Mathilde Krim, PhD, received her doctorate from the University of Geneva in 1953.  From 1953 to 1959 she pursued research in cytogenetics and cancer-causing viruses at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where she was a member of the team that first discovered a method for the prenatal determination of sex.  She moved to New York City and joined the research staff of Cornell University Medical School following her 1958 marriage to the late Arthur B. Krim, an attorney, head of United Artists Motion Picture Company, and founder of Orion Pictures.  She joined the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research as a research scientist in 1962, and would go on to serve as Director of its Interferon Laboratory.  Dr. Krim is best known as the founder, in 1983, of the AIDS Medical Foundation (AMF), the first private organization dedicated to fostering and supporting AIDS research.  In 1985 AMF merged with another HIV research group to become the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), which Krim has led as Founding Chairman ever since.  Today she holds the academic appointment of Adjunct Professor of Public Health and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.  Dr. Krim is the recipient of 16 doctorates honoris causa, among numerous other distinctions, and in 2000 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.