Advisory Committee to the Director Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dileep G. Bal, MD, MS, MPH

District Health Officer
Hawaii State Health Department

Dr. Dileep G. Bal began working for the Hawaii State Department of Health in September 2005, as the District Health Officer for the Island of Kauai, and as Special Advisor to the Director of the Department on Cancer, Chronic Disease, Tobacco and Nutrition.  He is a Clinical Professor at both the University of Hawaii Cancer Center and the Department of Family and Community Medicine of the College of Medicine (University of Hawaii).

Dr. Bal had been with the State of California for over two decades, where he served as the Chief of the Cancer Control Branch within the Department of Health Services.  With the advent of Proposition 99, which added a $.25 tax on each package of cigarettes sold in California, he became responsible for implementing California’s tobacco control efforts.  This tobacco use prevention and cessation program was one of the largest of its kind in the world and has been universally acclaimed for its innovations and effectiveness.  He is the founder/director of California’s Tobacco Control and Obesity Control efforts. His branch’s annual budget was in excess of 250 million dollars.

Since 1981 Dr. Bal had held an appointment as a Clinical Professor at the medical school of the University of California at Davis, where he was active in the teaching and research programs.  He has published extensively in the areas of cancer prevention and control, especially about diet and cancer, tobacco, and cancer and the underserved.  Dr. Bal has been Principal Investigator on several large National Cancer Institute and Centers for Disease Control cancer prevention and control projects.  Currently he is on the editorial board or, is an active reviewer, for several peer-reviewed medical journals as well as for the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.  Dr. Bal is a frequent speaker on public health, medical and social issues, both nationally and internationally.  He was the commencement speaker at Brown University Medical School in May 2005.

Prior to going to California in 1981, Dr. Bal was in Tucson, Arizona for ten years, where he was the Director of the Pima County Health Department and on the full-time faculty of the University of Arizona, College of Medicine.  Dr. Bal was born and educated mainly in New Delhi, India.  His medical degree is from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.  He also has graduate degrees in Public Health from Columbia and Harvard Universities.  He has been board certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine since 1975.

Dr. Bal is very active with the American Cancer Society at the local, state, and national levels.  He has been a member of the National Board of Directors and a National Officer, in addition to being an Honorary Life Member, and Past President of both the Sacramento Unit and the California Division of the American Cancer Society.  In 2000-2001, Dr. Bal was the National President of the American Cancer Society.

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FNAPA, FACEP (E), Hon FRSPH

Executive Director
American Public Health Association

Georges C. Benjamin is well-known in the world of public health as a leader, practitioner and administrator. He has been the executive director of the American Public Health Association, the nation's oldest and largest organization of public health professionals, since December 2002. He came to that post from his position as secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He became secretary of health in Maryland in April 1999, following four years as its deputy secretary for public health services. As secretary, Dr. Benjamin oversaw the expansion and improvement in the state's Medicaid program.

Dr. Benjamin, of Gaithersburg, Md., is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine and a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a fellow emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health.

At APHA, Benjamin also serves as publisher of the nonprofit's monthly publication, The Nation's Health, the association's official newspaper, and the American Journal of Public Health, the profession's premier scientific publication. He is the author of more than 100 scientific articles and book chapters.

He also serves on the boards of Research!America, Partnership for Prevention, the Reagan-Udall Foundation and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. In 2008, he was named one of the top 25 minority executives in health care by Modern Healthcare Magazine, in addition to being voted among the 100 most influential people in health care from 2007 through 2011 and one of the nation's most powerful physician executives from 2009 to 2011.

