Leslie Marshall, PhD, was appointed Acting Deputy Director of the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in August 2025. Dr. Marshall is a molecular virologist and product developer by training, with broad experience across academic, government, and industry settings. She works with the OAR Director to coordinate the NIH HIV research program, spanning $3.29 billion USD in funding to 22 NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices. In this role, she leverages her programmatic expertise to support innovative approaches and challenge prevailing paradigms, tackling complex problems and driving change that can positively impact the health of all people impacted by HIV. She is committed to an intersectional, data-driven approach to research on HIV.
Dr. Marshall has a long history at the NIH, bringing deep knowledge of NIH operations and expertise in basic science. Prior to joining the NIH, Dr. Marshall worked at Merck Research Laboratories, where she developed analytical methods for their HIV and HPV vaccine programs. She received a doctoral degree in Microbiology and Immunology from Wake Forest University and an undergraduate degree from Susquehanna University.
