Rafi Ahmed

Dr. Ahmed is a world-renowned immunologist and distinguished thought leader whose research has significantly shaped the scientific community’s current understanding of immunity in the context of viral infections and cancer. His extensive work on defining T cell exhaustion along with detailing molecular underpinnings of T cell differentiation and effector responses have been seminal in establishing novel areas of research and therapeutic applications. Dr. Ahmed’s laboratory pioneered highly sophisticated and leading-edge cellular and molecular techniques to study antigen-specific responses and immunological memory in murine, primate, and human systems. Dr. Ahmed serves as the Director of the Emory Vaccine Center at Emory University. He is also the co-leader of the Cancer Immunology research program at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University and a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Ahmed is an elected member of the National Academy of Science. He is also recognized as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and a Fellow of the Academy of Immuno-Oncology.