Peter J. Hotez, M.D., Ph.D. is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also the Co-director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) and Texas Children’s Hospital Endowed Chair of Tropical Pediatrics.  He is also University Professor at Baylor University, Senior Fellow in Disease and Humanity at the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy,  Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at Texas A&M University, Faculty Fellow with the Hagler Institute for Advanced Studies at Texas A&M University, and Health Policy Scholar in the Baylor Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy. He also holds honorary DSc doctoral degrees from the Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine (Northwell Health), Roanoke College, honorary doctoral degrees in both science and humanities by The National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH), and City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.

Dr. Hotez is an internationally-recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development.  As co-director of the Texas Children’s CVD, he leads a team and product development partnership for developing new vaccines for hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, leishmaniasis,  Chagas disease, and SARS/MERS/SARS-2 coronavirus, diseases affecting hundreds of millions of children and adults worldwide, while championing access to vaccines globally and in the United States.  

In December 2021, Dr. Hotez co-led efforts at the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development to develop low-cost recombinant protein COVID vaccine technologies for global health, resulting in emergency use authorization in India and Indonesia. A human hookworm vaccine is accelerating rapidly through clinical trials – this is a project he began as an MD-PhD student in the 1980s.

He obtained his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics from Yale University in 1980 (phi beta kappa), followed by a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Rockefeller University in 1986, and an M.D. from Weil Cornell Medical College in 1987.  Dr. Hotez has authored more than 700 original papers indexed on PubMed and is the author of 6 single-author books, including Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases (ASM Press); Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth (Johns Hopkins University Press); Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism (Johns Hopkins University Press); Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-science (Johns Hopkins University Press); Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces that Threaten our World, co-authored with Michael Mann (Public Affairs), and his forthcoming book with MIT Press will be entitled Texas Fever Frontier: How Deadly Epidemics Shaped the Lone Star State and America’s Destiny.

Dr. Hotez served previously as President of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and he is founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. In 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative he co-founded the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases to provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (Public Health Section) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (Public Policy Section).  In 2014-16, he served in the Obama Administration as US Envoy, focusing on vaccine diplomacy initiatives between the US Government and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.  In 2018, he was appointed by the US State Department to serve on the Board of Governors for the US Israel Binational Science Foundation, and is frequently called upon frequently to testify before US Congress. He has served on infectious disease task forces for two consecutive Texas Governors.  In 2022 Hotez and his colleague Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for “their work to develop and distribute a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine to people of the world without patent limitation,” while in 2023, the National Academy of Medicine recognized them with their David and Beatrix Hamburg Award for Biomedical Sciences and Clinical Medicine, and as Dallas Morning News Texans of the Year.

Dr. Hotez has also emerged as one of the leading defenders of vaccines in America. As both a vaccine scientist and autism parent, he has led national efforts to defend vaccines and to serve as an ardent champion of vaccines going up against a growing national “antivax” threat.

In 2018 and 2019, he received the Award for Leadership in Advocacy for Vaccines from ResearchAmerica and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, respectively. 

In 2021-22 he received the AMA (American Medical Association) Scientific Leadership Award and the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) RWJF David E. Rogers Award, in addition to being recognized by the Anti-Defamation League with its annual Milton Popkin Award for combating antisemitism. He was also honored with the John P. McGovern Award by The American Medical Writers Association (AMWA).

In 2023 he received the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science ) Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility for his “scientific work in vaccine development and his work as a public voice promoting and defending vaccines.” Also in 2023, Dr. Hotez received the Anthony Fauci Courage in Leadership Award from the IDSA (Infectious Diseases Society of America) and the LBJ Moral Courage Award from the Holocaust Museum Houston.

In 2024, Dr. Hotez received the Anthony Cerami  Award in Translational Medicine. Award from the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research of Northwell Health, Sigma Xi’s John P. McGovern Science and Society Award, the Porter Prize from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, the American Society of Cell Biology Public Service Award, and the Mendel Medal in Science and Religion from Villanova University, and he was named to TIME 100 Health’s inaugural leaders in healthcare. 

In 2025, Dr. Hotez was honored with multiple prestigious recognitions. He was inducted into the Philosophical Society of Texas and received several distinguished awards, including the Winslow Medal from Yale School of Public Health, the Walker Prize from the Boston Museum of Science, and the Smith Medal in Public Health from the New York Academy of Medicine. Additionally, he was awarded the Lyda Hill Prize in Public Health by TAMEST (Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science, and Technology) in partnership with Lyda Hill Philanthropies. The Lyda Hill Prize supports high-risk, high-reward ideas and innovations with significant potential for real-world impact, fostering paradigm-shifting advances in research. He was named one of 25 Global Leaders for U.S. News and World Report.

Dr. Hotez appears frequently on television (including BBC, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC), radio, and in newspaper interviews (including the New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal).