As NAID Director from 1984 to 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci oversaw an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research that was used to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases. This award is given in recognition of the values and attributes that Dr. Fauci has exhibited throughout his career, including courage in leadership in speaking scientific truth, perseverance in the face of opposition, and serving as a change agent for healthcare and patients around the world.
This award celebrates individuals who inspire and encourage others to make a difference and is awarded to a person who has demonstrated courage in leadership, a commitment to promoting scientific integrity, advocating for sound science, and advancing the field of infectious disease at their institutions or in their local, national, or global communities.
This award can be granted to both members and non-members, and nominations are encouraged across national and international communities.
2023 Winner: Peter Hotez
Peter Hotez MD PhD is Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics. He is also co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Prof. Hotez has devoted his life to the development of new vaccines for neglected diseases of poverty, including vaccines for human hookworm infection and schistosomiasis in clinical trials, and a new Chagas disease vaccine. During the pandemic he co-led the development of a low-cost and patent free Covid vaccine technology that led to the production and delivery of 100 million doses Corbevax and IndoVac in India and Indonesia, respectively. This provided proof-of-concept that it's possible to develop and deliver low-cost vaccines at scale bypassing multinational pharma companies. For this work he was co-nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. In addition, Prof. Hotez leads efforts to combat rising antivaccine activism in his role as both vaccine scientist and parent of an adult daughter with autism, and is recognized as an ardent defender of biomedical science in America. He is the author of five single authored books including Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism and The Deadly of Anti-Science (Johns Hopkins University Press). He is also the author on more than 675 scientific publications indexed on PubMed, and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was recognized by the AMA with their Scientific Achievement Award and the AAAS with their Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award, in addition to recognition by the AAMC, ASTMH, ADL, Holocaust Museum Houston, B'nai B'rith, among others. Prof. Hotez obtained his MD-PhD at Weill Cornell Medical College and Rockefeller University, residency and fellowship training at Mass General Hospital and Yale Univ School of Medicine, and holds honorary doctoral degrees from CUNY, Roanoke College, and Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine of Northwell Health. During the pandemic he appeared regularly on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, PBS NewsHour and other networks communicating to the nation and was recognized for this by the American Medical Writers Association and other organizations