Kenneth I. Berns, MD, PhD

Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
College of Medicine, University of Florida
Gainesville, FL

(Serves as Co-Chair, Laboratory Safety Workgroup)

Kenneth I. Berns, M.D., Ph.D. recently retired as Director of the Genetics Institute at the University of Florida.  Previously he served as Dean of the College of Medicine and Vice President for Health Affairs.  Dr. Berns has devoted most of his scientific research career to the study of the molecular basis of replication of the human parvovirus, adeno-associated virus. He has been a major contributor to our knowledge concerning the ability of adeno-associated virus to establish latent infections and to be reactivated. His work has been instrumental in providing the basis for the current interest in the use of this virus as a vector for gene therapy. He also has had a longstanding interest in medical education and has served as a member of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. He is a past member of the Composite Committee of the United States Medical Licensing Examination and is a past Chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges.  Dr. Berns has served on many scientific advisory committees including the Genetic Biology Panel of the NSF, the Virology Study Section of the NIH, the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Virology-Microbiology panel of the American Cancer Society (Chair), the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (Chair) of the NIH and the National Advisory Research Resources Council (NARRC) of the NIH. He has also served similar roles for the EPA, the U.S. Army (NRC) and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center.  He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Berns is currently a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.  Earlier he served as chair of the National Research Council’s “Standards and Policies for Decontaminating Public Facilities Affected by Exposure to Harmful Biological Agents: How Clean Is Safe?”  This committee’s final product, Reopening Public Facilities after a Biological Attack: A Decision Making Framework, was completed in June of 2005. He also served on the Institute of Medicine Committee for Research Opportunities for Smallpox Virus, as well as the National Research Council Committee on the Metropolitan Medical Response to Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Finally, he chairs the American Society for Microbiology Taskforce on Biological Weapons.

Nisha D. Botchwey, PhD, MCRP, MPH

Associate Professor
Georgia Institute of Technology

Nisha Botchwey joined the Georgia Institute of Technology School of City and Regional Planning as an Associate Professor in January 2012. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University, Master's and Doctorate degrees in City and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master's of Public Health from the University of Virginia. Dr. Botchwey was an Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning and Public Health Sciences at the University of Virginia since 2003 where she taught the first Healthy Communities course in the nation and launched the Built Environment and Public Health Curriculum website. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on community-led approaches to improve population health through built environment changes. Her publications are in a variety of journals including the Journal of Planning Education and Research, IEEE, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and Peer Review and she is coauthor on Health Impact Assessments in the USA (forthcoming 2012, Springer) with Catherine Ross and Marla Ornstein. She serves on the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Governing Board and the National Academy for Environmental Design Research Committee on Design and Health. She is also the recipient of numerous awards and grants from the Annie E Casey Foundation, NIH, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Benjamin K. Chu, MD, MPH, MACP

Group President, Southern California and Hawaii
Regional President, Southern California
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Incorporated and Hospitals
Pasadena, California

Dr. Chu was appointed regional president of Kaiser Permanente Southern California in February 2005 and was appointed group president responsible for both Southern California and Hawaii in January 2011.   He directs hospital and health plan operations for 14 hospitals and 145 medical offices, serving more than 3.45 million members.  As group president, he joins the Kaiser Permanente Program-wide Operational Leadership group with oversight responsibility over the entire organization.  Before he joined Kaiser Permanente, Dr. Chu served for three years as president of New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corp., the largest public hospital system in the country.  A primary care internist by training, he possesses extensive health care experience as a clinician, administrator and policy advocate.  He was senior vice president for Medical and Professional affairs for the public hospitals and served as acting commissioner of health for the New York City Department of Health from 1990 to 1994.  Dr. Chu has experience as an academic health center leader.  He was senior associate dean at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons from July 2000 to February 2002.  He also served at the New York University School of Medicine and Medical Center as associate dean and vice president for Clinical Affairs from April 1994 to May 2000.  As a 1989-1990 Robert Wood Johnson Policy Fellow, he served as a legislative assistant for health for New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley.

Dr. Chu earned his medical degree at New York University, his master’s degree in public health from Columbia University, and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University.

