Steve Wakefield is the External Relations Director for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network and leads global efforts for stakeholder engagement. Wakefield (preferred name) is an HIV-negative health care advocate with over thirty-five years of involvement in projects that increase community participation in HIV prevention research and ethics. He is passionate about the implementation of evidence-based strategies to end the epidemic.

He is the founder of The Legacy Project, a program to increase racial and ethnic population involvement in trials. A longtime human rights and HIV activist with a wealth of experience in nonprofit management.  Wakefield has been in service to Chicago’s Board of Health, as well as global and U.S. advisory groups such as NIAID’s AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee (AVRS),  the AVAC: Global HIV Prevention Board and the NIH-funded HPTN Ethics Working Group. He has worked with WHO’s UNAIDS, CBOs, NGOs and advisory groups for several academic institutions.