Dr. Allan Ronald is the 11th recipient of the Gairdner Foundation’s Wightman Award, given to a Canadian who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in Canadian medicine. Dr Ronald has had an outstanding career as a leader at the University of Manitoba, as the physician who provided the leadership in launching the subspecialty of infectious diseases in Canada, and as a leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS in East Africa. He is known in both the developed world and in East Africa for his research as a clinical scientist and as a humanitarian who has given selflessly in nurturing others. He mentored 70 infectious diseases Fellows who have gone on to populate Canadian academic institutions. He began a shared program with the University of Nairobi where over 80 Africans have received MSc or PhD degrees, and in collaboration with major universities over 300 peer-reviewed papers have been published. Central to these have been studies on the epidemiology of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Dr. Ronald was born in Manitoba and graduated in medicine from the University of Manitoba (1961). He trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Maryland (1962-64) and was a Fellow in Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington (1965-68). He joined the Faculty of Medicine in the Department of Microbiology and Internal Medicine at the University of Manitoba in 1968, rising to the rank of Professor (1977) and Distinguished Professor (1986). Dr Ronald was head of the Department of Medical Microbiology (1976-1985), and H.E. Sellers Professor and Head of Internal Medicine (1983-1990).

Dr Ronald has held many international appointments including: founding member University of Manitoba/University of Nairobi/WHO Research and Training Program on Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Chair, Diagnostics Committee (1989-2004) and President of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (1996-98). He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, member of the American Association of Physicians, and recipient of the International St Boniface Hospital Award and the F.N.G. Starr Award (CMA).