Karin Nielsen-saines MD, MPH

Dr. Karin Nielsen is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at UCLA Children's Hospital and a member of the UCLA faculty since 1996. She is also an attending physician for Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Mattel Children's Hospital and co-director of the Care4Families HIV clinic at UCLA. Dr. Nielsen is a physician-scientist, originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she graduated in medicine from the University of Rio de Janeiro and completed pediatric residency training at the Hospital dos Servidores do Estado, also in Rio. At UCLA since 1991, she completed both clinical and research fellowships in pediatric infectious diseases and obtained a master's degree in Public Health/Epidemiology.

Dr. Nielsen's main area of research has been pediatric infections particularly in the area of HIV and congenital infections. She is an internationally recognized expert in the field of pediatric HIV and Zika. She has worked extensively in collaborative clinical studies in Brazil and in sub-Saharan Africa focused on both prevention of perinatal and sexual transmission of HIV. She also has published extensively on the treatment of this disease in children, adolescents, and adults. She has been a leading investigator in a number of studies conducted by NIH sponsored HIV networks such as IMPAACT, HPTN, ATN, and ACTG, developing clinical trials in North and South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, many of which have changed management guidelines for HIV and more recently Zika.