Margaret A Hamburg: The public physician

A doctor, scientist and public health executive, Margaret A Hamburg was the second woman to be nominated for the position of commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), considered the strictest among the world's drug regulators.

Hamburg, daughter of physician parents, is known for her efforts to curb the spread of tuberculosis, which resurged as a major public health threat in the 1990s, when she was commissioner of New York City department of health and mental hygiene. Hamburg's mother, Beatrix, was the first African-American woman to attend Vassar College and earn a degree from the Yale University School of Medicine (which had previously excluded African-Americans). Her father, David A Hamburg, of Jewish descent, had a career in academic medicine and mental illness research, public policy and philanthropy. Margaret is married to artificial intelligence researcher Peter Fitzhugh Brown.

The 21st commissioner of the FDA, Hamburg graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency in internal medicine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She researched on neuroscience at Rockefeller University, studied neuropharmacology at the National Institute of Mental Health and later focused on AIDS research.

Before joining US FDA, Hamburg worked at the Nuclear Threat Initiative and advocated broad reforms to confront the dangers of modern bioterrorism. She also served as assistant secretary for policy and evaluation in the US department of health and human services. Hamburg won the National Consumers League's Trumpeter Award in 2011 and the National Research Center for Women and Families' 2011 Health Research Policy Hero Award.