Dr María Luisa Ávila Agüero is a pediatric infectious diseases physician at the Nacional de Niños Hospital, "Dr. Carlos Sáenz Herrera", San José, Costa Rica. She served as Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases between 2000–2006 and again since September 2011 to present. She is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Post-graduate Studies in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Costa Rica. Dr Ávila Agüero served as Minister of Health for Costa Rica from May of 2006 to August of 2011. She has received several awards, among which she was named one of the 50 most influential women in Central America by Forbes 2014. Since 2016, Dr Ávila Agüero has been member of the Council of International Society for Infectious Diseases and has been a researcher affiliated to the Center for Modeling and Analysis of Infectious Diseases at Yale University since 2018.