Donald P. Francis (1942-) is an American epidemiologist and pediatrician. He worked for the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for 21 years, before joining Genentech in 1992 and later co-founding VaxGen and Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases (GSID). He has extensive experience in vaccines and infectious disease control, including national and international work with measles, cholera, Ebola, smallpox, hepatitis B, and HIV/AIDS.

Francis grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MD from Northwestern University and his Doctor of Science from Harvard University. He later completed training in pediatrics and then joined the CDC in 1971. With the CDC, he worked on a number of projects in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO), including the Smallpox Eradication Program in Sudan and India. He was also part of the WHO team that investigated the first Ebola outbreak in 1976. Francis began investigating HIV/AIDS after its emergence in 1981. He directed the AIDS laboratory at the CDC and worked closely with the Institut Pasteur to identify the causative virus. His early efforts to call attention to the threat of AIDS among gay and straight people and warn of the inadequacy of the public health response were chronicled in the Randy Shilts book And the Band Played On. In 1992, he joined Genentech and helped found what became the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). Francis later co-founded VaxGen, which completed the world’s first Phase III trials of two candidate HIV vaccines in 2003. In 2004, Francis co-founded GSID and he continues to consult regarding vaccines and public health.