Professor Punnee Pitisuttithum is the Head of the Department of Clinical Tropical Medicine, and also the Head of Vaccine Trial Centre (VTC) at the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University. She is an internationally recognized expert on tropical infectious diseases, especially on vaccine trials and clinical studies with an h-index of 42. She has completed over 40 clinical trials and has 183 publications in international peer-reviewed journals, her works have been cited more than 10,000 times according to Scopus database. She has designed and conducted numerous clinical studies (phase I, II, III vaccine trials) of tropical diseases and vaccine against HIV/AIDS, HPV, Cholera, and other infectious diseases. She was the lead clinical investigator in the largest community trial of HIV vaccines (prime-boost regimen) involving 16,000 participants (RV144) which was the first time showed efficacy in human. She played a key role in the testing of the world’s first commercial dengue vaccine.

Professor Punnee Pitisuttithum has been appointed as a fellows of the International Society for Vaccines (ISV). She has served as member of the Advisory Group on Human Challenge Studies, WHO, and the Taskforce Member in the development of a research and development (R&D) roadmap for influenza vaccines (IVR), the Wellcome Trust and the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. Previously, she had served as a member of the advisory Initiative for Vaccine Research (IVR), WHO-UNAIDS Vaccine Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS, International AIDS Vaccine Institutes, and the Task Force on Research and Development during the establishment of The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). She had also chaired and co-chaired numerous international conferences or reviewing committees.

She has received numerous honors and awards including the Highly Cited Researcher in 2 consecutive years (2018-2019) from Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science, Moral Gems of Mahidol (Khon Dee Sri Mahidol) for Teaching in 2019 from Mahidol University Alumni Association under the Royal Patronage of His Majesty the King, the Most Outstanding Researcher in Medical Science in 2015 from the National Research Council of Thailand, as well as the Mahidol University Award for Outstanding Research in 2013.

She received her MBBS degree from Lady Hardinges Medical College, New Delhi, India. She has a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and a Doctor of Clinical Medicine degree, both from Mahidol University. She also holds a Diploma Thai Board of Internal Medicine from Thai Medical Council.