Dr. Vasan advises HJF leadership and staff on medical and scientific work conducted by the foundation, including sponsorship of clinical trials. In addition, as SVP of HJF’s Global Infectious Diseases Portfolio, Dr. Vasan provides key leadership on a wide array of basic and clinical studies including research on vaccines and monoclonal antibodies to prevent and treat HIV, Lassa virus, and other global infectious diseases. She previously spent seven years in Bangkok, Thailand, as the Science Director at the Department of Retrovirology at the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences leading both clinical trials and a preclinical research laboratory.

Dr. Vasan studied mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before completing her M.D. at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard Medical School. After a residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, she worked at the Communicable Disease Centre and National University of Singapore and later conducted research on HIV vaccines, therapies, and adjuvants at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the Rockefeller University in New York, USA.