Sevgi O. Aral

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA USA

Dr. Sevgi Aral became the Associate Director for Science in the Division of STD Prevention at the CDC in 1993. She also has served as a professor of sociology in the United States and Turkey.  She currently serves as a clinical professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and has adjunct professorial appointments at Emory University and University of Manitoba. Dr. Aral has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals including Sexually Transmitted Diseases, AIDS Education and Prevention, Sexually Transmitted Infections, American Journal of Public Health, and AIDS. She is currently the Associate Editor of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Sexually Transmitted Infections. Dr. Aral has served at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union (EU), the World Bank, and the Canadian National Collaborating Center for Infectious Diseases (NCCID). She has been a member of several study sections for the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Dr. Aral has also worked as a consultant for the WHO, the EU, and the World Bank on numerous occasions in many countries.

Dr. Aral has over 200 publications on social and behavioral aspects of STD, epidemiology, and prevention. Her work has focused on risk and preventive behaviors, gender differences, societal characteristics that influence STD and HIV rates, contextual issues and effects of distinct types of sexual mixing on STD spread. Her research has been in both domestic and international settings and her writings have included cross-cultural comparative analyses.