Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D. is the former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, having stepped down from that role in April 2015 after almost six years of service. Dr. Hamburg earned her B.A. from Harvard College, her M.D. from Harvard Medical School and completed her medical residency at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Following her medical training, Dr Hamburg worked at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) doing research and policy as the Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In 1991, Dr. Hamburg was named Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health. During her six-year tenure there, she implemented rigorous public health initiatives that tackled the city’s most pressing crises head-on — including improved services for women and children, an internationally recognized Tuberculosis control program, a needle-exchange program to combat HIV transmission, and the nation’s first public health bioterrorism preparedness program. In 1997, President Clinton nominated Dr. Hamburg as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She later became founding Vice President for Biological Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a foundation dedicated to reducing the threat to public safety from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. In March 2009, President Obama nominated Dr. Hamburg for the post of FDA Commissioner. In that role, Dr. Hamburg emphasized the critical need for innovation in meeting medical care and public health needs. As Commissioner, she provided leadership on many groundbreaking activities, including implementation of new authorities to regulate tobacco products, new legislation designed to transform the U.S. food safety system to one based on prevention rather than simply responding when outbreaks occur, and modernization of the system for the evaluation and approval of medical products. Dr. Hamburg also served as President/Chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as well as an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Aarts and Sciences and the U.S.National Academy of Medicine, where she also served as Foreign Secretary