Stephaun Wallace Obituary, Death – We are saddened by the news of Dr. Stephaun Elite Wallace’s passing on August 5, 2023, and express our condolences to his family and friends. Dr. Wallace leaves behind a brother named Jeremiah, a sister named Krystal, and a huge and extended chosen family consisting of children from a variety of houses. Among these houses are children from the House of Marc Jacobs, which he established in 2021.

Stephaun was a pioneer in the fields of public health and social justice research as well as epidemiology. In addition to his position as the Director of External Relations for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (Fred Hutch), he also held faculty appointments at Fred Hutch, the University of Washington (UW), and Yale, respectively, in the capacities of staff scientist, clinical assistant professor, and affiliate professor.

In addition to this, he was instrumental in the establishment of the University of Washington’s Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research’s first-ever Office of Community Engagement. Dr. Wallace’s interests were in the confluence of public health and social justice, with a special and purposeful focus on increasing the number of members of racial/ethnic and gender/sexual minority groups who have favorable health outcomes in the United States and abroad. Specifically, Dr. Wallace was interested in reducing the disparities in health outcomes that exist between members of these groups.

While his lifelong work was on health disparities of HIV, the COVID-19 epidemic saw him utilize his skills in this arena to lead the CoVPN’s efforts in overcoming health disparities for COVID vaccination through highly successful programs called COVID in Black and linking the CoVPN with BlackDoctor.org, the National Medical Association, and the 4 Historically Black medical colleges to work collaboratively on the COVID vaccine effort.

This effort gained him a great deal of attention, including a chapter in Bill Gates’ book How to Prevent the Next Pandemic that was devoted to a profile of him and these actions. Dr. Wallace made this observation in response to a question posed by Mr. Gates during an interview: “Acts of racism in the medical establishment are not just historical.” People continue to go through the exact same kinds of traumatic experiences and abuses in today’s society. He was given the title of Hero in the Field by Mr. Gates.