David Holtgrave, PhD, is the Dean of the University at Albany School of Public Health, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor, and SUNY Distinguished Professor. His three-decade career in public health has included senior positions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and Johns Hopkins University, and he served on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS during President Obama's administration. Much of his work over the past 30 years has focused on addressing HIV in the United States, with a special focus on building health equity in communities most heavily impacted by HIV and other infectious diseases. Over the past year, he has brought the lessons learned from HIV-related work to helping to confront COVID-19, in particular identifying health inequities that must be urgently addressed in the pandemic.