Thomas A. Farley, MD, MPH

Joan H. Tisch Distinguished Fellow in Public Health
Hunter College of the City University of New York
New York, New York

Dr. Farley is the Joan H. Tisch Distinguished Fellow in Public Health at Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he works on public health policy.   From May 2009 to January 2014, he was Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.  During his time as Health Commissioner, he advocated for groundbreaking public health policies in New York City, including making the city’s parks and beaches smoke-free, prohibiting price discounting of cigarettes, raising the legal sales age of tobacco to 21, capping the portion size of sugary drinks sold in restaurants at 16 ounces, and restricting the burning of air-polluting dirty fuels to heat buildings.  During Dr. Farley’s time at the agency, the NYC Health Department led the National Salt Reduction Initiative, which has successfully worked with major food companies to reduce sodium levels in food nationwide.  Dr. Farley also used mass media to deliver powerful messages to promote health behaviors, including creating the “Pouring of the Pounds” sugary drink ads on subways and televisions, introducing the “Two Drinks Ago” campaign to reduce binge alcohol drinking, and developing a series of hard-hitting ads on the health consequences of smoking.  Before joining the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Agency, Dr. Farley was chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.  He received his MD and Master of Public Health degrees from Tulane University.  Trained as a pediatrician, he served in the Centers for Disease Control's Epidemic Intelligence Service and worked for the CDC and the Louisiana Office of Public Health from 1989 to 2000.  During that period, Dr. Farley directed programs to control various infectious diseases.  He has conducted research and published articles on a wide range of topics, including Legionnaires' disease, prevention of HIV/STDs, infant mortality, and obesity.  Dr. Farley is coauthor with RAND Senior Scientist Deborah Cohen of Prescription for a Healthy Nation (Beacon Press).

David W. Fleming, MD

Health Officer
Public Health – Seattle and King County
Seattle, Washington     

Dr. Fleming is the Health Officer for Public Health – Seattle - King County, a large metropolitan health department with 1900 employees, 39 sites, and a budget of $296 million, serving a resident population of 1.8 million people. Department activities include core prevention programs, environmental health, community oriented primary care, emergency medical services, correctional health services, public health preparedness, and community-based public health assessment and practices. Before assuming this role, Dr. Fleming directed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Health Strategies Program, where he was responsible for cross-cutting programs targeting diseases and conditions disproportionately affecting the world's poorest people and countries.

Dr. Fleming has also served as Deputy Director, CDC. While at CDC, Dr. Fleming led efforts to develop the agency's scientific and programmatic capabilities and served as the principal source of scientific and programmatic expertise in CDC′s Office of the Director. He provided oversight of CDC′s global health portfolio through its Office of Global Health and also oversaw the Director's offices of Minority Health, Women's Health, and the Associate Director for Science. Dr. Fleming has published scientific articles on a wide range of public health issues. He has served on a number of Institute of Medicine and federal advisory committees, the Boards of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, as President of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and as the State Epidemiologist of Oregon. Dr. Fleming received his medical degree from the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. He is board certified in internal medicine and preventive medicine and serves on the faculty of the departments of public health at both the University of Washington and Oregon Health Sciences University.

Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH, MS

Michael and Lori Milken Dean of Public Health
Milken Institute School of Public Health
The George Washington University
Washington, DC

A pediatrician and an epidemiologist, Dr. Goldman is Michael and Lori Milken Dean of Public Health. Formerly she was a Professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences, where her areas of focus were children's environmental health, public health practice, and chemical regulatory policy. In 1993, Dr. Goldman was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve as Assistant Administrator (AA) for the US Environmental Protection Agency, where she directed the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) from 1993 through 1998. As AA for OCSPP she was responsible for the nation's pesticide, toxic substances and pollution prevention laws. Under her watch, EPA overhauled the nation's pesticides laws to assure that children would be protected by pesticide regulations. At EPA she was successful in promoting children's health issues and furthering the international agenda for global chemical safety.

Prior to joining the EPA, from 1985 until 1993, Dr. Goldman served in several positions at the California Department of Public Health, most recently as chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control. She has conducted public health investigations on pesticides, childhood lead poisoning and other environmental hazards. She established the California Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program and co-founded the Children's Environmental Health Network.

