Dr. Peck is a global leader whose work has transformed care for chronic diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa. Living in Tanzania for 16 years, he established the Weill Bugando School of Medicine’s first internal medicine and pediatrics residency programs, which trained over 2,000 medical students and mentored more than 25 physician-scientists, many of whom are now national leaders. This enduring capacity building created the foundation for his pioneering research at the intersection of HIV and cardiometabolic disease.

Dr. Peck was among the first to document the extraordinary burden of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in African populations and to establish their strong links to HIV. He has led randomized clinical trials that changed clinical practice and health policy. For example, his Daraja trial demonstrated that a simple, $22-per-patient social worker intervention could dramatically improve post-hospital HIV outcomes, increasing linkage to care, antiretroviral initiation, and viral suppression. In parallel, his large cluster-randomized trial in 80 health centers showed that strengthening health systems markedly improved hypertension treatment quality; this scalable model was subsequently adopted into Tanzania’s Ministry of Health strategic plan for non-communicable diseases.

Currently, Dr. Peck leads NIH-funded cohort studies and community trials across Africa, leveraging innovative approaches—including engaging religious leaders—to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease. His research has revealed the disproportionate prevalence of hypertension in people with HIV, identified novel mechanisms such as nocturnal blood pressure elevation and diastolic dysfunction, and opened new avenues for intervention.
Through groundbreaking science, policy-shaping trials, and transformative training programs, Dr. Peck has defined a new field linking HIV and cardiometabolic disease and directly improved survival across Sub-Saharan Africa.