During Black History Month we are sharing a series on black medical innovators who changed America.
Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett (1986) Dr. Corbett emerged as a leading viral immunologist during the critical COVID-19 pandemic response. Her expertise in coronavirus research, developed years before the pandemic, positioned her at the forefront of the global scientific response. She played a pivotal role in developing the Moderna vaccine, which became one of the first approved vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.
Dr. Corbett was born and raised in North Carolina. She received a B.S. in Biological Sciences and secondary major in Sociology in 2008 from the University of Maryland–Baltimore County. She earned her P.h.D. in 2014 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in viral immunology and vaccine development. Her research focused on understanding how viruses like coronaviruses interact with human immune systems, work that proved critically important during the global pandemic.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Corbett led the team in the Vaccine Research Center of the federal National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in developing the Moderna vaccine’s immunological design. Her work was instrumental in creating a vaccine that showed over 94% efficacy in clinical trials, a breakthrough that helped dramatically reduce COVID-19 transmission and severity. As a young Black woman in science, she became an important role model, highlighting the critical contributions of diverse scientists in solving global health challenges.
Beyond her scientific achievements, Dr. Corbett is a powerful advocate for vaccine education and public understanding of scientific research. She actively works to combat vaccine hesitancy, particularly in Black and marginalized communities. Her public communication efforts were crucial in building trust and increasing vaccine acceptance during a challenging period of global health crisis.
Today, Dr. Corbett leads her own lab in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases and is educating the next generation of immunologists as Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases.