Lee Pyne-Mercier has worked on health and governance issues for over 20 years, with a focus on resource-limited settings. Lee has worked as a program officer and program manager on the TB and MNCH teams at the Gates Foundation since 2010. On the TB team, he focused on partnerships to accelerate development of new drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines, and worked with partners to reduce the price of the GeneXpert diagnostic. Since joining the MNCH team he worked to launch the Every Newborn Action Plan, and leads foundation MNCH programs in Nigeria and DR Congo. Lee worked at the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) based at the University of Washington from 2005-2010. At I-TECH he managed clinical training programs in the Caribbean and Namibia, a home-based care program in Kenya, and a program providing technical assistance to groups developing electronic medical records in developing countries. Lee worked with Family Health International from 1998-2005.

In 2003, he collaborated with CDC to establish an HIV surveillance system in Southern Sudan. He also was responsible for two major regional HIV prevention initiatives with high risk groups along transportation corridors – one from Durban to Lusaka, and the other from Mombasa to the Great Lakes of Central Africa. Lee has worked in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. He holds a BA in international relations from the College of William & Mary, an MA in political science from the University of Cape Town, and an MPH in epidemiology from the University of Washington. His research has included measuring the impact of violence following Kenya’s disputed 2007 election on a cohort of patients at an HIV treatment site in Nairobi.