Meet Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, the 34 year old scientist who leads the National Institutes of Health’s vaccine research and is at the forefront of Moderna’s vaccine development

During an event hosted by the National Urban League on Tuesday, Dr. Fauci, the nation’s leading Infectious diseases expert, emphasized the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. He also took the time to spotlight 34-year-old Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett as a lead scientist behind one of the vaccines’ development.

“The very vaccine that’s one of the two that has absolutely exquisite levels — 94 to 95% efficacy against clinical disease and almost 100% efficacy against serious disease that are shown to be clearly safe — that vaccine was actually developed in my institute’s vaccine research center by a team of scientists led by Dr. Barney Graham and his close colleague, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, or Kizzy Corbett,” Dr. Fauci said.

Corbett received a B.S. in Biological Sciences, with a secondary major in Sociology, in 2008 from the University of Maryland – Baltimore County, then got her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology in 2014 at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. According to a report by CNN, Corbett is lead scientist for coronavirus vaccine research at the National Institute of Health, and part of a team that worked with the biotechnology company Moderna to develop one of the two vaccines expected to receive emergency authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this month — the other being from Pfizer. (The FDA may grant emergency authorization to Pfizer by Friday evening.)