Joseph Baruch Baluku, MB ChB, M. Med, M. Sc, is a research fellow with the Makerere University Lung Institute and the head of the Division of Pulmonology at Kiruddu National Referral Hospital in Kampala, Uganda. He is a current Fogarty fellow for which he is evaluating the effect of previous Tuberculosis on cardiovascular risk factors among people with HIV.

He previously chaired the Mildmay Uganda Scientific and Research Advisory Committee, a non-governmental organisation that supports HIV programming for almost 90,000 people with HIV in rural Uganda. His research interests are in tuberculosis, HIV, TB/HIV co-infection, other respiratory infections, lung cancer and the overlap of non-communicable and infectious diseases. As such he has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications on HIV, tuberculosis, COVID – 19, aspergillosis, cryptococcosis, histoplasmosis, helminthiasis, malaria, HIV-related lung cancer and cardiovascular risk factors.

He received the Joep Lange Award at the INTEREST 2020 conference and the MERCK foundation hypertension award in 2018.