Dr. Mary Jane Cardosa is the Director of the Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM). IHCM is a research center at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak started by Dr. Cardosa in 1995. Since developing and then assuming the leadership role at the Institute, she has created a thriving scientific laboratory and has successfully tackled diseases such as dengue, Japanese encephalitis, human enterovirus 71, and the mysterious viral illness which killed 31 Sarawak children in 1997. She is known for her work in diagnostics and disease surveillance, and is interested in issues of capacity building and policy.
Prior to her current position, Dr. Cardosa taught at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and lectured for the School of Medical Sciences, both at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang. She received her bachelor degree from Princeton University, joining the second class of women admitted, and earned her master’s degree from Columbia University in the U.S. Dr. Cardosa studied immunology of dengue haemorrhagic fever under Dr. James Porterfield and earned a Ph.D. at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Dr. Cardosa’s many awards include the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, which she used for postdoctoral travel and research at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California.