Congratulations to William G. Powderly, MD, FIDSA, who was honored by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) with a discretionary award given in recognition of his leadership in HIV care and research along with his exemplary contributions to IDSA and the HIV Medical Association. The Society Citation Award was presented today, October 17, at IDWeek 2024.
Dr. Powderly was one of the first generation of infectious diseases physicians to embrace the care of people with HIV and was the founding chair of the HIV Medicine Association, and subsequently the president of IDSA.
Dr. Powderly is the Dr. J. William Campbell Professor of Medicine and the Larry J. Shapiro Director of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is also associate dean for clinical and translational science and director of the Institute of Clinical and Translational Science there, and co-director of the Division of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Powderly also previously served as dean of medicine and head of the School of Medicine at University College Dublin in Ireland. Dr. Powderly is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, the Royal College of Physicians (London) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
For more than 30 years, Dr. Powderly has conducted HIV-related clinical research, much of it funded by NIH. His research has focused on opportunistic infections (especially fungal infections), metabolic complications and long-term outcomes of antiretroviral therapy. Dr. Powderly is the author of more than 500 articles, reviews and book chapters. He has been a member of many advisory groups on HIV and infectious diseases for NIH, CDC, the Canadian Institute for Health Research and the European Medicines Agency. As director of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University, Dr. Powderly has led the Institute to focus on implementation science, community partnerships, economic and policy research, and global health to broaden the impact of discovery science and to address disparities in health outcomes. More recently, he oversaw Washington University’s clinical and translational research response to SARS-CoV-2 and was lead principal investigator for NIH’s ACTIV trials of immunomodulators in the treatment of severe COVID-19.
Dr. Powderly chaired IDSA’s HIV Committee and led its transition to the HIV Medicine Association, serving as the inaugural chair of HIVMA. He was president of IDSA and a member of the Board of Directors and the Fellowship Program Directors Committee. During his presidency, Dr. Powderly implemented changes to diversify the leadership of the organization. As a result, IDSA’s leaders now more closely reflect the Society’s membership.
