Ruanne Barnabas, MBChB, MSc, DPhil

Dr. Ruanne Barnabas is a South African physician-scientist and the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).  Over the last 15 years, her research has focused on interventions for HIV and STD treatment and prevention. She is particularly interested in novel approaches that increase access to services. She led the Delivery Optimization for Antiretroviral therapy (DO ART) Study that evaluated the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of decentralized, community-based ART initiation. She also leads work assessing strategies to increase access, including lottery incentives and home delivery. She is the Principal Investigator of the KEN SHE Study to assess the impact of single-dose human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in Kenya. Recently, her work has extended to COVID-19 prevention within households. Her work aims to identify effective and scalable HIV, HPV, and infectious disease treatment and prevention strategies to increase access across diverse communities and promote equity in health. In addition, she serves as an advisor to the World Health Organization and UNAIDS. She was honored as a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 2020. 
Dr. Barnabas graduated from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where she received her medical degree. She received her research doctorate in medicine and clinical epidemiology from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.