Jonathan M. Mann Memorial Lecture Fund

Established in 1999 through a generous donation from Richard E. Hoffman, MD, MPH, EIS ’78, this named fund closed in 2023. The fund was established to honor the career of the late Dr. Jonathan M. Mann and supported the annual Jonathan M. Mann Memorial Lecture, which was administered by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) and was presented during their annual conference. The final lecture was held in 2023 during the CSTE conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Jonathan Max Mann, MD, MPH, EIS '75, was called the “architect of the global mobilization against AIDS” for his role as the founding director of the World Health Organization’s Global Program on AIDS. Dr. Jonathan Mann was also an accomplished state epidemiologist, serving the state of New Mexico in that capacity for nearly a decade, from 1975–1984.

The world lost one of its greatest public health allies when Dr. Mann lost his life in the Swissair plane crash off Nova Scotia in 1998. His wife, Dr. Mary Lou Clements-Mann, also died in the crash. He is survived by his mother, Ida Mann, and children, Naomi, Lydia and Aaron Mann.

Dr. Mann was instrumental in coalescing governments and individuals to view AIDS as a human rights concern as much as a public health issue, defining AIDS as a social problem to be solved. That action reflected a larger view that public health should be seen as interwoven into the social fabric. “Public health,” he wrote, “too often studies health without intruding upon larger, societal, inescapably value-laden issues.”

Dr. Mann’s life was replete with education and accomplishments. He had two degrees from Harvard and an MD from the Washington University School of Medicine. He was a former state epidemiologist and deputy director of the New Mexico Health Department. He was a former officer of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, and he taught epidemiology and international health at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he also directed the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. Dr. Mann also organized and directed the international collaborative AIDS Research Project in Kinshasa, Zaire.

From 1999-2023, the Jonathan M. Mann Memorial Lectureship was made possible annually by the CDC Foundation with proceeds from a generous gift from Richard E. Hoffman, MD, MPH, of Denver, Colorado.