Michaela Clayton is a human rights lawyer who has worked in the field of HIV, gender and human rights since 1989.  She was a long-standing member of the UNAIDS Human Rights Reference Group of which she was also the co-chair from 2011 until February 2021. She is also a member of the of the HIV Justice Network Global Advisory Panel. Ms Clayton was the Founding Director of  the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), a regional partnership of over 100 civil society and community based and led organisations working together to promote a human rights-based response to HIV in  east and southern Africa and served as Director of the organisation from its inception in 2003 until she stepped down in December 2019. She now works as an independent consultant on health and human rights and in June 2024 she returned to ARASA as Interim Director.