Linda L. Baum, PhD, is a professor of immunology and microbiology, and director of the newly developed Integrated Biomedical Science (IBS) Graduate Program at Rush. She has been at Rush for the last 10 years; this is also where she began her professional career in 1978. She was co-director of the Chicago Developmental Center for AIDS Research from 2009 to 2016. She was co-director of the administrative core of a program project grant on HIV pathogenesis in the female genital tract from 2009 to 2015. From 1982 to 2006 she was an assistant and then an associate professor at what is now Rosalind Franklin University in North Chicago. While there she was active and held many leadership positions in the medical school and the graduate program. Her research moved from studies of the role of C-reactive protein in innate immunity to the role of innate immunity in the protective response against HIV in 1990. Her studies of the role of mucosal antibodies in antibody dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity against HIV precipitated her participation in several prospective clinical studies funded by NIH. Her primary focus now is development of the IBS Graduate Program at Rush.

Research areas includes Innate immune response to HIV in the female genital tract, antibody dependent cell-mediated cytoxicity.