MMWR Editorial Board
Timothy F. Jones, MD (Chairman)
Nashville, TN
Dr. Timothy Jones earned a medical doctorate degree from Stanford University and completed a residency in Family Medicine and a Maternal/Child Health Fellowship at the Brown University/Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island program. He practiced in an underserved population in Utah before joining CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service in 1997. He now serves as the State Epidemiologist for the Tennessee Department of Health, overseeing programs including Immunizations, TB, HIV/STD, Emergency Preparedness, Foodborne Diseases, Healthcare Associated Infections, Vectorborne and Zoonotic Diseases, Environmental Epidemiology, Prescription Drug Overdose Epidemiology, and general communicable disease surveillance and control. He serves on CDC’s Board of Scientific Counselors and is active on the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), including serving as President (2013−2014). Dr. Jones has authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications on a variety of public health topics.
Matthew L. Boulton, MD, MPH
Ann Arbor, MI
Dr. Matthew L. Boulton is a Senior Associate Dean and Professor of Epidemiology, Preventive Medicine, and Global Public Health in the School of Public Health and Professor of Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan. He is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and author of over 150 peer review publications and more than 100 published abstracts, books chapters, and technical reports. He is senior editor for the 16th (and 100th anniversary) edition of Maxcy-Rosenau-Last Public Health & Preventive Medicine and served 5 years on the CDC’s Board of Scientific Counselors for Infectious Diseases. Before his faculty appointment, he worked for 16 years in public health practice, first as a medical director for four different local health departments and later as the governor’s Chief Medical Executive and State Epidemiologist, serving as the lead physician/epidemiologist at the state health department. He has received numerous professional awards including the Association of Prevention Teaching and Research’s Duncan Clark and F. Marion Bishop Outstanding Educator of the Year awards, the American College of Preventive Medicine’s Ron Davis Special Recognition Award, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists’ Distinguished Partner of the Year, the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health Award for Faculty Excellence in Scholarly Public Health Practice, the Alumni of the Year Award from both the University of Michigan and the University of Nevada, and the Michigan Public Health Association’s Distinguished Service Award. In addition, he received two international awards from the Chinese government in 2010 and in 2017 for his contributions to public health in China.
Carolyn Brooks, ScD, MA
Tampa, FL
Dr. Carolyn Brooks, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, Clinical Capability, UnitedHealthcare Community & State. UnitedHealthcare Community & State serves more than six million Medicaid members in 30 states, plus Washington D.C., with a mission to help people live healthier lives and help make the health system work better for everyone. As Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, Dr. Brooks is responsible for designing, implementing, and scaling initiatives and clinical programs aimed to improve health outcomes.
Dr. Brooks’ current portfolio includes various initiatives aimed to reduce preterm births, address the opioid epidemic and incentivize healthy behaviors. As the national lead for the Medicaid Opioid Strategy, she has worked closely with state partners and cross-functional teams to drive an enterprise-wide effort to enhance our network of evidence-based treatment providers, develop alternative payment models to incentivize high quality treatment, and support care management interventions to address the needs of high risk members (e.g., pregnant women with Opioid Use Disorder, those with an overdose). Dr. Brooks also leads a Harvard’s partnership with March of Dimes and has supported the evaluation and scale of Supportive Pregnancy Care, a group prenatal care initiative to improve birth outcomes. Previously, she worked with the Harvard Prevention Research Center where she evaluated community interventions to prevent chronic diseases and reduce health disparities. She also worked in various roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including serving as the Health Equity Coordinator for the Division of Community Health where she led health equity efforts in the implementation of national community health initiatives. Before joining CDC, she worked with the Southern Center for Communication, Health, and Poverty.
Dr. Brooks completed a Doctor of Science degree in Social & Behavioral Sciences and Nutrition from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She also holds a Master of Arts in Health Communication from the University of Georgia.
Virginia A. Caine, MD
Indianapolis, IN
Dr. Virginia A. Caine is Director of the Marion County Public Health Department and Associate Professor of Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine Infectious Disease Division.
Dr. Caine established the first HIV/AIDS integrated health care delivery system involving major hospitals, community health centers, social service agencies, and HIV dental clinics in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She has served as a member of the American Public Health Association, as Past President; the National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Prevention and Control of STDs; and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Coordinating Committee on Clinical Preventive Services.
Dr. Caine is active in the National Medical Association; the National Association of County and City Health Officials; the Fairbanks Institute Board of Directors; the CDC/HRSA Advisory Committee on HIV, Viral Hepatitis, and STD Prevention and Treatment; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) National Preparedness and Response Science Board; and the Indiana Health Information Exchange.
