Dr. Mamadi Yilla

The 2025 Fireside Chat Keynote Speaker is Dr. Mamadi Yilla who joins us today in her personal capacity.  Dr. Yilla has had over twenty years of public service in global health.  Like several students here from the diaspora, she came to the United States to pursue higher education, entering the State University of New York at Buffalo where she received her bachelor’s and PhD degrees.  In 1992, she would join the lab of Hidde Ploegh, then a Professor of Biology at MIT’s then Center for Cancer Research for the next 5 years for her post doctorate training.  In 1997, she joined the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta Georgia as a research fellow in immunology, working to improve diagnostic tools for vaccine-preventable childhood diseases including measles. In 2006 she would lay down her pipette and join the United States government Mission in Lilongwe, Malawi where for the next five years, she would help establish the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR program in the country.  In 2011 she would begin a tenure at the U.S. State Department mastering the tradecraft of Health Diplomacy and contributing to ending the AIDS epidemic, strengthening global health security, combating infectious disease threats, and addressing priority global health challenges, applying an ethos of good strategy, good politics and good relationships in the health sector and beyond.  

She has been the recipient of numerous performance awards over the past twenty years for exceptional service including for developing a pioneering partnership framework negotiated with the Government of Malawi, a country she has had the privilege of working directly with over the past 18 years.