William Foege will be the 2012 recipient of the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage. The award extends the legacy of the late Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. by recognizing people, who like him, have shown extraordinary courage at considerable risk to their careers, and even their lives, on behalf of a social organization or issue. As mayor, Allen helped maintain peace during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Foege will receive the Allen Prize on March 14, 2012, during the "Global Health and the Challenge of Hope" symposium sponsored by Georgia Tech.

Foege is widely recognized as instrumental in the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. After serving as a medical missionary in Nigeria, Foege became chief of CDC's Smallpox Eradication Program and was named CDC director in 1977. In 1984, Foege and several colleagues formed the Task Force for Child Survival (now the Task Force for Global Health), which promotes childhood immunizations and prevents polio, measles, river blindness, and other diseases. Foege served as executive director of the Carter Center from 1986 to 1992 and joined the Emory faculty as Presidential Distinguished Professor of International Health at RSPH in 1997. Two years later, he became senior medical adviser for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He retired from Emory and the Gates Foundation in 2001.