Wafaa El-Sadr is Executive Vice President of Columbia Global and an expert in global health and infectious diseases with longstanding experience supporting major health challenges around the world. El-Sadr has focused her career on advancing public health knowledge and putting that knowledge into action, establishing collaborative partnerships around the world to strengthen health systems, and engaging with communities to meet health threats and improve health outcomes.

El-Sadr has led large-scale, innovative projects that have had decisive impacts on such pressing global health challenges as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, antimicrobial resistance, emerging pathogens, non-communicable diseases including cancer, and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. El-Sadr received her medical degree from Cairo University in Egypt, a master’s in public health from Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and a master’s in public administration from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. She is a MacArthur fellowship recipient, as well as a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the Council on Foreign Relations, the African Academy of Sciences, and the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health. She has had a distinguished research career with more than 500 publications to date in peer-reviewed publications.