A. Cornelius Baker

Cornelius Baker has been a committed HIV/AIDS advocate at the local and national level for over two decades. He serves as technical advisor at FHI 360 and as the senior policy advisor at the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition. At FHI 360, he is co-project director of the Be the Generation Bridge, an NIH-funded project to engage communities in biomedical HIV prevention research, and project director of Testing Makes Us Stronger, a CDC-funded project to promote HIV testing among young black men. In February 2010 he was appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.


From January 2000 through December 2004, Mr. Baker served as the Executive Director of Whitman-Walker Clinic, the leading provider of HIV prevention and HIV/AIDS treatment, research, and social services for people living with HIV/AIDS in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. From 1996 to 2000, Mr. Baker served as the Executive Director of the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA). He joined NAPWA in 1992 as the organization’s first director of public policy. His experience in government includes appointments at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush, and as an aide to Washington, D.C. City Councilmember Carol Schwartz.


In 1994, Mr. Baker co-chaired the U.S. Public Health Service Minority AIDS Conference. From its inception in 1997 until February 2009, he served as a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Panel on Clinical Practices in the Treatment of HIV which recommends the standards of care for antiretroviral therapy. He currently serves on the boards of the Black AIDS Institute, Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Us Helping Us/People Into Living, the Center for Nonprofit Advancement and the Campaign for all DC Families which advocates for marriage equality in the District of Columbia. In January 2006, he was nominated to serve on the Washington, D.C. Taxicab Commission by Mayor Anthony Williams and confirmed by the City Council to a three-year term.


Mr. Baker is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including: the National Lesbian and Gay Health Association’s Diego Lopez Award for leadership in HIV/AIDS advocacy (1998), first recipient of the American Foundation for AIDS Research Award of Courage for Community Building (2000), the National Association of People with AIDS’ Braveheart Award (2000), Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington for his support of women's health and community leadership (2000), LGBT Pride of Washington, DC Community Hero (2005), Black AIDS Institute’ Heroes in the Struggle (2005), the AIDS Institute’ National Community Leadership Award (2006), Rainbow History Project Community Pioneer (2007) and the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS’ Outstanding Leadership in Advocacy Award (2009). He was honor to deliver the 2000 Bon Foster Memorial Civil Rights Lecture for Lambda Legal.


Mr. Baker is a native of central New York and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Eisenhower College/Rochester Institute of Technology.