Former U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Ambassador Mark Dybul has joined the Georgetown faculty as a distinguished scholar and co-director at Georgetown's O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

He will also serve as senior adviser to the president.

Dybul, an alumnus of both the College and School of Medicine, will teach, conduct research and write on a full range of global health initiatives at the O'Neill Institute, in addition to coordinating seminars, conferences and lectures for the broader university community in the areas of global health, HIV/AIDS and malaria.

"We are very pleased to welcome Mark Dybul to the Georgetown community and know he will offer a depth of knowledge and expertise in global health to engage these issues even more deeply," Georgetown President John J. DeGioia said. "We look forward to his contribution in facilitating conversations about the most pressing health concerns facing the nation and the world today."

In his role as the U.S. global AIDS coordinator, Dybul led the implementation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). As PEPFAR coordinator, Dybul oversaw all U.S. government engagement in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and served as chair of the group's finance and audit committee.

"I am very excited to be a part of the Georgetown community and look forward to contributing to the university's growing work on global health and international development issues," Dybul said.

The Georgetown alumnus also served as vice-chair and later chair of the Joint United Nations Programme on the HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) coordinating board and served as a President Bush-appointed member of the board of trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Before working in the coordinator's office, Dybul served on the planning task force for PEPFAR and led President Bush's International Prevention of Mother and Child HIV initiative at the Department of Health and Human Services. At HHS, he also served as the assistant director for medical affairs at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health.

Dybul studied philosophy at Georgetown and received his bachelor's in 1985. He went on to receive his medical degree in 1992 from the university before completing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals in 1995 and a fellowship in infectious diseases at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1998. In 2008, Dybul received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Georgetown in recognition of his untiring dedication to discovering a cure for HIV.

"Dybul is one of those rare talents that brings energy and deep imagination to the hardest problems in global health," said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O'Neill Institute. "With him at the university, we can achieve great things for people throughout the world."

-- Blue & Gray Staff Reports

(February 23, 2009)