Senior Director, Epidemiology
Medical Evidence, Vaccines and Immune Therapies Unit, AstraZeneca, United Kingdom
Sylvia Taylor, PhD MPH MBA is an infectious disease epidemiologist and currently Head of Medical Evidence for AstraZeneca’s Vaccines and Immune Therapies Unit that was formed in November 2021. She is passionate about vaccines and preventive interventions for infectious diseases and has spent more than 20 years working on related global health initiatives in both the private and public sector. She initially joined AstraZeneca in 2020 as the lead epidemiologist for AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine program, playing a key role in the distribution of >3 billion vaccine doses worldwide. She was previously also a senior epidemiologist for GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines, leading epidemiology strategy/activities for late and early-stage vaccines, including HIV, Ebola, TB, HPV, RSV, and Streptococcus Pneumoniae, over a period of 8 years. She has additionally worked as a Senior Technical consultant for the United Nations' International Organization for Migration, collaborating with the US Centers for Disease Control on community-based surveillance among Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, and as a research scientist at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, with focus on epidemiology and prevention of HIV, TB, and Hepatitis C. Originally from the United States, she has spent the last 17 years working/living abroad, including in Belgium, Cameroon, Cambodia, Colombia, Egypt, England, France, and Peru. During 2017-2019, while on sabbatical in Cameroon, she completed a TRIUM Global Executive MBA – a joint program with the London School of Economics, HEC Paris, and New York University Stern School of Business – and worked on several business development projects in Cameroon, China, and Europe.