A global authority on pediatric HIV/AIDS, Charles “Chip” Lyons ’79 has dedicated his career to eliminating this disease. Currently the president and chief executive officer of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), Lyons leads a global team of thousands who support more than 5,000 health sites and impact more than 1.6 million people. Since taking the helm at EGPAF, Lyons has overseen a 50 percent decline globally in new infections in children. Due to this success rate, EGPAF and Lyons were recently asked to collaborate with the World Health Organization to develop and co-chair the Rome Action Plan, a project to accelerate the availability of efficient testing and accessible treatment for pediatric HIV/AIDS worldwide. The project’s stakeholders include the Vatican, regulatory agencies, and the pharmaceutical and diagnostic private sectors.
Before his work at EGPAF, Lyons spent 25 years with UNICEF, beginning as a programme officer in Mozambique and rising to president and CEO of the organization from 1996 through 2007. In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed him to serve on the UNICEF executive board, where he led the U.S. delegation 2015–16. As a recognized public health expert, Lyons’s expertise is frequently sought by President Joe Biden’s administration, Democratic and Republican members of Congress, media outlets, and policy organizations such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Council on Foreign Affairs. He has also served as senior director of special initiatives with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and as executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund.
A political science/international relations major at Carleton, Lyons also holds a master’s degree from the New School for Social Research. He and his wife, Claire Gerhard ’82, live in Brandywine, Maryland, and are the parents of two Carleton graduates, Dana ’13 and Ingrid ’15.