Board

Jintanat Ananworanich
Linda-Gail Bekker
Elizabeth Bukusi, Secretary
Marina Caskey
David Cook, Treasurer
Anne-Marie Duliege
Blair Hanewall, President
Catherine Hankins
Susie McLean
Alex Menezes
Jesse Milan
Deondre Moore
Yvonne Muthoni
Jeffrey O'Malley
Kenly Sikwese
Mitchell Warren, Executive Director

Advisors

Maureen Baehr
Patricia Fast
David Gold
Margaret Liu
Helen Rees
Luis Santiago
Sarah Schlesinger
Todd Summers

Jintanat Ananworanich

Jintanat Ananworanich is the Senior Director, Clinical Development, Infectious Diseases at Moderna serving as the senior clinical lead for the influenza vaccine program. Previously, she was the Clinical Development Leader at the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research and, prior to that, was Associate Director for Therapeutics Research for the US Military HIV Research Program and Co-Director of SEARCH at the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center in Bangkok. She is Professor of Medicine at the Department of Global Health, the University of Amsterdam and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. For the past two decades, she has led over 100 HIV clinical studies and published more than 250 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Her research interest is in acute HIV infection, HIV cure and HIV-associated neurocognition. She is protocol chair of several studies evaluating early treatment and immune interventions aimed at achieving HIV remission in adults and children living with HIV.

Linda-Gail Bekker

Professor Linda-Gail Bekker is the Director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine and the Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town and Chief Executive Officer of the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation. She is an NRF A-rated physician scientist and specialist in HIV and related infectious diseases. Her research interests include programmatic and action research around antiretroviral roll out and TB integration, prevention of HIV in women, youth and MSM. Bekker is involved in a number of COVID19 vaccine trials and co-leads the Sisonke Phase 3B study which has seen the vaccination of 500 000 health care workers in South Africa. She is a past president of the International AIDS Society (2016-2018).

Elizabeth Bukusi

Secretary

Professor Elizabeth Anne Bukusi (ObGyn), MPH, PhD, PGD (Research Ethics), Masters in Bioethics, Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, earned her general medical degree and Masters in Obstetrics and Gynecology degree from the University of Nairobi. She then earned a certificate in international health, MPH and a PhD from the University of Washington’s Department of Epidemiology; a post graduate diploma in Research Ethics from the University of Cape Town and a Masters in Bioethics from Centre for Bioethics and Culture at the Sind Institute of Urology and Transplantation in Karachi. She is a certified IRB Professional. She is a Senior Principal Clinical Research Scientist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), a Research Professor at the University of Washington (Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Global health), an honorary lecturer at Aga Khan University in Nairobi and Maseno University (Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology) and Volunteer Clinical faculty – Professor at the University of California San Francisco (Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences). Prof. Bukusi, in collaboration with Dr. Craig Cohen at UCSF, established the KEMRI Research Care and Training Program in 1995. In addition to her substantial experience in conducting socio-behavioral and biomedical research and providing HIV care, mentoring and training health care and research personnel to enhance local and international capacity, she has a strong interest in research and clinical ethics and the development of systems and structures for regulation of research at KEMRI and in the country. She is the chairperson of the National Bioethics Society of Kenya, (BSK), a multidisciplinary, non-political, non-discriminatory, and not-for-profit organization with a primary objective to promoting high ethical standards in bio-medical research, medicine and health care in Kenya. She is a board member of AVAC, chaired the WHO HRP Alliance (capacity building for RH research) 2016 to 2021, and is a trustee for the HIV Trust, and an Elected Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (FAAS).

Marina Caskey

Marina Caskey is a scientist, immunologist and Professor of Clinical Investigation at Rockefeller University. Her work focuses on the development and clinical evaluation of novel immunotherapeutic strategies against infectious diseases, with a special emphasis on HIV. Caskey has led a series of early-phase clinical studies to evaluate the safety and efficacy of broadly neutralizing anti-HIV antibodies. Her studies have revitalized this area of HIV research. Recently, Caskey extended her focus to the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and is working to discover and characterize broadly neutralizing antibodies effective against COVID-19. She received her medical degree from the Federal University of Sergipe, in Brazil, and completed specialty training in infectious disease at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she remains an attending physician. She has a master’s degree in clinical investigation from Rockefeller and is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation.

