Quarraisha Abdool Karim is one of the world’s leading AIDS researchers, with pioneering contributions in understanding the evolving HIV epidemic among young women while also advocating for the rights of people living with and affected by HIV.
As a UNAIDS Special Ambassador, her focus is on adolescents and HIV, while also championing young women and STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
She is the Associate Scientific Director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa. As an infectious disease epidemiologist, her main research interests are in understanding the evolving HIV epidemic in South Africa, including the factors influencing the acquisition of HIV by adolescent girls, and sustainable strategies to introduce antiretroviral therapy in resource-constrained settings.
She holds professorships in clinical epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, United States of America, and in public health at the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
She is also a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a visiting lecturer at Harvard University, both in the United States. Since 1998, she has played a central role in building the science base in southern Africa through the Columbia University–Southern African Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Programme, which has trained more than 600 scientists in southern Africa.
She was the principal investigator in the landmark CAPRISA 004 tenofovir gel trial, which provided proof of concept for microbicides, highlighted by Science magazine as one of the top 10 scientific breakthroughs in 2010. She has written more than 170 peer-reviewed publications and has authored several books and book chapters.
Ms Abdool Karim is currently a member of the UNAIDS Scientific Expert Panel and Scientific Adviser to the Executive Director of UNAIDS.
She is a Scientific Advisory Board member of the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Chair of the PEPFAR PrEP Expert Working Group, Advisory Group member of the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa, a member of the HIV Centre Strategic Advisory Committee, the Deputy Chair of the South African Medical Research Council Board and the National Institutes of Health Office of AIDS Research Microbicides Planning Group. She is currently Vice-President (Southern African Region) of the African Academy of Sciences.
