including TB and hepatitis, in adults (including pregnant women) and children. Her research interests include TB clinical trials (of vaccines and new and re-purposed drugs) to optimize treatment outcomes; co-morbidities (including diabetes and HIV), and the use of novel tools (Hair PK, whole genome sequencing and host biomarkers) to study TB treatment outcomes; and assessing best implementation strategies in programmatic settings. In addition, Vidya has mentored more than 20 pre- and postdoctoral trainees from Johns Hopkins. She is Vice-Chair of ACTG TB scientific committee, Protocol Chair of ACTG’s first TB meningitis trial and Protocol Vice Chair of ACTG’s first TB vaccine (ID-93) therapeutic trial.

Vidya received an MD in medicine from Karnatak University, Dharwad, India, and an MPH from Tulane University. She completed her internal medicine training at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in infectious diseases at Tulane University and Long Island Jewish Medical Center. She is Board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Nittaya Phanuphak

Nittaya Phanuphak finished her medical degree from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok in 1996 and received her PhD in medicine from the University of Amsterdam in 2013. She is the Executive Director of the Institute of HIV Research and Innovation in Bangkok, Thailand, founded in 2020. She joined the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre (TRCARC) in 2002 to lead a countrywide prevention of vertical transmission operational study of almost 8,000 pregnant women living with HIV. Data generated were used to change Thailand’s guidelines to recommend three-drug regimens to prevent vertical transmission in 2010. 

Nittaya has developed a deep interest in the use of key population-centred approaches to enhance access to HIV testing, prevention and treatment. In 2008, she established an anal neoplasia screening service to bring men who have sex with men into HIV services at TRCARC; the model was then replicated in Bali, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur to form the IeDEA-funded Anal Neoplasia Study in Asia and the Pacific (ANSAP). In 2015, she supported the establishment of the Tangerine Community Health Center at TRCARC using an integrated hormone therapy and sexual health service approach to effectively bring almost 4,000 trans women and trans men into services over five years. The model is currently being expanded to community-based organizations (CBOs), as well as public and private clinics, working with trans people in the region. 

The high uptake of immediate antiretroviral therapy (ART) among Thai men who have sex with men and trans women, together with high HIV prevalence and incidence (demonstrated in Thailand’s first test-and-treat study led by her team in 2012), pushed national HIV guidelines to recommend ART regardless of CD4 count and PrEP for people vulnerable to HIV since 2014. In 2015, she started exploring the use of the Key Population-Led Health Services (KPLHS) approach to enhance HIV cascades, with PEPFAR and USAID support. In the KPLHS model, partnerships between CBOs and government/public health facilities allow capacity building for lay providers, who are members of key populations, to perform HIV testing, link clients living with HIV to ART, dispense PrEP and PEP, and retain both HIV-positive and HIV-negative clients in the programmes. She is working intensively with community and government partners to establish a national technical assistance platform to support KPLHS certification and legalization to ensure its sustainability through domestic financing mechanisms. 

Through KPLHS, key population lay providers in Thailand have successfully dispensed PrEP to more than half of the PrEP users in the country. Nittaya strongly believes that PrEP must be demedicalized and requires differentiated service delivery models to rapidly reach high coverage and see its impact on the reduction of new HIV acquisitions.

Thanyawee Puthanakit

Thanyawee Puthanakit is a paediatric infectious disease specialist in the Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. She is a former trainee of the Johns Hopkins University Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program. She is a leader in paediatric HIV treatment and care in Asia, leads several multi-centre research projects in Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia, and also collaborates with the TREAT Asia research programme and PENTA-ID network. She has served on the writing committee for the World Health Organization’s paediatric HIV treatment guidelines and Thai national guidelines. Her current research interests include clinical trials on new antiretroviral drugs for HIV treatment and prevention focusing on adolescents and young adults.

Annette Sohn

Annette Sohn is the Director of TREAT Asia and a Vice President of amfAR – The Foundation for AIDS Research in Bangkok, Thailand. She directs a programme integrating HIV, co-infection and co-morbidity research among children, adolescents and adults living with and vulnerable to HIV through a network of programme partners across 13 Asia-Pacific countries, as well as related activities around research training on mental health and implementation science.

Joe Tucker

Joseph D Tucker is an infectious diseases physician and Professor at UNC Chapel Hill and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He has a special interest in pay-it-forward, generosity in medicine, and developing more humanistic health systems. He has contributed to several World Health Organization guidelines and serves as a member of the TDR Global Working Group. Joe has a strong commitment to mentorship and works in partnership with undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral and early-career researchers. He has published 582 manuscripts and leads as PI or MPI for US NIH grants totalling USD 29 million.

Shanti Singh-Anthony

Shanti Singh-Anthony is a medical doctor and public health practitioner. Her work in HIV started in 2002, with clinical management of people living with HIV as the Director of Guyana’s largest HIV treatment site. As the Program Manager of Guyana’s national HIV response for 12 years, she worked extensively with donors, international development partners and national stakeholders to implement a multi-sectoral response. In this capacity, she provided technical support to the Government of Guyana on HIV policies and led the crafting and implementation of long-term, multi-year strategic plans on HIV and STIs. She worked closely with the Global Fund, PEPFAR, the World Bank and other international partners.

On the academic front, Shanti served on a team of professionals from the University of Guyana and the University of Vanderbilt to establish the Masters in Public Health programme at the University of Guyana. She led the development of the module on Health Systems Administration and taught that course for several years. She has guest lectured at several local universities and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Summer Institute annually for the past five years.

She served on the planning committee of the X1X International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC, in 2012 and as a member of the Leadership and Accountability Committee. She also served as a member of the Latin-American and Caribbean Delegation to several Global Fund Board meetings and represented Guyana on the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board.

