◆

Hugo van Vurren was educated in the liberal arts at the Harvard Graduate
School of Design, the School of Engineering & Applied Sciences,
* Program *
and Harvard College (Economics). He obtained his education in the illiberal
arts at Artscience Labs, Le Laboratoire in Paris, The Lab @ Harvard, ◆
and YCombinator.
Guests Please Proceed to the Buffet for Dinner
Hugo is currently a graduate student at the GSD and student fellow at The
Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Previously awarded fellowships ◆
at TED and Poptech.
Performance by The Kuumba Singers of Harvard College
Hugo is a passionate bridge-builder, citizen of the Commonwealth, and
multi-fielder at Harvard. Hugo is currently working with Artscience ◆
ideas, Dirt Power, and sharing lessons from Africa at Design With
Africa with ...XYZ Design and TEDxStellenbosch. Opening Remarks and Introductions by Hugo van Vurren

Speech by Dr. Vanessa Kerry

...Special Thanks to: Video: Family Treatment Fund

◆ Harvard Foundation ◆ Committee on African Studies ◆ ◆
◆Undergraduate Council ◆ IOP ◆
◆ Harvard Book Store ◆ Uppercrust ◆ Burdick ◆ Keynote Address: Prof. Max Essex
◆ Kuumba Singers ◆ KeyChange ◆
◆

Performance by Harvard College

KeyChange
The Harvard African Students Association
presents
◆

Dinner For HIV/AIDS Treatment Access Silent Auction

in Africa
Speaker Biographies
◆

M. Essex, DVM, PhD, is Lasker Professor of Health Sciences at Harvard University,

Chair of the Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative (HAI), and Chair of
the Botswana–Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership (BHP) in Gaborone,
Botswana. He was one of the first to link animal and human retroviruses to
immunosuppressive disease, to suspect that a retrovirus was the cause of
AIDS, and to determine that HIV could be transmitted through blood and
Proceeds of this benefit dinner will support the
Family Treatment Fund,toanHIV
organization that provides antiretroviral blood products to hemophiliacs and recipients of blood transfusions. With
treatment positive people in Uganda
collaborators he also provided the first evidence that HIV could be
transmitted by heterosexual intercourse.
In 1984, Dr. Essex and his student Tun-Hou Lee identified gp120, the virus
surface protein that is used worldwide for blood screening, AIDS diagnosis,
and epidemiological monitoring. With collaborators, he discovered the first
simian immunodeficiency virus, as well as HIV-2. Since 1986, he has
developed programs for AIDS collaboration in Senegal, Thailand, Botswana,
India, Mexico, and China. In 1996, he helped establish the BHP, a
collaboration between the Ministry of Health in Botswana and HAI.
Dr. Essex is a member of the Institute of Medicine, holds nine honorary
doctorates, and has received numerous awards, including the Lasker Award,
the highest medical research award given in the United States, jointly with
Gallo and Montagnier in 1986. He has published over 500 papers and 10
books, including AIDS in Africa and his latest, Saturday Is for Funerals.

Vanessa Bradford Kerry, MD MSc. is a graduate of Harvard Medical School, and the
London Schools of Economics and Hygiene & Tropical Medicine where she
earned her Masters. She has dedicated her career to the analysis and
improvement of global health delivery and policy, specifically focusing on the
intersection of political process and global health. As a medical student she
began her work at the Vaccine Fund and Partners in Health which culminated
in her Master's thesis on the collaboration between the United States and
Rwandan governments for the procurement of HIV drugs.

As the Associated Director of Education and External Affairs at the

Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health, she focuses on
developing global health education, research, and capacity-building
opportunities at MGH and in their partner countries.

As the Director of Policy in the Department of Global Health and Social

Medicine at Harvard Medical School, she studies the underutilization
of healthcare as a tool to address economic, social, and cultural disparities
that define poor health domestically and internationally.