Women’s History Month
The 2022 Women's History theme, “Providing Healing, Promoting Hope,” is both a tribute to the ceaseless work of caregivers and frontline workers during this ongoing pandemic and also a recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history.
Kizzmekia S. Corbett, Ph.D.
Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett is a research fellow and the scientific lead for the Coronavirus Vaccines & Immunopathogenesis Team at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Vaccine Research Center (VRC). She received a B.S. in Biological Sciences, with a secondary major in Sociology, in 2008 from the University of Maryland–Baltimore County, where she was a Meyerhoff Scholar and an NIH undergraduate scholar. She then enrolled at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology in 2014.
Her work focuses on developing novel coronavirus vaccines, including mRNA-1273, a leading candidate vaccine against the virus that causes COVID-19. In response to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccine concept incorporated in mRNA-1273 was designed by Corbett’s team from viral sequence data and rapidly deployed to industry partner, Moderna, Inc., for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved Phase 1 clinical trial, which unprecedently began only 66 days from the viral sequence release. Following promising results in animal models and humans, mRNA-1273 is currently in Phase 3 clinical trial.
Dr. Kavita Patel
Kavita Patel is a former nonresident fellow and managing director of clinical transformation at the Center for Health Policy at Brookings. Dr. Patel is an advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Center and a member of Health and Human Services Physician Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee. She is also a primary care physician in Washington, DC.
She served in the Obama Administration as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in the White House. As a senior aide to Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s senior advisor, Dr. Patel played a critical role in policy development and evaluation of policy initiatives connected to health reform, financial regulatory reform, and economic recovery issues.
Nurse Sandra Lindsay
In December 2020, nurse Sandra Lindsay sat down in a slate blue chair at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, rolled up her white sleeve and made history. Lindsay arrived at work that Monday knowing she would be among the first people in her hospital – and the United States – to get vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus. But she had no idea she would be the first, outside of clinical trials.
Since then, she has appeared on national television to advocate for vaccination, been celebrated in a ticker-tape parade for health care workers, and was recognized for her courage by President Joe Biden during a ceremony at the White House. The scrubs she wore were donated to the National Museum of American History as part of the collection that will record this chapter of life in the U.S. “I can’t even wrap my head around that,” Lindsay told the PBS NewsHour.