Shanti is currently the Coordinator for HIV Knowledge Management for the Caribbean region and provides support to national AIDS programme and community implementers to bridge knowledge gaps on HIV, STI, viral hepatitis, sexual and reproductive health and other technical areas. She is serving on the Global Fund Technical Review Panel as an HIV expert.

Pedro Cahn

Pedro Enrique Cahn is an infectious diseases specialist and a global leader in HIV and AIDS research and advocacy. He earned his medical doctorate from the Buenos Aires University School of Medicine in 1971, specializing in infectious diseases in 1978, and obtaining Board certification in 1994. Currently, Pedro serves as Honorary Consultant at the Infectious Diseases Division of Juan A. Fernandez Hospital in Buenos Aires and as the Scientific Director of Fundación Huésped, a role he has held since 1989. A member of Argentina's National AIDS Committee since 1988, he also advises global organizations, including WHO, UNAIDS and Doctors Without Borders.

Pedro has been at the forefront of HIV and AIDS clinical research, acting as the principal investigator for numerous trials, including those that developed two-drug antiretroviral (ARV) regimens, such as GARDEL, PADDLE and GEMINI. Internationally, he is a member of the WHO ARV Guidelines Panel and the International Advisory Board for the Network of European AIDS Trials (NEAT). His leadership extends to such roles as President of the IAS (2006-2008) and Chair of major global HIV and AIDS conferences, including the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico in 2008.

With over 193 peer-reviewed publications and more than 20 book chapters to his credit, his work has advanced the understanding and treatment of HIV and AIDS. Formerly a professor at Buenos Aires University and Chief of Infectious Diseases at Juan Fernandez Hospital, he continues to influence public health globally through research, advocacy and policy making.

Peter Figueroa

Vivian Kouri

Juan Sierra Madero

Juan Sierra Madero is an infectious diseases specialist working in the HIV clinic at INCMNSZ in Mexico City. He has been actively involved in AIDS care and research since the 1990s. His activities have involved teaching and mentoring in the Infectious Diseases and HIV specialty course at INCMNSZ. He has been a PI for clinical trials sponsored by industry or the NIH in national and international networks and a member of treatment, prevention and resistance guidelines committees in the Health Ministry of Mexico. He has authored or co-authored approximately 180 peer-reviewed scientific publications. His main interests and activities in research are clinical trials and cohort studies on the efficacy of antiretroviral therapy, immune restoration disease and late presentation to care.

Omar Sued

Omar Sued is a medical doctor who graduated from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina and specialized in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires. He has been working in HIV since 1997 in different countries and settings, including public and private hospitals, health centres, prisons and NGOs. He completed a Master’s and a PhD diploma in acute HIV at the Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. 

From 2009 to 2012, he worked as HIV Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Pan-American Health Organization Headquarters in Washington DC, US. In this position, he supported countries in the development of national HIV guidelines and monitored use and coverage of antiretroviral treatment. He was part of the Treatment 2.0 and the HIV and Syphilis Elimination initiatives. 

He has been part of several WHO guidelines expert groups, including: guidelines on post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV and the use of co-trimoxazole prophylaxis for HIV-related infections among adults, adolescents and children; guidelines for the diagnosis, prevention and management of cryptococcal disease in adults, adolescents and children with HIV; and consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV. He has authored more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals. 

From 2012 to 2021, he was the Director of the not-for-profit Research Department of Fundación Huésped, with over 150 staff devoted to combining clinical, social and translational research, advocacy and clinical and public health services on infectious diseases, HIV and sexual and reproductive health. The focus is on innovations in HIV care, ART optimization (dual therapy) and trans health. Since his incorporation, the department was admitted to many research networks, including the HIV Prevention Trials Network, the AIDS Malignancies Consortium and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network.  

Omar was the 2019-2021 President of the Infectious Diseases Argentinean Society, where he also held the positions of Secretary (2013-2015) and Treasurer (2015-2019). In 2016 and 2021, he was the Chair of the National Infectious Diseases Congress. He was part of the Presidential Experts Committee for COVID-19 Response until his designation as HIV treatment and care advisor for the Americas at the WHO Regional Office for the Americas (Pan American Health Organization) in June 2021. 

Omar is an enthusiastic supporter of the IAS Values advocating for prioritizing evidence-based interventions with a focus on human rights for people living with HIV. He has participated significantly at IAS and AIDS Conferences, with 58 posters presented; this included being Assistant Rapporteur at AIDS 2008, AIDS 2012 and IAS 2015, session Co-Chair at AIDS 2018, and Lead Rapporteur at IAS 2019. He won scholarships for AIDS 2016 and IAS 2017 and for the 2017 Towards an HIV Cure Global Fellows Research Academy. He actively participated in IAS Educational Fund meetings (Rio 2017, Buenos Aires 2017, Mexico 2018, Bogota 2019) to discuss HIV prevention and policy implementation for PrEP and PEP.

Sandra Wagner

Sandra Wagner is a researcher and physician who coordinates the HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) at INI-FIOCRUZ. She serves as a professor in both the Stricto Sensu and Lato Sensu postgraduate programmes and mentor in the INI medical residency programme. Since 2017, she has been a member of INI’s Institutional Review Board and served as its coordinator since 2022. She is actively involved in such international networks as ACTG, where she participated in various committees (ARTS, Hepatitis TSG, Cure TSG and currently SASC). Sandra is also a member of HPTN and CCASAnet.

Her expertise includes antiretroviral therapy (ART) optimization and complications, ART resistance, ART as prevention, the intersection of HIV and chronic non-communicable diseases, HIV and ageing, co-infections, clinical trials, cohort studies, and other multi-centre research protocols.