David Cook

Treasurer

David Cook is currently the CEO of Edgewood Oncology, a startup biotech company focusing on cancer. He has worked on diverse modalities including vaccines, small molecules, and biologics and has been involved in all aspects of product development including discovery research, clinical trials, regulatory affairs, manufacturing, business development, intellectual property and corporate operations. A member of teams responsible for obtaining approval for six novel therapeutic products in the US and EU. Former COO of IAVI and Board Treasurer of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise.

Anne-Marie Duliege

Dr. Anne-Marie Duliege is a Senior Executive and Chief Medical Officer with 30 years of experience guiding biopharmaceutical companies through development and commercial stages. She is equally successful in leading nonprofit healthcare organizations, most recently as the Chief Medical Officer of PanCAN, a nonprofit organization focused on pancreatic cancer. In addition to the AVAC Board, she serves on the board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (stem cell research), Fe Pharmaceuticals (an infectious diseases-related biotechnology startup), and Global Strategies (improving access to health care in developing countries). Before that, she served as EVP and CMO at Rigel Pharmaceuticals, and CMO and Head of Research & Clinical Development at Affymax. She has extensive experience in infectious diseases and immunology and has long been associated with many aspects of the fight against AIDS. She initially focused on understanding the transmission of HIV from mother to child and then led the global development of potential HIV drugs and vaccines at Chiron and Genentech, collaborating with the NIH and the Army (WRAIR). Previously, she was an epidemiologist with the National Institute of Science and Medical Research in Paris. Dr. Duliege received her MD degree and certification in Pediatrics from Paris Medical School, an MS in Epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health, and an MS in Biostatistics also from Paris Medical School. She continues to practice medicine as an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

Blair Hanewall

President

Blair Hanewall is an international health leader who thrives on supporting collective action to tackle social justice issues, especially in women’s health. She currently serves as the Executive Director of SEMA Reproductive Health, an innovative partnership designed to build healthier, more equitable, and more resilient SRH markets so that women, girls, and people everywhere can control their bodies and futures. She has over twenty years of global health experience working at international NGOs, a biotech firm, a private foundation, and strategy consulting. In Africa and South America, Blair worked on maternal and adolescent health programs and supported decentralized healthcare reform. Blair was an early hire at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she helped drive the evolution of the global health primary care program. She led a team that designed market solutions generating hundreds of millions of savings and accelerated the uptake of various health solutions to improve health systems and benefit communities. These efforts required designing and managing complex coalitions with government agencies, international NGOs, financing agencies, and private companies. She also oversaw investment portfolios and partnerships in areas including health policy/finance, behavioral sciences, advocacy, supply chain, and regulatory solutions. Blair currently is Board Chair for AVAC and advises a US women’s health telemedicine organization. She earned her masters in business and public health from Johns Hopkins University.

Catherine Hankins

Catherine Hankins is Professor and Chair (interim) of McGill University’s Department of Global and Public Health. A community medicine specialist, she had an active research career in Canada, chairing peer review and policy committees in the HIV response before joining the UN in 2002. Chief Scientific Adviser to UNAIDS in Geneva for a decade, she led the scientific knowledge translation team focused on ensuring ethical and participatory HIV prevention trial conduct, convening mathematical modelling teams, and supporting country implementation of proven biomedical HIV prevention modalities. During her tenure, she collaborated with AVAC to develop the Good Participatory Practice (GPP) Guidelines. In 2016, she led development of GPP-EP for Trials of Emerging and Re-emerging Pathogens for WHO’s R&D Blueprint. She was Scientific and Organising Committee Chair of the annual African INTEREST conferences on HIV research in resource-limited settings from 2014 to 2020. She is Scientific Co-Chair of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia INTERACT Workshops. She chaired the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership Scientific Advisory Committee (2017-2022), the National Institutes of Health HIV Prevention Trials Network Scientific Advisory Group (2012-2021), and co-chaired Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force. She is a trustee of the HIV Research Trust and board member (emeritus) of HealthBridge in Ottawa. She is a member of the International AIDS Society Industry Liaison Forum since 2012, an Honorary Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, England, and Senior Fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD). She is the AIGHD lead for the CAPRISA trials of monoclonal antibodies and antiretroviral implants for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in young South African women. She is keenly interested in scientific capacity development and advancing women in global health and science. She was named to the Order of Canada in 2013.

