Dr. Hamburg is an internationally recognized leader in public health and medicine. She is the former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), having recently stepped down from that role after almost six years of service. At FDA, she provided leadership on many groundbreaking activities, including implementation of new authorities to regulate tobacco products, new legislation designed to transform the U.S. food safety system, modernization of systems for evaluation and approval of medical products, and enhanced global engagement of the agency. Before this, Dr. Hamburg was founding vice president and senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a foundation dedicated to reducing nuclear, chemical and biological threats. Previously, she was Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the chief policy role in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She has also served as Health Commissioner for New York City and Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hamburg is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School and completed her medical residency at Cornell Medical Center. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American College of Physicians, and has been elected to membership in the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Academy of Medicine,. Dr. Hamburg currently sits on the Boards of the Commonwealth Fund, the Simons Foundation, the Urban Institute, and the American Museum of Natural History. She serves in a range of advisory roles, including as a member of the Harvard University Global Advisory Council, the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, and the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Gates Foundation. Dr. Hamburg has received numerous awards and honorary degrees.