Speakers

Quarraisha Abdool Karim

Place of Birth : South Africa
Position : Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA, Professor in Clinical Epidemiology at Columbia University, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for African Health at University of KwaZulu-Natal, and President of The World Academy of Sciences
Field of study : Clinical Research, Epidemiology, Science Advocacy and Diplomacy, Health and Science Policy and Health Care Delivery Programming, Community Engagement in Research/Co-knowledge Generation, Infectious Diseases, HIV, Tuberculosis, COVID-19, Sexual Reproductive Health, HIV Prevention in Adolescent Girls and Young Women, RCTs – from first in human to licensure level, Life Course Epidemiology, Strengthening the science base at a country level through training and capacity building

Prof. Quarraisha Abdool Karim is a South African infectious diseases epidemiologist renowned for her contributions to addressing the AIDS pandemic notably on the evolving HIV pandemic, prevention technologies for women, and provision of anti-retroviral treatment in resource-constrained settings and more recently COVID-19. She is Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA, Professor in Clinical Epidemiology at Columbia University, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for African Health at University of KwaZulu-Natal, and President of The World Academy of Sciences. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (USA), Fellow of TWAS, International Science Council, Royal Society of South Africa, the Academy of Science of South Africa, the African Academy of Science, and UN Ambassador for Adolescents and HIV. She served as the first Director of the AIDS Control Program in post-apartheid South Africa. Her scientific contributions include over 300 peer-reviewed journal publications, the most cited (>3,000 citations) being the CAPRISA 004 article in Science. She is an editor of several books including the 6th and 7th editions of the Oxford Textbook on Global Public Health, which is widely used to teach public health. She has received over 35 prestigious awards including 5 honorary doctorates in recognition of her scientific contributions including the TWAS-Lenovo Award, the John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award, the VinFuture Prize for Innovation from Developing Countries, the Christophe Merieux Award from the French Academies of Science, UNESCO-L’Oreal FWIS Laureate Award, the Fourth Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize from the Government of Japan, the Forbes Africa lifetime Award for Academic Excellence.