She has served as a board member for the DHHS Steering Committee for the Bright Futures for Women’s Health and Wellness Initiative, CDC’s Elimination of Health Disparities through Translation Research Panel, the Council on Education for the Public Health Board, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s National Advisory Committee for Common Ground: Transforming Public Health Information Systems.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota and her medical degree at New York Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. She received her infectious disease training at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Jonathan E. Fielding, MD, MPH, MBA
Los Angeles, CA
Dr. Jonathan Fielding has contributed to the fields of public health and prevention for 45 years in multiple leadership positions. He is a Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and has been a Professor of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA since 1979.
Dr. Fielding served as the Los Angeles County Director of Public Health and Health Officer for 16 years. In this role, he was responsible for all public health functions including surveillance and control of both communicable and non-communicable diseases, and health protection (including against bioterrorism) for the County’s 9.8 million residents. His prior experience includes serving as Commissioner of Public Health for Massachusetts.
He is a founding member and chair of the U.S. Community Preventive Services Task Force and was a founding member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. He is a Presidential appointee to the national Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. He also serves on CDC’s Advisory Committee to the Director. Formerly he chaired the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s expert advisory group on the national 2020 Healthy People Project. Dr. Fielding is an elected member of the Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Fielding has authored more than 300 articles, commentaries and editorials on public health and prevention issues and is the Editor of the Annual Review of Public Health. He received his medical, public health and history of science degrees from Harvard University and an MBA in finance from the Wharton School of Business.
David W. Fleming, MD
Seattle, WA
Dr. David W. Fleming is PATH’s vice president of Public Health Impact, which encompasses programs in reproductive health, maternal and child health and nutrition, noncommunicable diseases, malaria control and elimination, and HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. He also oversees cross-programmatic collaboration at PATH, which seeks to maximize the impact of work critical health areas, including maternal and neonatal health, diarrheal disease, and malaria.
Before joining PATH in 2014, Dr. Fleming served as the director and health officer for Public Health—Seattle and King County (PHSKC), with a budget of more than $300 million, serving a resident population of 2 million. Prior to that, Dr. Fleming was director of Global Health Strategies at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, overseeing a grant portfolio of more than $1 billion in vaccine-preventable disease, nutrition, maternal and child health, leadership, emergency relief, community health programs, and human resources and health information. Dr. Fleming also served as deputy director at CDC for Science and Public Health and as deputy administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Dr. Fleming is a clinical associate professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health. He completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Oregon Health Services Center and his preventive medicine residency at CDC.
William E. Halperin, MD, DrPH, MPH
Newark, NJ
Dr. William Halperin is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology of the Rutgers School of Public Health and formerly chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine in the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and Associate Dean for the Newark Campus of the School of Public Health. His current focus is on teaching epidemiology and supervising MD-MPH students. He was formerly with CDC, where he held numerous positions, including Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, Preventive Medicine Resident, and Deputy Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Dr. Halperin has an extensive background in occupational and environmental health particularly in field epidemiology, surveillance, and large scale cohort studies. He received his medical doctorate from Harvard Medical School and earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health. He is certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine and the American Board of Occupational Medicine. Dr. Halperin is a past member and chair of the Committee on Toxicology of the National Research Council and is currently on the NRC’s Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology.
Jewel Mullen, MD, MPH, MPA
Austin, TX
Dr. Jewel Mullen is the Associate Dean for Health Equity at the Dell Medical School, as well as an associate professor in the school’s Departments of Population Health and Internal Medicine. She also concurrently holds a faculty appointment at Huston-Tillotson University and serves as a senior consultant for Seton, part of Ascension, to help meet health equity goals across its system.
She is the former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the former Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health. She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on a National Strategy for Cancer Control in the United States. She is the former chair of the CDC’s National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection and Control Federal Advisory Committee, and has served on both the Advisory Committee to the CDC Director and the Public Health Accreditation Board. She also was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Quality Measures for the Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators.
Board-certified in internal medicine, Dr. Mullen received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public health from Yale University, where she also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in psychosocial epidemiology. She graduated from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where she was elected to AOA, the National Medical Honor Society. She did her residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mullen also holds a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Jeff Niederdeppe, PhD
Ithaca, NY
Dr. Jeff Niederdeppe is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University. His research examines the mechanisms and effects of mass media campaigns, strategic health messages, and news coverage in shaping health behavior, health disparities, and social policy. He has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles in communication, public health, health policy, and medical journals, and his work has been funded in recent years by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is an Associate Editor for Communication Methods and Measures and serves on the editorial board for four other communication journals. Dr. Niederdeppe was awarded the Lewis Donohew Outstanding Scholar in Health Communication Award from the Kentucky Conference on Health Communication in 2014. Prior to joining Cornell’s faculty in 2008, he received his Ph.D. in 2006 from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of Wisconsin from 2006 to 2008.
