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MEDIA CENTER Population Council Appoints Naomi Rutenberg NEW YORK, NY (15 March 2007)—The Population Council named Naomi Rutenberg director of its newly created HIV and AIDS program. The program's goal is to slow the spread of the HIV epidemic in developing countries and to enable people to mitigate the impact of HIV on their own health and on the well-being of their families, communities, and societies. Rutenberg joined the Population Council in 1995 and spent her first three years in the organization's Nairobi, Kenya, office as deputy director of the Council's Africa Operations Research and Technical Assistance Project. In 1998, she transferred to Washington, DC, taking the position of research director for the Horizons program, becoming its director in 2005. Implemented by the Population Council and funded by USAID, Horizons conducts global operations research to improve HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, and care programs. Rutenberg received her Ph.D. in sociology and demography from Princeton University and a master's degree from the University of Florida in Latin American Studies. Before joining the Council, she was a senior research scientist at The Futures Group and a demographic specialist at Macro International. Rutenberg has been involved in research on HIV and AIDS and reproductive health for more than 20 years. She has been a principal or co-principal investigator on studies of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, adolescent pregnancy and HIV risk, ways to integrate HIV and reproductive health services, and HIV prevention and care programs for health workers. She is currently collaborating on research examining interventions to meet the reproductive health needs of HIV-positive women, strengthening HIV care for pregnant women, and addressing operational challenges to diagnosing and managing pediatric HIV infection. In addition to her considerable experience in Africa, Rutenberg has worked extensively in Brazil and speaks Portuguese. "Naomi has proven to be a strong leader, a talented fundraiser, and an excellent collaborator," said Population Council president Peter Donaldson. "Her extensive international experience, her knowledge of the HIV and AIDS field, and her passion for our work make her an ideal leader for our HIV and AIDS program." Some of the activities included in the Population Council's HIV and AIDS program are basic research in immunology; the development and introduction of effective microbicides; social science and public health research to better understand the social, behavioral, and biomedical aspects of HIV and AIDS; the formulation of evidence-based policies; and the development, evaluation, and scale-up of effective service-delivery models. Rutenberg's appointment is the third and final program directorship resulting from the Population Council's substantive strategic planning initiative. Last year the Council announced the appointments of Wendy Baldwin to lead the Poverty, Gender, and Youth program, and John Townsend to head the Reproductive Health program. The new organizational structure is designed to encourage innovation and cross-discipline collaboration among the Council's biomedical and social scientists. About the Population Council ### Media contacts See Also
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