Susie McLean

Susie McLean is an international HIV prevention and harm reduction specialist, with 30 years of experience in the community-based response to HIV as a programmer, researcher, policy and technical adviser and advocate in a wide range of countries. She has helped to establish and scale up HIV prevention programmes in Asia, Eastern Europe and East Africa, and has a special interest in peer-based approaches to HIV prevention and in the financing of harm reduction services. Susie was the founding chair of the Strategic Advisory Group to the UN on HIV and Drug Use, and she has published widely on community mobilisation, HIV and harm reduction, and this work includes articles for peer reviewed journals along with programme guidance for community organisations and policy papers for advocacy. Susie currently works as a senior adviser on HIV prevention at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.

Alex Menezes

Alex Menezes currently runs the Brazil office of Global Health Strategies. In addition, has been an AIDS advocate with Grupo Pela Vidda Rio de Janeiro since 1993. He was involved in organizing several national and international community focused AIDS vaccine meetings and other advocacy and educational activities in the field. Before moving to the US in early 2002 to join IAVI where he worked for over a decade in vaccine preparedness, he was a member of Brazil's National AIDS Vaccine Committee and part of the CAB for the HVTN site in Rio de Janeiro. Originally trained as a psychologist, Alex has two master's degrees in communications, one from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a second one from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Jesse Milan

Jesse Milan, Jr. is President and CEO of AIDS United a national organization with the mission of ending the HIV epidemic in the United States through policy and advocacy, strategic grantmaking, and capacity building. AIDS United is one of the top ten funders for HIV in world and has granted over $129 million over 30 years. AIDS United’s Public Policy Council member organizations and current grantees number over 200 in more than 40 states and territories. Mr. Milan is a lawyer whose career includes leading HIV programs and organizations at national, regional, and global levels, and addressing millions on television, radio and in presentations and keynotes across the US and Africa. He serves currently as chair of the board of Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA), on the Scientific Advisory Board for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and on the Infectious Disease Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM). He was designated a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Global HIV/AIDS. Earlier he chaired five non-profit boards including the Black AIDS Institute and the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, was AIDS Director for Philadelphia, and chaired several federal advisory committees on HIV. Prior to AIDS United Mr. Milan served 15 years as vice president of two public health government contractor firms, four years as Assistant and Deputy Philadelphia City Solicitor, and six years as chief of staff to the president of Temple University. Mr. Milan’s numerous honors include the 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Association of Black Princeton Alumni for exemplifying “the highest ideals and traditions of Princeton University,” and the 2022 Alexander Forger Award from the American Bar Association for his sustained HIV advocacy work. He received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Virginia Theological Seminary for being a person of faith leading the charge against HIV, and the Public Service Award from the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care. The federal Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) honored him for “leading the international charge against HIV disease.” Milan is a graduate of Princeton University and the NYU School of Law. Jesse is living with HIV for four decades and celebrates over 30 years of commitment with his husband.

Deondre Moore

Deondre B. Moore is a young human rights activist who has spent the last several years dedicating his time and resources to educating persons and raising awareness all over the world regarding HIV and Civil Rights issues. Deondre began his work in public health and advocacy after receiving an HIV positive diagnosis in 2014 at the age of 19. Since his diagnosis, he has taken the education he has received and shared it with community members across the nation. Deondre’s years of experience serving on various national Community Advisory Boards, as a community mobilizer in Texas, and experience as a pharmaceutical community engagement consultant has provided him with the necessary skill sets to take on his role with the Prevention Access Committee. Deondre’s lived experience as a Black gay man will strengthen PAC’s meaningful engagement with partners and communities to bring about awareness and resources consistent with PAC’s values. Deondre is also studying human resource management at Sam Houston State University. Deondre intends to engage with various communities and organizations throughout the US, with emphasis on Black and Brown communities and other communities of color in order to provide resources, build meaningful partnerships, and to ensure that PAC is expanding and operating at its full potential to continue changing the trajectory and way we look at HIV prevention in the US.

Yvonne Muthoni

Yvonne Muthoni is an African Queer Feminist and currently the Country Director of Open For Business - Kenya. As a diversity, equity and inclusion expert, Yvonne supports organizations and companies to build sustainable inclusive cultures and workplaces. She co-led the first LGBTIQ+ Workplace Inclusion Conference in Kenya that saw the first launch of the UN LGBTIQ+ Standards of Conduct for Business in Africa. She is also a board member of Professionals in Pride Kenya and has co-authored toolkits on Mental Health and HIV Prevention and Advocacy. Yvonne has spearheaded various research on workplace policies that are inclusive to LGBTIQ+ persons and has worked with national, regional and global stakeholders in the development and private sector resulting in their involvement in advancing LGBTIQ+ rights. Yvonne is passionate about inclusion in workplaces and strives to work in collaboration with stakeholders to promote the rights and dignities of LGBTQI+ persons.

