In 2004, Dr. Patrick Dakum was the Commissioner of Health for Plateau State in Nigeria and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health recruited him to help establish our international presence. His CV and academic credentials reflect a non-traditional academic resume with strong emphasis on implementation and team science whose international focus in Nigeria has been pivotal to the establishment of IHV-Nigeria and the PEPFAR program and growing portfolio of grants linked to the program in Nigeria. Dr. Dakum is a strong team player who has always put the interests of the Institute ahead of personal career advancement. For example, his full-time deployment to Nigeria to lead the on-ground implementation of the PEPFAR program as Principal Investigator/Project Director established a successful research environment for many other faculty with academic appointments in the Department of Medicine (Drs. Abimiku and Charurat), the Department of Pediatrics (Dr. Nadia Sam-Agudu), and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (Drs. Clement Adebamowo, Rebecca Nowak, and Kristen Stafford). This has culminated in NIH research grants that were awarded to faculty at the School of Medicine. Dr. Dakum has teaching responsibilities in various academic environments including the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) Graduate School and various universities in Nigeria. Many of his mentees are now making significant impacts and are in highly recognized positions in host country governments. For example, Dr. Gambo Aliyu, MBBS, PhD who was a 2014 graduate of the UMB Graduate School is now the Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS. Dr. Dakum is responsible for an extensive program of implementation and dissemination science at the UMB Graduate School. He is course coordinator for two major courses (MHS 613 and MHS 614) that have trained 20+ students across eight international field sites (Nigeria, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Rwanda). He is also extensively involved in mentoring and serving on thesis committee for nine pre- and postdoctoral Nigerian students who are engaged in advanced research training through the UMB-IHV’s NIH-sponsored Fogarty HIV Research Training Program. Since 2013, Dr. Dakum has also lead mentoring for 17 students across all professional schools at UMB; these mentorships have resulted in instilling research interest and peer-reviewed publications for the students. Dr. Dakum is internationally recognized for the HIV implementation program in Nigeria and in his leadership in setting the advancement for implementation and dissemination research, a fairly new research area that focuses on methods and strategies that facilitate the uptake of evidence-based practice and intervention into regular use. He is also a member of the Regional Community Advisory Board for the NIH-funded D2EFT Multi-Country Study. He is a reviewer for internationally recognized peer review scientific journals. Dr. Dakum is active in institutional service primarily through his work in supporting the activities of IHV-Nigeria and its various steering committees and working groups. Through his work, Dr. Dakum has become one of the most prominent public health physicians in Nigeria