Honoring Taha Taha: A Celebration of Mentorship, Collaboration, and Public Health Leadership

The Department of Epidemiology recognized Professor Taha Taha, MBBS, PhD, MPH, for his contributions to the field and the department with a seminar and reception on February 28, 2025. This event focused on his journey, accomplishments, and impact as a physician, teacher, scientist and public health practitioner. Taha joined the Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1996, and he has extensive international work experience in designing and implementing observational studies and clinical trials for HIV prevention and treatment, with a focus on pregnant and breastfeeding women. Taha has more than 25 years of scientific, leadership, training, and mentoring experience, including advising more than 75 master’s and doctoral students. He is the primary instructor for the “Epidemiologic Inference in Outbreak Investigations” in the Department of Epidemiology, which he taught for more than 20 years. 

Taha has been the PI of the Malawi Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) for over two decades. The CTU in Malawi is a research consortium funded by NIH that encompasses the Johns Hopkins University and the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, and the Malawi Ministry of Health. The CTU conducts HIV treatment, prevention and cure trials and other reproductive health research and is one of Taha’s most lasting legacies in the field of infectious diseases. With the NIH/NIAID/DAIDS HIV research networks, he has served in numerous leadership roles: protocol chair for multi-site trials, committee chair and working group lead. Among his most recent contributions to science are the POISE study (Pregnancy outcomes among HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected women in the era of universal ART in Malawi); the PROMOTE multi-country study (PEPFAR PROMise Ongoing Treatment Evaluation); the PROMISE study (Promoting Maternal and Infant Survival Everywhere). 

Additionally, in Malawi, Taha was the PI of the Informatics Training program in Malawi (1998-2003); the Country Director of the Johns Hopkins University HIV/AIDS International Training and Research Program for Malawi (AITRP; 1996-2013); and the PI of the research training program “HIV-Related Non-communicable Disease Complications in Malawi (2013-2018)” supported by the Fogarty International Center. 

Taha earned his MBBS from the University of Khartoum (Sudan) in 1975; his Master’s in Community Medicine and Malariology in 1982; his MPH from San Diego State University in 1986 and his PhD from BSPH in Epidemiology/Reproductive Health in 1992. When he is not planning his next study or reading student theses, he is sharing his excellent cooking skills with friends and family, including his wife, three sons, and beloved grandchildren.