Patricia Quinlisk, MD, MPH
Des Moines, IA
Dr. Patricia Quinlisk is the Medical Director and State Epidemiologist at the Iowa Department of Public Health. She earned a master’s degree in public health from the Johns Hopkins University and a medical doctorate degree from the University of Wisconsin. Her background includes training as a clinical microbiologist, training microbiologists while a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, and training as a field epidemiologist in the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. For 12 years she conducted epidemiologic training courses in Europe and is a professor at the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin, Des Moines University, and Iowa State University. She has served on CDC’s Board of Scientific Counselors, on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and as President of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE). She was on the Institute of Medicine’s committees on Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century, Animal Health at the Crossroads, Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism, and Antivirals for Pandemic Influenza. In 2009 she received an honorary Doctorate of Science degree from Iowa State University, and for five years she served as chair for the National Biodefense Science Board.
Patrick L. Remington, MD, MPH
Madison, WI
Dr. Patrick L. Remington is Associate Dean for Public Health and Professor of Population Health Sciences at the School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). He began his public health career in 1982 at CDC, serving as an Epidemic Intelligence Services (EIS) Officer with the Michigan Health Department and as a medical epidemiologist with the Division of Nutrition in Atlanta. In 1988, he returned to Madison to work as an epidemiologist in the Wisconsin Division of Health, eventually serving as the first Chief Medical Officer for Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention. Since joining UW in 1997, he has served as Associate Director of the Carbone Cancer Center and was the founding director of the Population Health Institute and the Master of Public Health Program. Dr. Remington earned a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular biology and a medical doctorate degree from UW, completed an Internal Medicine Internship at the Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, was an EIS officer and completed a Preventive Medicine Residency at CDC, and received an MPH degree from the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on developing methods to measure the health of communities and communicate this information to the public and policy makers. He was the founder of the RWJ-funded “County Health Rankings” project, which ranks the health of the counties in all 50 states and examines strategies to improve population health. He has authored or co-authored over 300 publications and teaches courses on public health practice to undergraduate, medical, and public health students.
Carlos Roig, MS, MA
Washington, DC
Mr. Carlos Roig is Executive Vice President at Subject Matter, a District of Columbia–based communications and public affairs agency. He leads strategic initiatives for the firm and its clients and has been instrumental in shaping Subject Matter’s offerings over the past six years. Mr. Roig built the firm’s first Digital Strategy unit and directed the Content and Media divisions before moving into his current companywide role. He is a frequent public speaker on the intersection of journalism, advertising and strategic communications. Prior to joining Subject Matter, he led the site-wide development of new online communities for USA Today and directed the news organization’s full digital coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign, election and inauguration. In addition to his work in media and communications, he is a recipient of the Teaching Excellence and Service Award for his instruction in Georgetown University’s graduate journalism program. He has received academic and reporting fellowships from the Knight Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the McCormick Foundation and Columbia University. His investigative reporting on data mining and terrorism prosecutions has been featured in The Washington Post, and he has contributed to multi-platform projects with ABC News, the Associated Press, BBC, the Los Angeles Times, and Wired magazine. Mr. Roig received a Master of Science degree in journalism from Northwestern University; a Master of Arts degree in Spanish (with an emphasis in Hispanic literature) from New York University; and a Bachelor of Arts degree with High Honors in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.
William Schaffner, MD
Nashville, TN
Dr. William Schaffner is Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy and Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee.
After graduating from Yale University in 1957, Dr. Schaffner attended the University of Freiburg, Germany, as a Fulbright Scholar. He attended Cornell University Medical College and completed residency training and a Fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt. He then joined the U.S. Public Health Service as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with CDC in Atlanta for two years. While with CDC, Dr. Schaffner became familiar with public health and investigated outbreaks of communicable diseases both in the United States and abroad. He returned to Vanderbilt and established a collaboration with the Tennessee Department of Health. Dr. Schaffner’s primary interest is the prevention of infectious diseases. He is a strong proponent of collaboration between academic medical centers and public health institutions. He has worked extensively on the effective use of vaccines and has been a member of numerous expert advisory committees that establish national vaccine policy.
Dr. Schaffner is the Medical Director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and has served on the Board of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Dr. Schaffner often is invited to comment in local and national media on communicable disease issues, translating research advances and public health events into language that the public can understand.
Morgan Bobb Swanson, MD, PhD
Iowa City, IA
Morgan Bobb Swanson earned a dual degree (MD/PhD) from the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and College of Public Health. Her focus was on epidemiology and identifying factors in pediatric emergency care access and outcomes through health services research. Swanson was a medical student representative and liaison to the Association of American Medical Colleges. She was a health and sanitation instructor for the Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, Kamuli, Uganda, and a global agriculture intern for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy. She plans to combine her training in epidemiology and medicine to improve health care delivery in rural areas in the United States and globally. Swanson earned undergraduate degrees in global resource systems and genetics from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University.