from Sciacca, and his maternal grandparents were from Naples. His maternal grandmother Raffaella Trematerra was a seamstress, and his maternal grandfather Giovanni Abys was a Swiss-born artist noted for his landscape and portrait painting, magazine illustrations in Italy, as well as graphic design for commercial labels, including olive oil cans. Fauci grew up Catholic, but now considers himself a humanist, stating that he thinks "that there are a lot of things about organized religion that are unfortunate, and [that he tends] to like to stay away from it." In 2021, he was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association. Fauci attended Regis High School, a private Jesuit school in Manhattan's Upper East Side, where he captained the school's basketball team despite standing only tall. Jesuit's philosophy of "to be men for others" would have a lasting impact on Fauci. He decided halfway through high school to become a physician. After graduating in 1958, Fauci attended the College of the Holy Cross, graduating in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics with a pre-med track. Fauci then attended Cornell University's Medical College (now Weill Cornell Medicine), graduating with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1966 ranked first in his class. At Cornell, he focused on adult internal medicine, mainly infectious diseases and the immune system. Fauci then did an internship and residency in internal medicine at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (now Weill Cornell Medical Center). Career After completing his medical residency in 1968, Fauci joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases's (NIAID) Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI). He became head of the LCI's Clinical Physiology Section in 1974, and in 1980 was appointed chief of the NIAID's Laboratory of Immunoregulation. He became director of the NIAID in 1984, a position he still holds. Fauci has been offered the position of director of the NIH several times, but has declined each time. Fauci has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to contend with viral diseases like HIV/AIDS, SARS, the Swine flu, MERS, Ebola, and COVID-19. He played a significant role in the early 2000s in creating the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and in driving development of biodefense drugs and vaccines following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fauci has been a visiting professor at many medical centers and has received numerous