Joyce I. Wallace

Joyce Wallace (November 25, 1940 – October 14, 2020) was a pioneering AIDS physician. She was among the first to identify AIDS in the 1980s and worked to stop its spread among New York City's prostitutes.

She was among the first doctors to find Kaposi's sarcoma in immunodeficient gay men before AIDS was diagnosed in 1981. She also published a paper in 1981 that linked Kaposi's sarcoma with AIDS.

Early life Joyce Irene Malakoff (birth name) was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Queens. Her father, Samuel Malakoff, was a teacher at a vocational high school while her mother, Henrietta Yetta (Hameroff) Malakoff, was a speech therapist. This was once of the first reports linked Kaposi's Sarcoma to immunodeficient gay men, and thus one of the first medical reports of the looming AIDS crisis.

Wallace received the Brooke Russell Astor Award for improving the quality of life in New York City.

Wallace died from a heart attack in a Manhattan, New York City hospital in October 2020.