Dr. Alexandra Freeman, a principal investigator and senior clinician in the Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has won the 2026 Distinguished Clinical Teacher Award.
The award is given each year by NIH Clinical Fellows, who vote to select “an individual who embodies the highest ideals of mentorship, clinical excellence, teaching and research.”
Dr. Freeman is a pediatric infectious diseases physician, who focuses on the diagnosis and management of primary immunodeficiencies, in particular the hyper IgE syndromes, including Job’s syndrome and DOCK8 deficiency.
NIH Clinical Fellows Committee Co-chair Dr. Abdullah Flaifel announced the award at the start of the NIH Clinical Grand Rounds Great Teachers: John Laws Decker Memorial Lecture Distinguished Clinical Teacher on June 11.
“Her pioneering work has shaped nearly every aspect of clinical assessment and management for these diseases,” Flaifel said, reading excerpts from the nominations of NIH Clinical Fellows. “She’s also an exceptionally collaborative investigator working with colleagues across disciplines to deepen our understanding of disease mechanisms and open new avenues for treatment.”
“It’s a huge honor to get this award,” Dr. Freeman said. “So much of what we do is trying to encourage the next generation to go into medicine and sell our fields … so that we have very, very good people to then hand our patients off to.”
Dr. Freeman will present the 2026 Great Teachers: John Laws Decker Memorial Lecture Distinguished Clinical Teacher during NIH Clinical Center Grand Rounds next June.
The lecture is named in honor of former NIH Clinical Center Director John Decker, MD, who joined NIH in 1965 and served as director from 1983 to 1990. Known as an outstanding teacher, Dr. Decker strove to connect scientific communications around the world to accelerate important research.
—Sean Markey