Dr Quarraisha Abdool Karim is an infectious diseases epidemiologist whose main current research interests are in understanding the evolving HIV epidemic in South Africa; factors influencing acquisition of HIV infection in adolescent girls; and sustainable strategies to introduce HAART in resource-constrained settings. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. She is the Director of the Columbia-University Southern African Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Programme a HIV and TB research capacity building programme. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in Public Health and Family Medicine at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, University of Natal, South Africa. She is an Associate Scientific Director of CAPRISA (Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa) - a large multi-institutional AIDS Research Centre and is co-Chair of the HPTN (HIV Prevention Trials Network) Leadership Group - a NIH funded network for HIV prevention science with US and international sites.

She serves as a temporary consultant to WHO, UNAIDS and UNDP on several HIV/AIDS related expert committees in relation to gender, ethics, vaccines, treatment and research capacity building. As Scientific Director of the South African Medical Research Council HIVNET site she garnered extensive experience in the conduct of HIV prevention trials. She also has extensive policy and programmatic experience that stems from her term as the first National Director of the South African National HIV/AIDS and STD Programme that was established shortly after the first democratic elections. Quarraisha is an Editorial Board member of HIV Clinical Trials and serves as a reviewer for several infectious diseases and social science journals. She has published widely in the field of HIV/AIDS. She has been a member of several international AIDS conference scientific committees and has delivered keynote addresses at several international AIDS conferences.