Dr. Sandhya Vasan leads global infectious diseases research for HJF and is the Principal Investigator representing HJF for the Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) and Emerging Infectious Diseases Branch at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). In addition to overseeing HJF components of the agreement, she provides key leadership for a wide array of basic and clinical studies. 

In previous roles, Dr. Vasan served as MHRP’s Associate Director for HIV Vaccine Research and as Science Director and head of the Nonhuman Primate Laboratory at AFRIMS in Bangkok . Here she conducted preventive vaccine trials in follow-up to the RV144 HIV vaccine clinical trial. She also developed animal models to understand the mechanism of action of these vaccines and pursue novel HIV prevention strategies. She worked previously as a Henry Luce Foundation Fellow at the Communicable Disease Centre in Singapore, where she studied patterns of tuberculosis and HIV co-infection and worked with the National University of Singapore to conduct public health surveillance studies in rural Indonesia. 

Dr. Vasan obtained her undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at MIT before completing her M.D. at Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.