Wafaa El-Sadr is a

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

and the director of ICAP at Columbia University, Columbia World Projects and the Center for Infectious Disease Epidemiologic Research (CIDER) at

Columbia Mailman School of Public Health The Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Columbia University. Located on the Columbia University Medical Center campus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, the scho ...

Education

El-Sadr holds a medical degree from

Cairo University Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...

, Egypt, a master's of public health degree in epidemiology from the

, and a master's in public administration degree from the

John F. Kennedy School of Government The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. She is Board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases. *MD, 1974, Cairo University *MPH, 1991, Columbia University *MPA, 1996, Harvard University Kennedy School

Career and accomplishments

From 1988 to 2008, El-Sadr led the Division of Infectious Diseases at

Harlem Hospital Center Harlem Hospital Center, branded as NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, is a 272-bed, public teaching hospital affiliated with Columbia University. It is located at 506 Lenox Avenue in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City and was founded in 1887. The hosp ...

, where she helped develop

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

and

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

(TB) program. She has led a number of research studies and grant-funded programs through funding from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

U.S. Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 ...

Health Resources and Services Administration The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services located in North Bethesda, Maryland. It is the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for peop ...

, New York State and New York City Departments of Health as well as private foundations. Working with former dean of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Allan Rosenfield Allan Rosenfield (April 28, 1933 – October 12, 2008) was an advocate for women's health during the worldwide AIDS pandemic as dean of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Early life Rosenfield was born in Brookline, Massachusetts o ...

, El-Sadr helped establish the MTCT-Plus initiative, a global program that aims to provide women and their families with HIV-related services. ICAP covers 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2011, she has focused her efforts on highlighting the continued impact of HIV in the United States, establishing the Domestic Prevention Working Group within the NIH-funded HIV Prevention Trials Network. In 2008, El-Sadr was named a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow. In 2009, ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' magazine named El-Sadr in its list of "100 People Who Are Changing America." In the same year, she was also named as one of

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

10: Guiding Science for Humanity. She is also a member of the

Institute of Medicine of the National Academies The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Eng ...

. In November 2009, The ''

Utne Reader ''Utne Reader'' (also known as ''Utne'') ( ) is a digital digest that collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment, generally from alternative media sources including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music, and ...

'' named El-Sadr one of the "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World." El-Sadr is a member of the science planning committees for the

International AIDS Society The International AIDS Society (IAS) is the world's largest association of HIV/AIDS professionals, with 11,600 members from over 170 countries , including clinicians, people living with HIV, service providers, policy makers and others. It aims to ...

conference in Vienna (2010) and the

Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections The Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) is an annual scientific meeting devoted to the understanding, prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and the opportunistic infection An opportunistic infection is an infection ca ...

(CROI, 2010). She is currently a member of the Technical Advisory Group on Tuberculosis for the World Health Organization and a board member for the Population Council. She has served as a member of the Antiviral Advisory Committee for the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

, and the Advisory Council for the Elimination of TB at the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...

. She also has served on the

amfAR amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, known until 2005 as the American Foundation for AIDS Research, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and the advocacy of ...

board. She is a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and previously chaired its tuberculosis committee. In 2021, she became the director of Columbia World Projects at Columbia University.

Selected publications

* Wafaa M El-Sadr, Jessica Justman. 2020. Africa in the Path of Covid-19. ''N Engl J Med''; 383(3):e11. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2008193. * Wafaa M El-Sadr, Katherine Harripersaud, Miriam Rabkin. 2017. Reaching global HIV/AIDS goals: What got us here, won't get us there. ''PLoS Med''; 14(11):e1002421. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002421. * Roger I Glass, Wafaa El-Sadr, Eric Goosby, Linda E Kupfer. 2019. The HIV response and global health. ''Lancet''; 393(10182):1696. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30353-8. * Wafaa M El-Sadr. 2020. What one pandemic can teach us in facing another. ''AIDS''; 34(12):1757-1759. doi: 10.1097/QAD.0000000000002636.

References

External links

*Columbi
Bio2008 MacArthur Fellow: Wafaa El-SadrDr. Wafaa El-Sadr on U.S. Coronavirus Response (C-SPAN)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadr, Wafaa Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health alumni Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health faculty MacArthur Fellows Fellows of the African Academy of Sciences HIV/AIDS researchers Living people 1950 births Egyptian infectious disease physicians Harvard Kennedy School alumni Cairo University alumni Members of the National Academy of Medicine Fellows of the Infectious Diseases Society of America