Dyann F Wirth

Dr. Wirth directs the Harvard Malaria Initiative. Her work has focused on the mechanisms of drug resistance and her group was the first to discover multidrug resistance mechanisms in these organisms. Her current work includes both fundamental investigation and field-based studies, primarily in Africa. Dr. Wirth graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin, spent one year as a Fulbright Fellow, and then completed her Ph.D. in cell biology and virology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was awarded a Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship for her postdoctoral work in molecular biology at Harvard. She joined the faculty of Harvard School of Public Health in 1982 and was promoted to full professor in 1990. Dr. Wirth is the past president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. She has served on numerous committees and advising boards, including those for the Institute of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, and Burroughs Wellcome Fund. In 2004, she was elected to The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Wirth is codirector of the Harvard University Global Infectious Diseases Program. She is Senior Associate Member at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and co-director of the Broad’s Infectious Disease Initiative. At the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Wirth is the Richard Pearson Strong Professor and Chair of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Wirth joined the BWF board in October 2007.