The experts speak. Public policy issues in HIV/AIDS. Interview by Vicki Glaser.

Abstract

Judy Auerbach is Vice President, Public Policy at the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), where she is responsible for developing, leading, and managing the activities of amfAR’s Public Policy Office in Washington, D.C. These activities include advocating for sound, science-based HIV/AIDS policy and protecting the rights of people infected with HIV and those at risk of infection. Prior to coming to amfAR, Dr. Auerbach served as the Director of the Behavioral and Social Science Program and as the HIV Prevention Science Coordinator in the Office of AIDS Research (OAR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). During 1998, while on a detail from the OAR, Dr. Auerbach served as Assistant Director for Social and Behavioral Sciences in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Prior to going to the NIH, Dr. Auerbach was a Senior Program Office at the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences, where she was Study Director for the Committee on Substance Abuse and Mental Health Issues in AIDS Research. Dr. Auerbach began her policy work in Washington in 1988 as an AAAS Congressional Science Fellow, sponsored by the Society for Research in Child Development, when she worked on child, family, and health policy issues in the office of Representative Pat Schroeder. From 1989 to 1990, she served as Director of the Institute for the Study of Women and Men at the University of Southern California. She then returned to Washington and served as Associate Director for Government Affairs at the Consortium of Social Science Associations. Dr. Auerbach received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1986, and taught sociology at Widener University and the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition to a number of articles and book chapters, she is the author of the book, In the Business of Child Care: Employer Initiatives and Working Women (Praeger, 1988).