Dr. Inci Yildirim, a globally recognized expert in vaccinology and infectious diseases, was recently appointed the John F. Enders Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Disease). Her appointment was effective July 1, 2025.
A member of the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) faculty since 2020, she has a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health. She also serves as chief of the Section of Infectious Diseases and Global Health, founding director of the Yale Pediatric Vaccine Trials Program, and founding director of the Yale New Haven Health Children's Hospital Transplant Infectious Diseases Program.
As a pediatric infectious disease specialist and an epidemiologist, she studies the burden of infectious diseases and innate and adaptive immune signatures of vaccine responses in vulnerable populations, such as transplant recipients and individuals with sickle cell disease. She has extensive experience as a clinical trialist and works with collaborators in low- and middle-income settings to develop novel strategies to reduce childhood mortality.
She also leads the Yale Network of Vaccine Initiatives, is an affiliated faculty member at the Yale Institute for Global Health, is a member of the Yale Center for Infection and Immunity, and serves on the Steering Committee of the Yale Center of Clinical Investigation. She is also a fellow of Yale's Pauli Murray College.
Among her external leadership roles, she is the elected chair of the Connecticut State Medical Exemptions Advisory Committee.
Yildirim has established and led multiple clinical and educational programs across several institutions, including immunocompromised host and transplant infectious diseases programs designed to improve health care access and outcomes for medically vulnerable children. She has developed educational initiatives for fellows and residents in pediatric infectious diseases and immunocompromised host care, as well as graduate-level public health courses on vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases.
Her research program has been consistently supported over the last decade by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, industry, supporting studies in vaccinology, immune responses in vulnerable populations, pneumococcal disease surveillance, and global child health initiatives.
Beyond her institutional roles, she also participates in national vaccine policy and scientific advisory efforts through her service on immunization advisory committees, NIH grant review panels, and international scientific advisory boards. A prolific scholar, Yildirim has authored more than 160 original scientific publications. Her work focusing on infectious diseases and vaccinology has appeared in leading journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, JAMA, Nature, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Science Immunology, Nature Communications, Pediatric Transplantation, Science Translational Medicine, Genome Biology and Evolution, Clinical Infectious Diseases, JAMA Pediatrics, and Pediatrics.
She is an active public voice on infectious diseases and vaccines, with her expertise featured in numerous national and international media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox, the New Haven Register, Newsweek, and the Financial Times.
