January 17, 2012
Beyrer to receive honorary doctorate in Thailand
Chris Beyrer, director of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Johns Hopkins University Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program, will receive an honorary doctorate in health science this week from Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand. The award will be given by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn during the Jan. 19 commencement ceremonies.
Beyrer, a professor with joint appointments in the Bloomberg School’s departments of Epidemiology, International Health, and Health, Behavior and Society, has extensive experience in international collaborative research and training programs in HIV/AIDS, infectious disease epidemiology, HIV and STI prevention research, HIV vaccine preparedness and human rights.
He co-chairs the Injecting Drug Use Working Group of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
As director of the Johns Hopkins University Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program, Beyrer has provided fellowships for more than 1,400 international scholars in HIV/AIDS prevention, research and treatment.
He also served from 1992 through 1997 as field director for the Thai PAVE and HIVNET studies, which were based in the Chiang Mai province, and has focused much of his research on the epidemiology of HIV in Thailand and Southeast Asia. He is the author of the 1998 book War in the Blood: Sex Politics and AIDS in Southeast Asia and is currently conducting projects in Thailand, China, Burma, Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Beyrer serves as an adviser to numerous organizations, including the Public Health Program of the Open Society Institute, the Institute for Asian Democracy, the Asia Society’s Social Issues Program and the HIV Vaccine and Prevention Trials Networks. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank Institute, the World Bank Thailand Office, the Office for AIDS Research at NIH, the Levi Strauss Foundation, the U.S. Military HIV Research Program, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, the Royal Thai Army and numerous other organizations.