Nina Russell, deputy director, HIV, oversees the foundation’s HIV vaccine strategy and the management of a portfolio of grants supporting HIV vaccine translational and development activities.  She also supports non-vaccine HIV prevention and immunotherapeutic programs in collaboration with other foundation teams in Global Health.

Nina has played a key role in the creation and evolution of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD), a large network of HIV vaccine discovery and development projects, and co-leads, with the NIH, the Pox-Protein Public Private Partnership (P5).

Prior to joining the foundation in 2005, Nina worked in academic research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington. Her early research focused on cellular immunology with an emphasis on the development and validation of immunological assays for human vaccine trials. She subsequently moved into early stage HIV vaccine clinical trials as part of the NIH-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), where she worked closely with numerous partners to advance novel vaccine candidates into clinical testing. 

Nina completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and a clinical and research fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the Montefiore Medical Center – Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She received her M.D. from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.