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2015 Keynote Address

Dr. Regina Rabinovich

TH Chan School of Public Health
Harvard Medical School

Accelerating to Impact - the evolving story of malaria and neglected tropical diseases

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Dr. Regina Rabinovich is the ExxonMobil Malaria Scholar in Residence at Harvard University, and an Advisor to Harvard University’s Defeating Malaria: From the Genes to the Globe Board of Directors. She is also Director of the Malaria Elimination Initiative at Barcelona Institute for Global Health at the University of Barcelona, where she serves as Chair to the Malaria Eradication Scientific Alliance. She is a global health leader with over 25 years’ experience in the research, public health, and philanthropic sectors, with a focus on strategy, global health product development, and the introduction and scale-up of tools and strategies resulting in impact on endemic populations.

Prior to joining Harvard University, Dr. Rabinovich served as the Director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (2003-2012), overseeing the development and implementation of strategies for the prevention, treatment, and control of diseases of particular relevance to global health, including malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, and neglected infectious diseases. Dr. Rabinovich has also served in various positions at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), focusing on the development and evaluation of vaccines. She participated in the Children’s Vaccine Initiative, a global effort to prevent infectious diseases in children in the developing world, and served as liaison to the National Vaccine Program Office, focusing on vaccine safety and vaccine policy. As chief of the Clinical and Regulatory Affairs Branch of the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, she managed the evaluation of candidate vaccines through a network of U.S. clinical research units.

In 1999, Dr. Rabinovich became director of the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance efforts to develop promising malaria vaccine candidates. She has served on the boards of several organizations focused on global health and infectious diseases, including the NIAID Council and the National Institutes of Health Council on Councils, PATH Vaccine Solutions, Medicines for Malaria Venture, the US Advisory Committee on Infectious Diseases, and the American Academy of Pediatrics Redbook Committee. She is currently on the board of AERAS Tuberculosis Vaccines, the Catholic Medical Mission Board, and the Institute of Medicine Panel on Public Private Partnerships. Dr. Rabinovich earned a Medical Degree from Southern Illinois University and a Masters of Public Health degree from the University of North Carolina, where she trained in pediatrics and preventive medicine. (source: //scienceoferadication.org/faculty-member/rabinovich-regina/)