Kenneth Mayer, MD

Dr. Mayer is a Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, and Attending Physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Director of HIV Prevention Research there. He is the founder, Co-Chair and Medical Research Director of The Fenway Institute, the research, training and health policy division of Fenway Health, the largest ambulatory facility caring for HIV-infected patients in New England.

He previously was a Professor of Medicine and Community Health at Brown University, and Director of its AIDS Program. Dr. Mayer has served on the national boards of the HIV Medicine Association, the American Foundation for AIDS Research and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. He is a member of the Governing Council of the International AIDS Society, and Co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Center for Global Health Policy of the Infectious Disease Society of America.


Since 1994, he has been the Principal Investigator of the only NIH-funded HIV Prevention Research Clinical Trials Unit in New England focusing on bio-behavioral prevention and chemoprophylaxis and the Co-Principal Investigator of the Harvard HIV/AIDS Vaccine Unit, conducting trials in the NIH-funded HIVNET, HPTN, HVTN and MTN networks. He was the Co-Chair of an NIAID-funded protocol evaluating a community-based prevention intervention for African-American Men who have Sex with Men in 6 U.S. cities (HPTN 061) and is Co-Chair of a multicenter protocol evaluating the safety, tolerability and adherence with Maraviroc-based chemoprophylaxis regimens. He is the co-author of more than 500 peer-reviewed publications. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Clinical Infectious Diseases, the editor of three texts related to the impact of AIDS on diverse disciplines, as well as “The Social Ecology of Infectious Diseases” (Academic Press) and is Associate Editor of The Fenway Guide to LGBT Health (ACP Press).


He continues to teach and mentor medical students, residents, and fellows. He has provided care to people living with HIV since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.