She has a BS in Conservation of Natural Resources, an MS in Health and Medical Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an MD from the University of California, San Francisco. She completed pediatric training at Children's Hospital, Oakland, California and is board-certified in pediatrics.

She was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine in 2007. She has received several awards including the Woodrow Wilson Award for Distinguished Government Service from the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association (1999), Alumna of the Year from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health (2002), National Library of Medicine, Changing the Face of Women in Medicine (2003), election to the Delta Omega Honor Society (2007), the Children's Environmental Health Network Child Health Advocate Award (2008), Maryland's Top 100 Women, Maryland Daily Record (2009) and the Heinz Award for Global Change, (2010).

Dr. Goldman currently is vice chairman of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, a member of the NAS Board on Environmental Sciences and Toxicology and a member of the NAS Report Review Committee. She serves as a member of the US Food and Drug Administration Science Board. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Alan E. Greenberg, MD, MPH

Professor and Chair
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health 
Washington, DC

Alan E. Greenberg, MD, MPH, is Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.      

Among recent activities, Dr. Greenberg is the Co-founder and Co-Director of the GW HIV/AIDS Institute, dedicated to linking and expanding the University′s HIV-related research and educational activities in basic science, prevention, epidemiology, clinical care, education and health policy. He also founded and is Director of the newly chartered GW Center for HIV/AIDS Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health Laboratory Research, committed to expanding HIV/AIDS research activities in these domains in Washington, DC. He is the principal investigator of the “Academic-Public Health Partnership” between GW and the District of Columbia Department of Health. The partnership has focused on core HIV/AIDS and hepatitis surveillance activities, the CDC-funded National HIV Behavioral Surveillance System, and monitoring and evaluation of DC′s HIV testing campaign. He is also the principal investigator of several World Health Organization-sponsored management and policy projects, including the development of a legal and policy framework to support “task-shifting” among health care workers to scale up HIV prevention, care and treatment services in the developing world. Before joining SPHHS, Dr. Greenberg spent two decades at CDC, where he provided scientific leadership for its domestic and international HIV epidemiologic research program. 

He served as chief of the agency′s HIV Epidemiology Branch, supervising research studies in 28 US states and nine countries. His assignments have taken him around the globe, including Cote d′Ivoire, where he spent four years directing the CDC's research, training and clinical services in West Africa. He received his Doctor of Medicine from George Washington University School of Medicine in 1982 and his Masters in Public Health in 1999 from Harvard School of Public Health.

Anthony B. Iton, MD, JD, MPH

Senior Vice President, Healthy Communities The California Endowment Oakland, California

Anthony B. Iton, MD, JD, MPH, as Senior Vice President of Healthy Communities, joined The Endowment in October 2009. Prior to his appointment at The Endowment, Dr. Iton served since 2003 as both the director and County Health Officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department. In that role, he oversaw the creation of an innovative public health practice designed to eliminate health disparities by tackling the root causes of poor health that limit quality of life and lifespan in many of California's low-income communities.

Dr. Iton also served for three years as director of Health and Human Services and School Medical Advisor for the City of Stamford, Connecticut. Concurrent to that, he also served as a physician in internal medicine for Stamford Hospital's HIV Clinic. In addition, Dr. Iton served for five years as a primary care physician for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
His varied career also includes past service as a staff attorney and Health Policy analyst for the West Coast regional office of Consumer's Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Dr. Iton, who has been published in numerous public health and medical publications, is a regular public health lecturer and keynote speaker at conferences across the nation. He earned his BS in Neurophysiology, with honors, from McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec, his JD at the University of California, Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Joseph Kanabrocki, PhD, CBSP

Associate Vice President of Research Safety
Professor of Microbiology
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

(Serves as Chair, Laboratory Safety Workgroup)

Dr. Kanabrocki is currently the Associate Vice-President of Research Safety and Professor of Microbiology at the University of Chicago.  In these capacities, he serves as Select Agent Responsible Official, University Biosafety Officer, and Director of the Biosafety Programs at the University of Chicago’s Ricketts Regional Biocontainment Laboratory.  Prior to his appointment at the University of Chicago, he served as the Institutional Biosafety Officer and Select Agent Responsible Official at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Washington University in St. Louis.

