T. Richard Corcoran
Board Chair (NYC, USA)
T. Richard is the President of Alouette, Inc. based in Brooklyn, NY and was previously on the Programme Coordinating Board of UNAIDS.
Our team pairs pragmatic policy work with bold grassroots action to win access to quality HIV treatment, care, and prevention for all who need it, particularly for the poorest and most marginalized communities in the world.
Founded in 1999 when virtually no one in sub-Saharan Africa had access to life-saving HIV treatment, Health GAP played a pivotal role in challenging conventional wisdom that AIDS drugs were too expensive, too difficult to administer, and too low on the priority list to afford access to people in the global South.
Over the past two decades, Health GAP has successfully helped drive down the costs of antiretroviral medicines – in some cases to less than 99% of their initial price. Health GAP played a key role in winning new donor initiatives to support HIV treatment scale-up – such as the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of organizations in the global South to increase access to quality HIV treatment, prevention, and other related services that meet the needs of people living with and affected by HIV. We believe that the human right to life and to health must prevail over drug companies’ excessive profits, expanding patent rights, and other harmful monopolist approaches.
We campaign for access to life-saving HIV medicines and increased resources for the global HIV response. We work with allies in the global South and in the UK, France, the Netherlands, and other countries that comprise the bulk of the world’s HIV funding to formulate policies that achieve these goals and mobilize grassroots support for these efforts. We confront politicians, government bureaucrats, pharmaceutical corporations, and international institutions when their policies or practices stand in the way of health justice.
Health GAP also invests tremendous resources into sustaining and growing the global AIDS movement. We are the fiscal sponsor of the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC), a U.S.-based network of students and young people demanding delivery on the promise of an AIDS-free generation.
As AIDS activists, Health GAP is part of a social justice movement that responds to long odds by rejecting the status quo, organizing, and fighting back. We know that our seats at the table are only as useful as the movement pushing from the outside is strong.
building people power in the U.S. and around the world and mobilizing that grassroots strength when people living with HIV are under attack
interpreting government and pharmaceutical corporation policy with an activist’s eye, and shining a light on injustice, lack of accountability, and lies, even when it’s unpopular
tirelessly fighting for increased funding for global AIDS programs and equitable access to affordable medicines. Forcing change when governments threaten to advance the rights of criminalized and marginalized communities
T. Richard Corcoran
Board Chair (NYC, USA)
T. Richard is the President of Alouette, Inc. based in Brooklyn, NY and was previously on the Programme Coordinating Board of UNAIDS.
Eustacia Smith
Secretary (NYC, USA)
Staci is Program Director of the Ben Michalski Residence, providing supportive housing for formerly homeless people living with AIDS in NYC. She is a founding member of Health GAP, member of ACT UP NY, and former member of Fed Up Queers.
Aaron Boyle
Treasurer (NYC, USA)
Aaron is Director of Program at Eskolta School Research and Design, Inc. in Brooklyn, NY, and a former Peace Corps volunteer.
Asia Russell
Kampala, Uganda
Ex-officio, Asia is the Executive Director of Health GAP.
Alice Kayongo
Kampala, Uganda
Alice is a public health worker, researcher, and human rights activist with more than a decade of experience advocating for vulnerable communities. She also sits on the boards of the Public Health Ambassadors Uganda (PHAU) and the Uhuru Institute.
Barbara C. Zeller, MD
NYC, USA
Dr. Barbara Zeller is an HIV specialist and health and human rights activist who is currently the Senior Medical Adviser for Brightpoint Health. Early on she developed an integrative model of care for people with HIV and substance use disorders, and has provided HIV care both in NYC and in South Africa.
Brook Baker
Boston, MA, USA
Brook is a Professor of Law at Northeastern University, an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of KwaZulu Natal, and Health GAP’s Senior Policy Analyst.
Jennifer Flynn
NYC, USA
Jennifer is the Senior Director of Mobilization and Advocacy at the Center for Popular Democracy. She was a founder of VOCAL-NY and served as Executive Director for 10 years. She also served as Managing Director of Health GAP from 2007-2014.
Rob Weissman
Washington, DC, USA
Rob is the President of Public Citizen. He is the former director of Essential Action and the editor of Multinational Monitor. Rob was previously an attorney with the Center for Responsive Law.
Sharonann Lynch
NYC, USA
Sharonann was an original staff member of Health GAP and is currently an HIV & TB Policy Advisor for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).