Professor Glenda Gray

Professor Glenda Gray, a medical doctor and pediatrician, is the past President of the South African Medical Research Council. She is now a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand and Professor at the Vaccines and Infectious Disease Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre. She is the Co-PI of the international NIH-funded HIV Vaccines Clinical Trials Network and leads the BRILLIANT Consortium, focused on HIV vaccine discovery and development in Africa. She is the Chair of the Board of the Global Antibiotic R&D Partnership; serves as a Board member of the National Research Foundation; and is a member of the UCT Council.

She is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, the African Academy of Sciences, the World Academy of Sciences, and the US National Academy of Medicine. She received South Africa’s highest honour, the Order of Mapungubwe the Nelson Mandela Health and Human Rights Award for her pioneering research in preventing paediatric HIV. She has been named as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and Forbes top 50 Women in Africa in recognition of her research in HIV. She received DSc (honoris causa, Simon Fraser University), DSc (honoris causa, Stellenbosch University), and LLD (honoris causa, Rhodes University).