Max Essex, DVM, PhD, is the founding Chair of the Botswana Harvard Health Partnership (BHP) and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH), formerly Harvard AIDS Initiative (HAI). Professor Essex,aLasker Professor of Health Sciences, retired as Chair of both BHP and HSPH in 2018. He was one of the first to link animal and human retroviruses to immunosuppressive disease, sharing the Lasker Award with Gallo and Montagnier in 1986 for this research. With his student T. H. Lee, he was also the first to identify gp120, the surface protein of HIV-1 that is used for blood screening and diagnosis of AIDS. He has published over 650 papers and 12 books. His research includes comprehensive “test-and-treat” approaches to controlling the HIV epidemic, molecular epidemiology, the role of host genetic factors, and chemoprophylaxis.