# PEPFAR Leadership - United States Department of State

- Emily Kainne Dokubo Dr. Emily Kainne Dokubo serves as Deputy U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator for Program Quality for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). She directs the Office of Program Quality in the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy at U.S. Department of State, which provides technical expertise for the implementation of PEPFAR-supported HIV prevention and treatment programs to achieve the 95-95-95 targets, reduce new HIV infections, and end AIDS as a public health threat.A Captain (O-6) in the U.S. Public Health Service, Dr. Dokubo previously served as U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director in Cameroon and in the Caribbean Regional Office, and as CDC’s Deputy Director for Programs in Liberia. In these roles, she led U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)/CDC’s strategic support to host governments and advanced U.S. Government’s mission to strengthen health systems and improve health outcomes globally. Working in close collaboration with host governments and partners to advance global health programs and policies, she directed CDC&#8217;s implementation of PEPFAR and support to partner countries to control the HIV pandemic, and oversaw the implementation of Global Health Security activities to build resilient health systems with strengthened capacity to prevent, detect and effectively respond to health threats.Dr. Dokubo began her career at CDC in 2011 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer in the Center for Global Health. As a medical officer in the Division of Global HIV and TB, she served as a subject matter expert for the implementation and scale-up of HIV and Tuberculosis activities to reduce morbidity and mortality in high-burden countries. With expertise in disease outbreak response, she led CDC’s COVID-19 preparedness and response efforts in Cameroon, served as CDC’s response lead in Liberia during the 2014 – 2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and deployed in leadership roles for Ebola outbreaks in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Dokubo received her medical degree from Emory University School of Medicine and MPH in International Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed residency trainings and a postdoctoral fellowship in HIV prevention at University of California – San Francisco, and is a double board-certified physician in Internal Medicine and in Preventive Medicine &amp; Public Health.						Tags																													PEPFAR Leadership																																														State Department Official
- John N. Nkengasong John N. Nkengasong was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator May 5, 2022 and officially sworn in on June 13, 2022. A little over a year later, Ambassador Nkengasong joined U.S. Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken to launch State Department’s Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy (GHSD) August 1, 2023, which he leads as the Senior Bureau Official for Global Health Security and Diplomacy. GHSD serves as the Department’s coordinating body for work on strengthening global health security to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS; as well as elevates and integrates global health security as a core component of U.S. national security and foreign policy. As its Senior Bureau Official, Ambassador Nkengasong leads U.S. diplomatic engagement; leverages and helps coordinate U.S. foreign assistance; and promotes international cooperation at the national, regional, and multilateral levels to better protect the United States and the world from health threats. GHSD is now home to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Led by Ambassador Nkengasong, PEPFAR is the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history, prevent millions of HIV infections, save lives, and make progress toward ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a global health threat. In 2017, Ambassador Nkengasong was appointed as the first Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Through his leadership, a framework for moving Africa CDC into a full autonomous health agency of the African Union was established. Ambassador Nkengasong led efforts to create policy frameworks to guide countries to establish and strengthen their public health institutes and defined and implemented a system to collate national surveillance data. He also led the COVID-19 response in Africa, coordinating with heads of state and governments across the continent. Among other achievements during the COVID-19 pandemic, he helped secure 400 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines at the height of vaccine scarcity. During his tenure, he was appointed as one of the World Health Organization’s special envoys on COVID-19 preparedness and response.Ambassador Nkengasong served as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Global HIV and Tuberculosis’ International Laboratory Branch Chief and as the Associate Director for Laboratory Science.  Subsequently, he served as Acting Deputy Director at the CDC Center for Global Health and Co-Chair of the PEPFAR Laboratory Technical Working Group.  As a leading virologist with over 30 years of experience in public health, Ambassador Nkengasong was appointed as a board member for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative in New York, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, in Norway. He received his B.Sc. from the Faculty of Science, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon; his M.Sc. from the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium; and his Ph.D. from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Brussels, Belgium. He also received a Diploma in Leadership and Management from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Ambassador Nkengasong is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and recognitions. Most recently, he served as one of the World Health Organization Director General’s Special Envoys for COVID-19. In 2021, Ambassador Nkengasong was recognized as Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, where he was described as “a modern-day hero.” Additional awards include the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Award for excellence in Public Health Protection Research, the Shepard Award, the U.S. Director’s Recognitions Award and the William Watson Medal of Excellence, the highest recognition awarded by CDC; which he received for outstanding contributions and leadership in advancing global laboratory services and programs to support PEPFAR. Most recently, Ambassador Nkengasong was invited to become a member of the National Academy of Medicine; he was also honored as the first-ever laureate of the Virchow Prize for Global Health, for his dedication to improving the health and wellbeing of the world’s most vulnerable people; and received the African of the Year Award from All Africa Business Leaders Award in partnership with CNBC Africa and Forbes Africa. Ambassador Nkengasong remains committed to advancing public health research and dialogue and has authored or co-authored over 250 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters in professional journals. 						Tags																					Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy																																PEPFAR Leadership																																														State Department Official																															The United States President&#8217;s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
- Michael Ruffner Michael Ruffner is the Deputy Coordinator for Financial and Programmatic Sustainability in the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (S/GAC) at the U.S. Department of State. He is working to better integrate and improve the effectiveness of existing funding for HIV, while working with countries to improve their ability to operate and finance their HIV response independently.  He is leading the new PEPFAR effort to engage partner country Finance Ministries in the fight against HIV and in the investment into resilient and financially secure health systems. He currently is S/GAC chair for the Kenya and Lesotho programs.  In addition to his functional and programmatic responsibilities, Michael is the chair of the Board of Directors’ Audit and Finance Committee of the Global Fund for the Fight against AIDS, TB and Malaria.Michael joined S/GAC on detail from the US Department of the Treasury in 2015.  After returning to Treasury in October 2016, Michael joined S/GAC and the Department of State full-time.  Immediately before his appointment to the PEPFAR program, he was the Director of Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance for ten years, where he led a team of over 200 advisors providing capacity building to Finance Ministries, Central Banks, Revenue authorities, and related entities. He also launched the Treasury technical assistance effort to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico during the 2016 bankruptcy and was involved in several special initiatives, including the Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative.Michael has held positions at the OECD Paris, the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, the U.S. Senate Budget Committee and was a Presidential Management Intern at the Office of Management and Budget.  Michael, a native of Michigan, has an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and a graduate degree in Public Policy from the University of Michigan.						Tags																													PEPFAR Leadership																																														State Department Official