Orin Levine

Washington Research Foundation (WRF) has appointed Dr. Orin S. Levine as its new President and CEO. Dr. Levine is an internationally recognized leader in public health and innovation who has been tapped to join WRF on October 6 following the retirement of current President and CEO Dr. Tom Daniel.

Dr. Levine brings more than two decades of experience in bridging science, policy and philanthropy to his leadership of WRF, which has a mission to improve the lives of people in Washington state and beyond through its grants and investments in local life sciences research and commercialization efforts. WRF awarded nearly $16 million in grants to nonprofit research institutions in Washington state during its most recent fiscal year, and has provided more than $182 million in total grants since its founding in 1981.

Dr. Levine’s career includes roles in philanthropy, academia and government. In his most recent full-time role, Dr. Levine served as a senior leader at the Gates Foundation—first as Director of Vaccine Delivery, then as Senior Director of the Global Delivery Program—overseeing global immunization and primary healthcare initiatives. He represented the Gates Foundation for nine years on the Board of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) initiative. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and the Board of Trustees for the Sabin Vaccine Institute.

Dr. Levine’s career began in 1994 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and then as a staff epidemiologist in the Respiratory Diseases Branch, after graduating with a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University.

Following five years of CDC service, Dr. Levine joined the National Institutes of Health as an epidemiologist, working on pneumococcal vaccines in the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In 2002, he joined the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he cofounded the International Vaccine Access Center with Professor Katherine O’Brien, M.D., dedicated to accelerating vaccine access for children in low-income countries. The program secured more than $100 million in grants from the Gates Foundation and Gavi under their leadership. He left the university as a full tenured Professor in 2012.

Dr. Levine has held a number of other leadership roles including presiding over the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene’s Committee on Global Health and leading one of the key committees of the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration.