Almaz Sharman (born January 1, 1960) is the President of the Academy of Preventive Medicine of Kazakhstan and the National Center for Nutrition. Ethnic Kazakh and a citizen of the United States, Sharman has more than 30 years of experience in biomedical and clinical science and healthcare management. Early life and education Sharman was born in Ulytau, Kazakhstan. He is the son of Toregeldy Sharmanov, who was Minister of Healthcare of the Republic of Kazakhstan from 1970 to 1981 and a co-author of the Alma-Ata Declaration of Primary Health Care, and Kulziya Askarova, medical doctor and radiologist. He was raised in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Sharman graduated from Asfendiyarov National Medical University with an M.D. diploma (1982), and defended his M.S. dissertation in 1985 and his Ph.D in 1991. Career Sharman worked at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as a member of an international team of biomedical researchers on a U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded study of mucosal immunology and oral vaccine development (1991 – 1993). The main focus of his research was on experimental models of hapten-induced Inflammatory bowel disease and studying intraepithelial lymphocytes. Between 1994 and 2001, Sharman worked at International Demographic and Health Survey. He designed a methodology for integrated population-based HIV-testing which was implemented in several developing countries and has become a standard methodology for international demographic and health surveys. HIV testing data generated by using this methodology was recently used by UNAIDS to lower the estimate of the number of people afflicted by HIV in the world by 7 million cases. A multinational study of the anemia prevalence among women and children implemented under his leadership has led to improved anemia control and prevention and reproductive health programs in several countries in Central Asia, Egypt, and India. In 1998-2003, Sharman was involved in university teaching as an Associate at the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2001-2004 Sharman worked as Infectious Disease Advisor for US Agency for International Development (USAID) Regional Office for Central Asia. He provided technical advice and helped to develop and implement infectious disease prevention and control activities in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. In 2004 – 2006 Almaz Sharman was USAID Country Office Coordinator for Kazakhstan; he served as a primary liaison official for the US Government assistance program with the Government of Kazakhstan, U.S. Embassy, USAID contractors and grantees, and international donor organizations. During the last