Gillings alum Angeli Achrekar is UNC-Chapel Hill's 2024 Hooding Ceremony speaker

May 9, 2024

Dr. Angeli Achrekar

Gillings School of Global Public Health alum Angeli Achrekar (’13 DrPH) will serve as the speaker for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s 2024 Doctoral Hooding Ceremony.

Achrekar is the deputy executive director of the programme branch at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and an assistant secretary-general of the United Nations.

Prior to joining UNAIDS in January 2023, she served as the principal deputy United States global AIDS coordinator for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Over the past 20 years with the U.S. government and PEPFAR, she has held prominent positions supporting the U.S. government’s largest global health effort, which ensures life-saving HIV prevention and treatment services to millions of people around the world. Her efforts have helped to strengthen health and community systems across 50 countries.

Achrekar is a passionate public servant, dedicated to advancing global health and development across sectors — especially for women and girls. Over the years, she has helped evolve programs toward more person-centered care, protecting and boosting gains against HIV/AIDS while also increasing countries’ capacity for broader health care delivery. Her deep policy and partnership development experience at both national and global levels has cultivated strong multisectoral partnerships that yield the kind of large-scale, transformational impact that is fundamental to ending the AIDS pandemic.

She holds a Doctorate of Public Health from the UNC Gillings School, a Master of Public Health from Yale University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Achrekar is married and the mother of beloved twin daughters. She enjoys poetry and nature. As an unrelenting champion for health and rights for all, she believes in the power of service and partnership for change.

Find details about the 2024 UNC-Chapel Hill Doctoral Hooding Ceremony.

Contact the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@unc.edu.