Global Health Studies Speaker Series | Dr. Seth Berkley

The Global Health Studies Program will present its Spring 2021 Global Health Speaker Series. The series—organized by Jackson Professor Catherine Panter-Brick and Jackson lecturer Cara Fallon—examines transformative relationships between health and a range of fields including public policy, law, technology, international relations, scientific research, economy, journalism, and more.

Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI Vaccine Alliance, will present "Vaccinating the world through Covax—why it's good for public health and global security.”

A medical doctor and infectious disease epidemiologist, Dr Seth Berkley joined Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance as its CEO in August 2011, spearheading its mission to protect the world’s poorest children by improving access to new and underused vaccines. Dr. Berkley is co-leading the Vaccines Pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, working to develop and distribute a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine globally.

Prior to Gavi, in 1996, Dr Berkley founded the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the first vaccine product development public-private sector partnership, where he served as president and CEO for 15 years. Under his leadership, IAVI created a virtual vaccine product development effort involving scientists from low-income countries, industry and academia – developing and testing HIV vaccines around the world.

Previously, Dr. Berkley served as an officer of the Health Sciences Division at The Rockefeller Foundation. He has worked for the Center for Infectious Diseases of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the Massachusetts Department of Public Health; and the Carter Center, where he was assigned as an epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health in Uganda.

The Zoom webinar will include introductory remarks by Professor Panter-Brick (Professor of Anthropology, Health, and Global Affairs) and Professor Robert Hecht (Professor of Clinical Epidemiology), a brief presentation by Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance on global vaccine distribution, followed by audience Q&A moderated by Jackson lecturer Cara Fallon.