Two Rollins faculty members have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research.
Dr. Carlos del Rio, professor of global health and epidemiology, executive associate dean, Emory School of Medicine and Grady Health System; Leon L. Haley Jr. MD Distinguished Professor of Medicine, is one of the nation’s foremost experts on infectious disease. Del Rio serves as co-director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research and Co-PI of the Emory-CDC HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials Unit and the Emory Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit. In 2021, del Rio received the city of Atlanta’s highest honor, the Phoenix Award, for his pivotal role in providing civic leaders and the community as a whole with expert medical and public health guidance and support during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. William Herbert Foege, Emeritus Presidential Distinguished Professor of International Health, was the winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 and the Emory University President’s Medal in 2016. He has also served as executive director and fellow for health policy at The Carter Center and as a senior medical adviser for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Foege served as chief of the Smallpox Eradication Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was appointed director of the CDC in 1977. In 1984, he and several colleagues formed the Task Force for Child Survival, a working group for the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Its success in accelerating childhood immunization led to an expansion in 1991 to include other issues that impact children. The organization, headquartered in nearby Decatur, was renamed the Task Force for Global Health and is affiliated with Emory.
