Ambassador Jimmy Kolker is a non-resident senior associate with the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He retired in January 2017 as assistant secretary for global affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In this role, Ambassador Kolker was the Department’s chief health diplomat, representing the United States at World Health Organization meetings and as alternate board member of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Ambassador Kolker had a 30-year diplomatic career with the U.S. Department of State where he served as the U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso (1999-2002) and to Uganda (2002-2005). From 2005-2007, he was deputy U.S. global AIDS coordinator, leading the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Ambassador Kolker was deputy chief of mission at U.S. embassies in Denmark and Botswana and won awards for political reporting at earlier posts in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. From 2007-2011, Ambassador Kolker was chief of the AIDS Section at UNICEF’s New York headquarters. He led UNICEF's work focusing on mother-to-child-transmission of HIV, pediatric treatment, prevention among adolescents, and protection for children affected by AIDS. Ambassador Kolker is also a visiting scholar at the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Georgetown's Center for Global Health Science and Security. He serves on the boards of Building Tomorrow and the AB InBev and Firelight foundations. Ambassador Kolker holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School and a B.A. magna cum laude from Carleton College in Minnesota. He was a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellow (1970-1971). He speaks French, Swedish, and Portuguese.