Kristen Ries

Salt Lake City, UT

Professor emerita of Internal Medicine and retired infectious disease physician, Kristen Ries moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in 1981—arriving the same day the CDC released a report about a new disease affecting gay men. She created Utah’s first comprehensive HIV/AIDS program, and was for years the only physician willing to treat AIDS patients in Utah. In 1994, she joined the University of Utah’s Division of Infectious Diseases and brought 500 patients with her.  She and her partner, Maggie Snyder, found creative ways to serve patients and provide them with the expensive drugs then used to treat HIV/AIDS. In 2000, Ries and Snyder led efforts to establish a treatment clinic in St. George, which also continues to serve patients today.  She received an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Utah in Spring 2020.