Richard Needle, PhD, MPH
Vice President for Special Populations and Senior Project Manager
Richard Needle is Vice President for Special Populations and Senior Project Manager at Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation. Dr. Needle is responsible for assisting Pangaea’s partners in the planning and implementation of HIV prevention and treatment initiatives that target high-risk populations, including IDUs, MSM, women and commercial sex workers.
Dr. Needle was previously Team Leader for HIV Prevention Among Injection Drug Using Populations for the Global AIDS Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2001-2007). As Team Leader his responsibilities included developing strategic plans and administering ongoing technical assistance programs for countries with epidemics of HIV in vulnerable populations. Full bio
From 2004 to 2007, Dr. Needle was also Co-chair of the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator’s (“OGAC”) Technical Work Group on Prevention of HIV Among Persons Engaged in High Risk Behaviors. In this position he was responsible for initiating, reviewing and monitoring activities between OGAC and the field related to the prevention of HIV in most-at-risk populations.
Dr. Needle was previously Senior Advisor for Drug and HIV/AIDS at HHS (2000-2001), and before that Chief of the Community Research Branch, Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (1990-1999).
Before joining U.S. government service in 1990, Dr. Needle was a professor in the Department of Family Social Science and Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. He received a PhD in Health Education from the University of Maryland in 1973, a MPH in Maternal and Child Health from the University of Minnesota in 1983, a MEd from the University of Toledo in 1967, and a BS from Temple University in 1964.