2008 Career Contribution Award: Judith Auerbach

We are honored to recognize Dr. Judith Auerbach as the 2008 winner of the Award for Career Contributions to the Sociology of HIV/AIDS. Dr. Auerbach currently serves as Deputy Executive Director for Science and Public Policy at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF), where she is responsible for developing, leading, and managing SFAF’s local, state, national, and international policy agenda.

Dr. Auerbach received her Ph.D. in Sociology in 1986 from the University of California, Berkeley. She has taught at sociology at Widener University and the University of California, Los Angeles and published and presented in the fields of AIDS, health research and science policy, and family policy and gender. For the last two decades, Dr. Auerbach has been devoted to working on health policy issues, occupying various positions including: Congressional Policy Fellow in the office of Representative Pat Schroeder in Washington (1988), Director of the Institute for the Study of Women and Men at the University of Southern California (1989-1990), Associate Director for Government Affairs at the Consortium of Social Science Associations, Assistant Director for Social and Behavioral Sciences in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1998), and Senior Program Officer at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, where she served as Study Director for the Committee on Substance Abuse and Mental Health Issues in AIDS Research. In addition, Dr. Auerbach joined The Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR) in 2003, serving as Vice President, Public Policy and Program Development after serving from 1995-2003 as Director of the Behavioral and Social Science Program and HIV Prevention Science Coordinator in the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Auerbach’s work in the sociology of HIV/AIDS has often focused on women and girls and she received the 2004 Feminist Activist Award from Sociologists for Women in Society in recognition of this work. We at SAN are pleased to congratulate Dr. Auerbach on her important accomplishments and contributions to the study of HIV/AIDS.