Jeffrey O'Malley

Jeffrey O’Malley is the Senior Advisor: LGBTI Inclusion, Africa at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He also serves as an Adjunct Research Professor of Preventive Medicine at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California. Jeff’s background includes serving as the Director of Policy and Strategy for UNICEF; Director of HIV, Health and Development for UNDP; and as the Country Director for India for PATH, the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health. Between 1993 and 2004, Jeff established and led the International HIV/AIDS Alliance (now “FrontlineAIDS”), which became the world’s largest international development nongovernmental organization specializing in HIV and AIDS. He has also worked for the Harvard School of Public Health and for the World Health Organization and consulted for organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, AMSHeR and HIVOS.

Kenly Sikwese

Kenly Sikwese is Executive Director at the Afrocab Treatment Access Partnership (formerly African Community Advisory Board - AfroCAB). He’s also board member at Unitaid. In the past, Kenly has represented African CSOs on the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB), co-chaired the 90-90-90 Retargeting Scientific Technical Advisory Committee at UNAIDS (2014-18). He was inaugural member of the Robert Carr Fund - Steering Committee, a member of various technical processes at WHO, CHAI, UNAIDS, USAID, etc., the Technical Coordinator- Stigma Index where he supported 10 African national networks of PLHIV implement the study. Kenly has also worked in the UK with, among others, the Terrence Higgins Trust - East and worked for various organisations in the private sector prior to working in public health.

Mitchell Warren

Executive Director

Mitchell Warren has been the Executive Director of AVAC since 2004. He was previously the Senior Director for Vaccine Preparedness at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and also spent four years as Vice President and Director of International Affairs for The Female Health Company (FHC), the manufacturer of the female condom, where he directed efforts to design and implement reproductive health programs that integrate the female condom, and he led global advocacy efforts for expanded commitment to female-initiated prevention methods. Mitchell also spent six years at Population Services International (PSI) designing and implementing social marketing, communications and health promotion activities in Africa, Asia and Europe, including five years running PSI's project in South Africa. Mitchell is a member of the board of directors of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise; the WHO-UNAIDS HIV Vaccine Advisory Committee; the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH); and Maloto. Mitchell has degrees in English and History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied health policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Advisors

Maureen Baehr

Maureen Baehr consults on strategy, philanthropy, knowledge management and capacity building to both non-profit and for-profit organizations. She has more than two decades of experience in the private sector as a human resources executive for American Express and a management consultant to financial services clients including Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley. She has a Master’s degree from Harvard University and is committed to HIV/AIDS and AIDS vaccines as part of her consulting and venture philanthropy work.

Patricia Fast

Pat Fast is currently Senior Technical Advisor at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). She joined IAVI from Aviron, a biopharmaceutical firm, where, as a Medical Director in the Clinical Research Department, she oversaw studies of vaccines for influenza and cytomegalovirus vaccines. At the Division of AIDS at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Fast led HIV vaccine clinical research as Associate Director for Vaccines and Prevention. In addition, she has worked at The Upjohn Company, Wellcome Research Laboratories and UCLA. She received her MD at Michigan State University, is board certified in pediatrics and also holds a PhD in immunology from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Fast has served on several national and international vaccine advisory committees, including the UNAIDS Vaccine Advisory Committee, the Enterprise Coordinating Committee, the US National Vaccine Advisory Committee and the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation’s Vaccine Advisory Committee.

David Gold

David Gold began as an AIDS treatment activist with ACT UP New York and co-founded AVAC. He has been active in HIV vaccine advocacy since 1992 when he convened a city-wide panel in New York to produce the first community-based paper on HIV vaccine research, titled Community Perspectives on HIV Vaccine Trials. An attorney by training, Gold was Director of Medical Information at Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and editor of GMHC's Treatment Issues newsletter from 1990 to 1995. He is the founding editor of the IAVI Report, the newsletter of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. David was also IAVI's founding Vice President for Policy and Public Sector Support. David currently serves as the principal of his own company, Global Health Strategies, an international consulting and communications firm.

