Margaret (Peggy) Hamburg
Peggy Hamburg is one of America’s leading experts on public health, and is currently Chair of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She served as the 21st Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration from May 2009 to April 2015. Her public service has also included being Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, then six years as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In 1997, she was appointed Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, until 2001, when she was appointed founding Vice President for Biological Programs and later Senior Scientist for the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a foundation dedicated to reducing the threat to public safety from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. In that role, she spearheaded efforts to prevent, detect, and respond to both naturally occurring and deliberately caused biological threats. She graduated from Harvard in 1977, and from Harvard Medical School in 1983. She serves on a variety of boards, including the GAVI Alliance, Commonwealth Fund, the Simons Foundation, the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, and the Urban Institute, among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards and other recognition, including being named by Forbes as one of the world’s 100 most powerful women multiple times.
