Thurman receives Ryan White Award

Sandra L. Thurman, lecturer in global health, received the 2017 Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award at Indiana University Bloomington. Established in 2009, the award was named for the Indiana teenager who contracted HIV through a contaminated blood treatment for hemophilia. The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program is the largest provider of services for low-income, uninsured, and underinsured patients and their families.

The award recognizes Thurman for decades of work on HIV prevention, care, treatment, and policy. She currently serves as the chief strategy officer in the U.S. State Department’s Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Health Diplomacy. In this role, she coordinates all of the U.S. government’s global HIV/AIDS activities to achieve an AIDS-free generation, ensuring transparency, accountability, and impact.

Thurman has held leadership positions throughout her career, including directing the Office of National AIDS Policy under President Bill Clinton; presidential envoy on HIV/AIDS; senior adviser for strategy and development at the CDC; and director of the Interfaith Health Program and the Joseph W. Blount Center for Health and Human Rights at Rollins. She also served as director of advocacy programs for the Task Force for Child Survival and Development at The Carter Center and as executive director of AID Atlanta, the oldest and largest AIDS service organization in the South.