Polly Harrison

Director

pharrison@microbicide.org

Dr. Polly Harrison is founder and Director of the Alliance for Microbicide Development. Dr. Harrison was Senior Program Officer and Director of International Health at the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, where she founded the Forum on HIV/AIDS Research and Forum on Emerging Infections, and led major studies on critical aspects of international health, infectious disease, reproductive health, and public-/private-sector responses to global health challenges. Prior to that, she spent two decades living and working in the developing world as a medical anthropologist, policy analyst, faculty member of the Development Studies Program, and Regional Social Science Advisor for USAID. She has since sustained those commitments as a Governing Councilor of the American Public Health Association, Fellow of the American Anthropological Association, Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies, member of the Board of the BioDesign Institute and the Scientific Advisory Group of the CONRAD Program, and ad hoc membership on numerous advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health. Her undergraduate and graduate degrees are from Mount Holyoke College and the Catholic University of America, respectively. In 2004, Dr. Harrison was selected by Scientific American as a Policy Leader within the "Scientific American 50", the magazine's prestigious annual list recognizing outstanding leadership in science and technology for that year and in April 2006 received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the "Microbicides 2006" biennial global conference. Dr. Harrison's interest and passion in microbicides is fueled by the need for a female-initiated prevention method, and its embedded relationship with women's empowerment and equality in their bedrooms and lives.