Last month, Dr. Amy Lansky assumed leadership of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, where she had been serving as a senior advisor for more than a year. She recently talked with us about how she came to work in HIV, what keeps her passionate about this work, and how we can all work together and use the National HIV/AIDS Strategy to end HIV.

During our conversation, she discusses how her early career in women’s health led to community-based work on HIV prevention for women in Chicago, followed by graduate studies in public health in North Carolina. In turn, that led to a 20-year career at CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. Prior to joining the White House staff as a senior advisor to both ONAP and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Dr. Lansky was the Deputy Director for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Science in the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. In that role, Dr. Lansky provided scientific direction and oversight for HIV surveillance activities, epidemiologic studies and clinical trials, and laboratory research. Her role, she observes, has evolved from producing, analyzing, and reporting HIV-related data to using it to inform HIV policies across the federal government.

Dr. Lansky says that we can end HIV, because we now have many effective prevention, testing, and treatment options. She also emphasizes the need to address HIV-related stigma and discrimination because they “impede the possible.”

“We have the National HIV/AIDS Strategy as our roadmap,” she says, “…and we are on our way.”