Dr. Robert Paulino-Ramírez is Principal Investigator and former Director of the Institute for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Clinical Associate Professor at Michigan State University. He earned his medical degree from Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, trained in microbiology and molecular virology at Michigan State University, completed a fellowship in infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS through Weill Cornell Medical College, and holds graduate degrees in tropical medicine (Royal College of Physicians/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), public health and epidemiology (Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo) and Specialty on Emerging Viruses and Biocontaintment Units (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid).

For nearly two decades, Dr. Paulino-Ramírez has worked at the intersection of clinical care, research, and policy in the HIV response. He authored the Dominican Republic’s national HIV/AIDS treatment guidelines and PrEP implementation strategy for the Ministry of Public Health, and his research spans PrEP and PEP scale-up, HIV self-testing, DoxyPEP, mother-to-child transmission elimination, HIV-2, drug resistance surveillance, and stigma reduction among key populations, including transgender women and men who have sex with men. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, serves on the editorial boards of PLOS Global Public Health and BMC Global Public Health, and led the Dominican Republic’s COVID-19 and mpox outbreak responses as Scientific Director of the national pandemic emergency committee.