The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller ("Senior") and son "Junior", and their primary business advisor, Frederick Taylor Gates, on May 14, 1913, when its charter was granted by New York. It is the second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America and ranks as the 30th largest foundation globally by endowment, with assets of over $6.3 billion in 2022. According to the OECD, the foundation provided $284 million for development in 2021. The foundation has given more than $14 billion in current dollars.
In 1945 Albert Lasker and Mary Woodard Lasker created the Lasker Awards. Every year since then the award has been given to the living person considered to have made the greatest contribution to medical science or who has demonstrated public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation. The Lasker is sometimes referred to as "America's Nobels".
Arthur Michael Kleinman is an American psychiatrist, social anthropologist and a professor of medical anthropology, psychiatry and global health and social medicine at Harvard University.
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is the public health graduate school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. As the second independent, degree-granting institution for research in epidemiology and training in public health, and the largest public health training facility in the United States.
Elias Zerhouni is an Algerian-born American scientist, radiologist and biomedical engineer.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian economist, who has been serving as the Director-General of the World Trade Organization since March 2021. She is the first woman and first African to lead the World Trade Organization as Director-General.
Indra Nooyi is an Indian-born American business executive who was the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018.
Wilbur George Downs, was a naturalist, virologist and clinical professor of epidemiology and public health at the Yale School of Medicine and the Yale School of Public Health.
John Edward Fogarty was a Congressman from Rhode Island for 26 years. He was a member of the Democratic Party. John Edward Fogarty was influential in passing numerous legislations and acts. For his service he received awards and honors.
The John E. Fogarty International Center was founded in 1968 by US President Lyndon Johnson at the National Institutes of Health to support international medical and behavioral research and to train international researchers.
Kerri-Ann Jones was vice president of research and science at The Pew Charitable Trusts. She is the former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the U.S. State Department. Nominated by President Barack Obama in June 2009, she was sworn in on August 20 of that year.
Salim S. Abdool Karim, MBChB, MMed, MS(Epi), FFPHM, FFPath (Virol), DipData, PhD, DSc(hc), FRS is a South African public health physician, epidemiologist and virologist who has played a leading role in the AIDS and COVID-19 pandemic. His scientific contributions have impacted the landscape of HIV prevention and treatment, saving thousands of lives.
Vikram Harshad Patel FMedSci is an Indian psychiatrist and researcher best known for his work on child development and mental disability in low-resource settings. He is the Co-Founder and former Director of the Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Co-Director of the Centre for Control of Chronic Conditions at the Public Health Foundation of India, and the Co-Founder of Sangath, an Indian NGO dedicated to research in the areas of child development, adolescent health and mental health. Since 2024, he has been the Paul Farmer Professor and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, where he was previously the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship in 2015. In April 2015, he was listed as one of the world's 100 most influential people by TIME magazine.
The Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health at the Oxford Martin School was established on 1 June 2017 to further define the new discipline of planetary health. Its mandate is to explore the economic link between human health and the earth’s natural systems on which health depends. By the end of 2019, it must recommend actionable public policy on this link.
Lewis Ryers Thompson was an American physician who served as Assistant Surgeon General of the United States and as Director of the National Institutes of Health.
Roger I. Glass is an American physician-scientist who served as the Director of the John E. Fogarty International Center.
Richard Michael Krause was an American physician, microbiologist, and immunologist. He was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1975 to 1984. Krause later served as the dean of medicine at Emory University before returning to National Institutes of Health as a senior scientific advisor at the John E. Fogarty International Center. Krause was formerly a longtime professor at Rockefeller University.
Margaret G. Arnstein was an American health expert who focused her efforts in nursing and public health. Throughout her life Arnstein worked for the United States public health sector and several American colleges, eventually becoming dean of the Yale School of Nursing in 1967. Arnstein also published multiple academic papers discussing nursing practices within the U.S health system of the time. Arnstein also participated in Congress discussions in relation to provisions given to the health sector by the state through the Second Supplemental Appropriation Bill of 1957. In her later career Margaret earned the nickname of “Peg” by her peers.
Fred Nalugoda is a public health researcher studying HIV/AIDS in rural Uganda for over 20 years, mainly through surveillance and field work. He currently serves as the Program Director of a research station in Kalisizo in Uganda as part of his continued work at the Rakai Health Sciences Program (RHSP).
Donna Spiegelman is a biostatistician and epidemiologist who works at the interface between the two fields as a methodologist, applying statistical solutions to address potential biases in epidemiologic studies.
