Sheila Lukehart is Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Global Health at the University of Washington.  She received her PhD in Microbiology & Immunology at University of California, Los Angeles, and conducted postdoctoral training in Immunopathology at UC San Diego before joining the Infectious Diseases faculty at UW.  Dr. Lukehart is a recognized expert on syphilis and Treponema pallidum, and has focused her research on molecular pathogenesis, host immune responses to Treponema pallidum, and vaccine development for syphilis.  Although primarily laboratory-based, she has conducted clinically relevant research, most notably on neurosyphilis, syphilis-HIV interactions, and antibiotic resistance in T. pallidum.  Many studies involved collaborations with Drs. Arturo Centurion, Christina Marra, Caroline Cameron, and Lorenzo Giacani.  Internationally, she has been involved in yaws eradication efforts in Papua New Guinea (with Oriol Mitja) and in identification of yaws treponemes in wild non-human primates in Tanzania (with Sascha Knauf).  She has published over 160 scientific papers, chapters and reviews, and her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health for 40 years.  She was awarded the 2007 Distinguished Career Award from the American Sexually Transmitted Disease Association in recognition of her lifetime contributions to STD research.  Dr. Lukehart is actively involved in the training of young STD scientists as Director of local and national STI Developmental Award Programs, and has been Program Director of the University of Washington STD & AIDS Research Training Program for over 15 years.