Lynn came from the Midwest graduating from Northwestern University in Chicago undergraduate and from the NU medical school with a medical technology degree. She moved to Santa Monica and pursued a Masters degree in Microbiology at Cal State, Long Beach, followed by a move to San Francisco and a doctorate from UCSF in Experimental Pathology. Her thesis was on characterizing a human brain cell aggregate model to study human viruses, first HSV, then CMV and finally HIV. She has held the position of Chief of Microbiology at the VASF for 43 years in the Dept of Laboratory Medicine and Professor in Residence. Over the past 40+ years she has been continuously funded by the NIH and other agencies including AmFar and the VA, served on numerous study sections and Chaired the study section on NeuroAIDS. She has served on many UCSF committees including Biosafety, CAP and UCAP, Privilege and Tenure and Committee on Committees. She received the UCSF Laboratory Medicine Teaching award and was the first female to be the Associate Chief of Staff for Research at a VA and served for 7 years when the SFVA was the #1 highest funded VA in the US. She received the NCIRE award for Research and Leadership in 2007. She was a founding member of the International Society for Neurovirology (ISNV), its President and Co-Chair of the Meetings Committee. In 2009, she received the ISNV Woman in Neuroscience Lectureship. She was named one of the most Influential women in Business in 2012 from the San Francisco Business Times for her work on HIV. In 2019, she received the Pioneer in Neurovirology award for outstanding achievement in the field of neurovirology and in 2025, the Lifetime Achievement award from the ISNV.
Dr. Pulliam's research has focused on HIV neuroimmunology, biomarkers for HIV neurocognitive impairment, and the effects of HIV and aging. She was the first to develop a human brain aggregate model and used these brain aggregates to show human CMV infection of monocyte/microglia in the brain and later to show that HIV neuropathogenesis was caused by soluble factors from HIV-infected monocyte/macrophages - now known as a cytokine storm – rather than the virus. She began studying monocyte exosomes and their immune consequences early in exosome discovery. She recently reported that neuron-derived exosomes in the plasma have protein targets that correlate with cognitive impairment in HIV and differ in men and women. When the COVID pandemic began, she started research with funding from the VA on the neurological effects of long COVID. Throughout her 40+ years, she has taught UCSF Laboratory Medicine residents and Infectious Disease fellows all year around the fun facts of clinical microbiology. Outside work, she is on the Board of Directors and Vice Chair of the Golden Gate Regional Center (GGRC) that provides services and support for individuals with disabilities in Marin, SF, and San Mateo counties.
When not working, she loves travel (for fun), the wine country, mystery novels, gardening, art galleries and buying art and reading the NY Times to BonJovi and Imagine Dragons. She will retire to Raleigh, NC to be with her children and grandchildren at the end of this summer.