People in the News

Roger Detels, a giant in the field of public health, passes

Roger Detels, MD, distinguished professor of epidemiology in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, passed away on July 25. Detels conducted research on air pollution, neurologic diseases, hypertension, and several infectious diseases, though he’s best known for his research on HIV/AIDS. In 1981, he initiated a natural history study of AIDS in young homosexual men in Los Angeles and shortly after became the principal investigator of the Los Angeles Center for the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS), which has followed 6,972 gay and bisexual men since its start, making it one of the largest natural history studies of HIV/AIDS in the world. His landmark study showed that some men were resistant to HIV infection. In 1988, Detels founded the UCLA/Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program, through which more than 100 public health leaders from countries including Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, India, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Hungary, and Brazil, received master’s or doctoral degrees from Fielding School, and many more benefited from short-term training over the years.

Fogarty taps Greenwood for chief grants management spot

Lennin Greenwood, MBA, joined Fogarty in late June as Chief Grants Management Officer (CGMO). In this role, she will provide leadership and oversight for grants management activities, supporting Fogarty’s global health research portfolio and ensuring effective stewardship of federal funds and compliance with all relevant policies and regulations. Greenwood brings more than 18 years of experience in federal grants management and supervisory leadership within NIH. She successfully led a team of senior grants management specialists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse and served as lead Grants Management Officer for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study.

NIH selects Casey to lead new office for reducing use of animals in research

Warren Casey, PhD, is the inaugural Director of the new Office of Research Innovation, Validation, and Application (ORIVA) in the NIH Office of the Director. Under Casey’s leadership, ORIVA will coordinate NIH-wide efforts to develop, validate, and scale human-based science and technology, including 3D human tissue models, computational tools, and other animal-free methods that can better reflect human biology. He will also oversee ORIVA’s work as a hub for interagency coordination and regulatory translation. Prior to this appointment, Casey served as acting Chief of the Biomolecular Screening and Predictive Toxicology Branches and managed collaborative programs at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

European partnership highlights Fogarty Grantees Mmbaga, Nachega

Ten researchers supported by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) are highlighted in a recent article for their work in sub-Saharan Africa. Two are long-time Fogarty grantees.

Blandina Mmbaga, MD, PhD, is Director of the Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute (KCRI) in Tanzania; under her leadership, KCRI has become an important hub for research of tuberculosis, HIV, malaria and other infectious diseases. She also serves as Deputy Coordinator of the Eastern Africa Consortium for Clinical Research (EACCR) Network of Excellence and has overseen clinical study sites and mentored Master's and PhD students across East Africa. Mmbaga serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Global Health at Duke University.

Fogarty Awardee Kiyonga becomes Uganda’s Second Deputy Prime Minister

Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has appointed Crispus Kiyonga, MD, as his Second Deputy Prime Minister. Kiyonga began his political career in 1980 as a Member of Parliament, and has since served in several cabinet positions, including Minister of Finance (1986–1992), Minister of Internal Affairs (1994–1996), Minister of Health (1996–2001), Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the President (2005–2006), and Minister of Defense (2006–2016). He also held the position of Uganda’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, and, in 2024, he was appointed Chancellor of Makerere University. He obtained a Master of Health Science in Population Dynamics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2004 through a scholarship funded by Fogarty.