2026 VIP Reception

Erica Michelle Deuso (born August 27, 1980) is an American politician. On November 4, 2025, she was elected as the mayor of Downingtown, becoming the first openly transgender mayor in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

In May 2025, she won the Democratic Party's primary for the mayoral race for Downingtown, a town in Chester County west of Philadelphia, defeating fellow Democrat Barry Cassidy. Deuso ran against Republican Richard Bryant in the general election, which she won with 64% of the vote, becoming the first openly transgender person elected mayor in Pennsylvania.

Deuso is originally from South Burlington, Vermont. She is a graduate of South Western High School in Hanover, Pennsylvania. She has multiple degrees, including an masters degree in business administration, from Drexel University, after moving to Downingtown in 2007. 

Anthony Fauci has had an extraordinary career in biomedical research and national public health leadership. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, he has effectively led the institute’s fight to prevent, diagnose, and treat many of the greatest challenges to global public health, including infection with the HIV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses.

A native of Brooklyn, Dr. Fauci attended Regis High School (on 84th Street between Madison and Park), and earned his B.A. from Holy Cross and M.D. from Cornell University Medical College. After graduation in 1966, he began his research career at NIAID, where he devised therapies for several rare and formerly fatal inflammatory diseases before becoming the Institute director. He also serves as the chief medical advisor to the President of the United States under President Biden.

Dr. Fauci has been a key figure in the fight against acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), first recognized in 1981, and subsequently found to be caused by HIV. He has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body’s defenses and has been instrumental in developing highly effective strategies for therapy, as well as in efforts to develop a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. He spearheaded the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has saved millions of lives in the developing world.

Through seven presidential administrations, Dr. Fauci has provided guidance on public health and medical issues to the U.S. population and its presidents. During the COVID-19 pandemic, NIAID investigators made critical contributions to development of the safe and effective vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Dr. Fauci earned the nation’s trust by providing clear, compassionate advice rooted in the available facts through the rapidly evolving pandemic. He is revered for his insistence on the pursuit of truth, and the distinction between what is known and what is not, serving with unwavering dedication despite an extremely challenging political environment. In addition to spearheading NIAID’s role in combatting HIV and COVID-19, he ushered the public through numerous other challenges, including the anthrax scare of 2001 and outbreaks of swine flu, Ebola, and Zika.

Dr. Fauci is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. His many awards and accolades include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the George M. Kober Medal of the Association of American Physicians, and the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service.

Peter Staley is a pioneering American AIDS activist who founded the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and AIDSmeds.com. He is featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary “How to Survive a Plague.”

 

Staley was born in Sacramento, California. He attended Oberlin College, where he studied classical piano. He later studied economics and government, which led to a job as an investment banker at J.P. Morgan.

 

Though Staley was out to his family, he was closeted at his job on Wall Street. After he was diagnosed with AIDS-related complex (ARC) in 1985, he joined the advocacy group ACT-UP to help fund-raise. In 1988 he took part in an ACT-UP protest on Wall Street and talked about his diagnosis on the local news. 

 

After giving up his career in banking, Staley became a prominent AIDS activist. He was one of three men who barricaded themselves at a drug research company to protest the exorbitant price of AZT, one of the first marketed AIDS drugs. He worked with pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of AIDS drugs and raised large contributions for AIDS clinical trials and charities. Staley spoke at many of the earliest AIDS conferences around the globe.

 

In 1991 Staley founded TAG to help find AIDS treatments. He is famous for draping a giant condom over the home of North Carolina Senator Jess Helms, after the senator criticized the use of federal money for AIDS research.

 

From 1991 to 2004, Staley served on the board of amfAR, the foundation for AIDS research. During that period, President Bill Clinton named him to the AIDS Task Force on AIDS Drug Development. The Task Force honored him with the Award of Courage in 2000.

 

In 1999 Staley created AIDSmeds.com, a portal offering information and resources on HIV/AIDS drugs and gay health. In 2006 the website merged with POZ, a publication for people living with the virus. Staley became an advisory editor and blogger for the site.

 

Staley created an educational campaign about crystal meth addiction in the gay community. A former addict, he talked publicly about his recovery and launched an ad campaign, funded with his own money, to highlight the dangers of the drug and its relationship to HIV transmission.

 

The 2012 documentary “How to Survive a Plague” chronicles Staley’s activism. The film earned critical acclaim, including best documentary from the Gotham Independent Film Awards and the Boston Society of Film Critics and nominations from the Sundance Film Festival and the Academy Awards. GLAAD Media named it the outstanding documentary of the year.