William A. Haseltine

As a pre-medical undergraduate student majoring in chemistry, he published two scientific papers, one on the composition of the Martian atmosphere in Science and a second on the use of isotope shifted lasers for communication to outer space in Applied Physics Letters. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his junior year and graduated at the top of his class. Upon graduation he decided to learn as much about science as possible towards creating new ways to treat and cure disease.

At Harvard University, he worked under the direction of James D. Watson, who shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA, and Walter Gilbert, who later received a Nobel Prize for developing a method to determine DNA sequences. He elucidated the means by which bacteria signal the shift from growth when food is abundant to maintenance when food is scarce, the topic of his PhD thesis titled Magic Spot and the Stringent Response.

During his graduate studies, Haseltine was also active in his opposition to the war in Vietnam. He wrote several articles on the use of technology in the Vietnam War and broke the "Agent Orange Defoliation" story in a cover article in the New Republic. He worked with the American Friends Service Committee to create a resource center for those who wished to understand their own communities’ involvement in the war and lectured against the war throughout the country for several years. He was a founder of "Science for the People".

In 1973, Haseltine joined the laboratory of David Baltimore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a post-doctoral fellow. There he began to work on fundamental aspects of how retroviruses known to cause cancer in animals reproduce. His work, in collaboration with several other scientists, provided unexpected insights into the process of retrovirus replication and was recognized as innovative in publication in leading scientific journals. This work prepared him for research on human disease and retroviruses, both important later in his career.

He interrupted his postdoctoral studies at MIT briefly the summer of 1973 to serve as a visiting professor at the University of Copenhagen Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, where he continued his work on the regulation of gene expression in bacteria.

His first marriage was to Patricia Eileen Gercik. He is currently married to Maria Eugenia Maury.

Haseltine began his career in philanthropy in 2004. He created two charitable foundations: The Foundation for Science and the Arts and ACCESS Health International, both 501C3 corporations. The Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts supports both biomedical research and the arts including the visual arts, music, opera and dance. A special focus of the foundation is the creation of works of art and music that interpret discoveries of biology and medicine.

Haseltine is a founder, chairman, and president of ACCESS Health International. Since its founding in 2007, ACCESS Health International has established itself as a leading global health systems think tank, operating across multiple continents with offices in the United States, India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. The organization has engaged with over 25 countries on health systems strengthening initiatives, published more than 125 policy-relevant research papers, and impacted over one million lives through collaborative projects with governments, healthcare providers, and multilateral institutions.

Most notably, ACCESS Health has pioneered knowledge-transfer models through learning collaboratives. In 2010, it co-founded the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage in partnership with the World Bank, Results for Development, and other partners; the network has grown from an initial cohort to roughly 30 member countries and has supported the development of dozens of practical tools and knowledge products that countries adapt for universal health coverage reforms. In 2021, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, ACCESS Health launched the Global Learning Collaborative for Health Systems Resilience, for which it serves as secretariat, convening health systems experts from 22 countries to co-create evidence-based tools and strategies for pandemic preparedness and health system resilience.

ACCESS Health’s research and implementation support has also been instrumental in advancing health financing reforms, particularly in South Asia. Since 2018, the organization has provided technical assistance to operationalize India's Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, one of the largest publicly funded health insurance schemes globally, in collaboration with state and national agencies including the National Health Authority. Beyond health insurance ecosystem development, ACCESS Health's work encompasses digital health infrastructure, strategic purchasing mechanisms, and quality improvement initiatives. The organization's research portfolio addresses critical health systems challenges including pharmaceutical policy, health technology assessment, cardiovascular disease prevention through the Asia Pacific Cardiovascular Disease Alliance, hepatitis elimination via the Stop Hep Alliance, and climate-sensitive health system design through its focus on one-health approaches. ACCESS Health seeks to bridge gaps in the research-to-policy-to-practice continuum, fostering knowledge exchange, and advancing evidence-informed approaches to achieving universal health coverage across the world.