John S. Santelli

John Santelli, MD, MPH is a Professor of Population and Family Health and Pediatrics. Dr. Santelli has conducted demographic and policy-related research on HIV/STI risk behaviors, trends in teen fertility, programs to prevent STD/HIV/unintended pregnancy, school-based health centers, adolescent clinical preventive services, and research ethics. Dr. Santelli is a senior consultant for the Guttmacher Institute, was a member of the 2016 Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, and is a past President of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. He has been a global leader in ensuring that adolescents have access to medically accurate, comprehensive sexuality education, and are ethically included in health research.

He has been the principal investigator of five NICHD-funded projects on HIV risk among youth, linkages between HIV infection and reproductive health, the influence of social determinants and social transitions on HIV risk, HIV-related orphanhood, and research ethics with adolescents with the Rakai Health Sciences Project in southern Uganda.

Prior to coming to Columbia in 2004, he worked—for 20 years—in local and national public health at the Baltimore City Health Department and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.