Margaret Liu

Margaret Liu is an accomplished leader in the research and development of vaccine and immunization programs for infectious diseases, particularly HIV, and in the field of gene-based therapies. She served as Senior Director at Merck Research Laboratories in the Department of Virus and Cell Biology; Vice President of Vaccines Research and Gene Therapy at Chiron Corporation; Senior Advisor in Vaccinology at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Vice-Chairman of Transgene; Executive Vice-Chairman of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, Korea; a member of the Board and Advisory Council of the American Society of Gene Therapy; a member of the Board of Directors of the Keystone Symposia and the Immunogens and Antigen Processing Working Group of the HIV Enterprise; on the Advisory Board of the European AIDS Vaccine Integrated Project and the faculty of Europrise. She is currently Foreign Adjunct Professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and Adjunct Full Professor at the University of California-San Francisco. She is the President-elect of the International Society of Vaccines, an International Advisor for the National Engineering Laboratory for Therapeutic Vaccines, China and on the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Jenner Institute.

Helen Rees

Professor Helen Rees is the Executive Director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (RHI) of the University of Witwatersrand where she is also a Personal Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She is an Honorary Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and serves on the LSHTM Visiting Committee, and is an Honorary Fellow of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University. Professor Rees received her Medical Degree and a Master's in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is an alumnus of Harvard Business School. Professor Rees is one of South Africa's best known women scientists recognised for her contribution to national health policy and to global health. Her expertise spans reproductive health/STIs, HIV prevention and vaccines. She is the Chair of the South African Medicines Control Council, a member of the National Advisory Group on Immunisations and a member of the National Health Data Advisory and Coordination Committee. She is the Chair of the WHO Afro Regional Task Force on Immunization having previously chaired the WHO's global Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation (SAGE) and remains on the SAGE Committee on the Global Vaccine Action Plan amongst other committees, and chairs of WHO's International Health Regulation's Emergency Committee on Polio. She also serves on several international scientific advisory committees. In 2006, she was the first person to receive the SA Department of Science and Technology's award for the Distinguished Scientist recognized for outstanding contribution to improving the quality of life of women. In 2001 Queen Elizabeth II made her an Officer of the British Empire for her contribution to global health.

Luis Santiago

Luis Santiago has worked on HIV vaccine advocacy since the early 1990's, with ACT UP New York, the New York Blood Center Project Achieve Community Advisory Board, and later on with AVAC. He works as an IT Specialist in IBM Global Services.

Sarah Schlesinger

Sarah J. Schlesinger MD is currently an Associate Professor of Clinical Investigation at The Rockefeller University and Senior Attending Physician at The Rockefeller University Hospital. As a 17-year-old in high school, Sarah went to work in the lab of Dr. Ralph Steinman and the late Dr. Zanvil Cohn at The Rockefeller University, just a few years after they published their discovery of dendritic cells. Some 40 years after the discovery, Schlesinger works to exploit the ability of dendritic cells to orchestrate the body's immune response, in order to develop new therapies for diseases ranging from cancer to HIV. Sarah graduated with honors from Wellesley College and obtained her medical doctorate from Rush Medical College in Chicago. Sarah trained in Anatomic Pathology at the New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center, and has a distinguished research and teaching career: at SUNY Buffalo Medical School; led The Dendritic Cell section of The Division of Retrovirology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research ("WRAIR"); worked with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative as a Scientist in Vaccine Research and Design; and returned to Rockefeller University in 2002 to lead clinical efforts to bring new HIV vaccine candidates developed at Rockefeller into the clinic. She is also co-chair of the Rockefeller Hospital's Institutional Review Board since 2003 and directs the Clinical Scholars training program and the education and training programs at The Rockefeller University Center for Clinical and Translational Science. In addition to the AVAC board, Sarah serves on the board Global Viral and the Hastings Center.

Todd Summers

Todd Summers is an independent consultant, working primarily with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a senior adviser to the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His work focuses on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Summers previously served as senior adviser for global health at the ONE Campaign. From 2005 to 2010, he was senior program officer within the global health group at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he led a team responsible for coordinating engagement with major multilateral partners, including the Global Fund, Gavi, and UNITAID. Before joining the Gates Foundation, Summers was president of Progressive Health Partners, a Washington, DC-based consulting firm specializing in public health policy, and from 1997 to 2000, was deputy director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. In his personal capacity, he currently serves as president of the US Fund for the Global Fund, Board President of AVAC and as a board member of the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation. He's also an active member of the Sperryville Volunteer Rescue Squad. Summers holds a BA from Middlebury College in Vermont.