Stephen Lewis

Mr. Lewis is Chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, author of the national bestseller Race Against Time and U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. A lifelong social democrat and diplomat, he has focused much of his humanitarian efforts on the African continent. Mr. Lewis career at the United Nations has spanned more than two decades. From 1984-1988, he served as Canadas Ambassador to the United Nations. During his tenure, he chaired the committee that drafted the Five-Year U.N. Programme on African Economic Recovery. From 1995-1999, Mr. Lewis served as Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. In 1997, he was appointed by the Organization of African Unity to the Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the Genocide in Rwanda. He is currently a Commissioner for the World Health Organizations Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, a Senior Advisor to the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York and also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). In July 2006, Mr. Lewis began a one-year term as McMaster Universitys first social sciences scholar-in-residence, where he will serve as an instructor and researcher linked with the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition.

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