Professor Celia Christie-Samuels, C.D. is a distinguished Professor of Paediatrics (Infectious Diseases, Epidemiology and Public Health) at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona. She was appointed Professor Emerita in 2022 and is also a Consultant Paediatrician at the University Hospital of the West Indies. Born in Westmoreland, Jamaica, and raised in St Ann and then St Andrew where she attended St. Hugh’s High School, Professor Christie-Samuels showed early leadership and creativity in school. She was a house captain, member of the choir and orchestra and still today plays the clarinet. Having obtained her MBBS and DM degrees at The UWI, Mona she went on to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship in Paediatrics Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology (Hospital and Molecular) at Yale University School of Medicine and earned Master’s in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. Between 1990 and 1999 she served as Associate/Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Infectious Diseases Consultant Paediatrician and Hospital Epidemiologist at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Research Foundation. In 1999 she returned to The UWI as Professor of Paediatrics and Infectious Diseases. She specialises in infectious diseases, epidemiology, and public health and leads the Vaccines Infectious Diseases Centre at the University Hospital and Jamaica’s Perinatal, Paediatric, and Adolescent HIV/AIDS Programme. Her contributions to international clinical trials have supported vaccine development. Her collaborative research has secured over US$4 million in grants for UWI, focusing on HIV/AIDS in women and children across Latin America and the Caribbean. Passionate about child health, she has worked tirelessly toward eliminating paediatric HIV/AIDS in Jamaica, establishing outreach clinics and a mobile health-care facility that has aided thousands of children. Professor Celia Christie-Samuels was awarded the Gold Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica in 2014 for eminence in the field of medicine. In 2018, she was awarded the Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander (CD). In 2023, she received the UWI Alumni Association (UWIAA) 2023 Pelican Award.