IAS members' meeting

With more than 20 years of public health and international development experience, Birgit Poniatowski has been the IAS Executive Director since November 2020, following more than five years at the organization leading an expanding team responsible for resource mobilization, sustainable partnerships across diverse sectors and key strategic initiatives.

Prior to joining the IAS, she was the Director for Investment and Partnerships at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and earlier managed partnerships and supported the organization’s multi-stakeholder governance processes at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. She was educated at Bonn and Heidelberg Universities in Germany and International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan. She holds a PhD from Heidelberg University, Germany.

Dr. Jennifer Kates is senior vice president and director of the Global Health & HIV Policy Program at KFF, where she oversees policy analysis and research focused on the U.S. government’s role in global health and on the global and domestic HIV epidemics. She has also helped to lead KFF’s work on the COVID-19 pandemic. Widely regarded as an expert in the field, she regularly publishes and presents on global health and HIV policy issues and is particularly known for her work analyzing donor government investments in global health; assessing and mapping the U.S. government’s global health architecture, programs, and funding; and tracking and analyzing major U.S. HIV programs and financing, and key trends in the HIV epidemic, an area she has been working in for close to 30 years. Dr. Kates has served on numerous federal and private sector advisory committees on global health and HIV issues. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, a Master in Public Affairs degree from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts. She received her Ph.D. in health policy from George Washington University.

Sharon Lewin is an infectious diseases physician and basic scientist, she is the inaugural Director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, a joint venture between the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Royal Melbourne Hospital and the inaugural director of the newly established Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics. She is Melbourne Laureate Professor of Medicine and Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Melbourne and a consultant physician at the Alfred Hospital and Royal Melbourne Hospitals in Melbourne, Australia. An IAS Member since 2007, Sharon is the Co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Towards an HIV Cure Initiative led by the IAS. Her research focuses on understanding why HIV persists on treatment and developing clinical trials aimed at ultimately finding an HIV cure. She also leads a research programme on HIV-hepatitis B virus co-infection and developing novel therapeutics for SARS-CoV-2 infection.