He is a former member of the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) and a current member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB).  He is also a former Councilor of the American Biological Safety Association (ABSA).  In addition, he participated in the 2012 External Review of CDC’s Animal Biosafety Level 3 Vivarium Facility.  He is a certified biological safety professional.

Herminia Palacio, MD, MPH

Director, Human Capital and Leadership Teams
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Princeton, New Jersey

Herminia Palacio applies a broad range of academic, clinical, and public policy experience to meet the diverse public health challenges of today.  She served as Special Policy Advisor to the Director for the San Francisco Department of Public Health before relocating to Houston.  In January 2003, she was appointed to the post of Executive Director of Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services (HCPHES), the local health department for approximately 2 million people.  She was awarded the Excellence in Health Administration Award by the American Public Health Association in 2007.

She received her medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.  She completed her residency training at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Primary Care Internal Medicine Program at San Francisco General Hospital.  After becoming an Internist, she obtained a Master’s of Public Health, with an emphasis in Epidemiology, from the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health.  She has held numerous faculty appointments, including several years as a full-time faculty member, health services researcher, and primary care physician at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF).  During her tenure with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, she continued part-time clinical practice and research at UCSF.  She continued these activities at the Houston VA Medical Center and the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston from 2001- 2003.  After joining HCPHES in 2003, she has maintained adjunct faculty appointments at the Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas School of Public Health.

She has served on the Board of Directors of organizations including, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the Mickey Leland National Urban Air Toxics Research Center, the Texas Association of Local Health Officials (TALHO), the Harris County Healthcare Alliance (HCHA) and she currently serves as Chair of the Texas Public Health Coalition.  She has also served as a member of numerous scientific advisory panels and committees, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Preparedness & Response Emergency Center at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health and the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Prepositioned Medical Countermeasures for the Public.  Most recently she was appointed to the Board of Scientific Counselors for the CDC Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response.

Lynne D. Richardson, MD, FACEP

Professor and Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine
Professor of Health Evidence and Policy 
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
New York, New York

Dr. Lynne D. Richardson is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Vice Chair for Academic, Research and Community Programs of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. A native New Yorker, she holds Bachelor's degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Life Sciences and Management; and the MD degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed her Emergency Medicine Residency at Jacobi Hospital/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and completed a research fellowship with the AAMC Health Services Research Institute. Dr. Richardson is a nationally recognized Emergency Medicine health services researcher; her areas of interest are access and barriers to care, and improving effective utilization of health care resources. She was the Principle Investigator for the New York City Site of the PAD Trial, an international, randomized, controlled trial of public access defibrillation; and is currently the Principal Investigator for the "Community VOICES" Study, an NIH-funded study of "Community Views on Informed Consent in Emergency Situations." Dr. Richardson serves on the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Health Public 2010 Task Force and the American College of Emergency Physicians Public Health Committee. She is a member of the New York City Board of Health, the first emergency physician ever to serve in that Board's one hundred and thirty-nine year history, and was recently nominated to serve on the Institute of Medicine Committee to Review the NIH Strategic Plan to Reduce and Ultimately Eliminate Health Disparities.

Sara Rosenbaum, JD

Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy
George Washington University 
Milken Institute School of Public Health
Washington, DC

Sara Rosenbaum, J.D., is the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy and founding Chair of the Department of Health Policy, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, a unique center of learning, scholarship, and public service focusing on all aspects of health policy.

A graduate of Wesleyan University and Boston University School of Law, she has authored a leading health law textbook as well as more than 350 articles and studies focusing on all phases of health law and health care for medically underserved populations. A holder of numerous awards for her scholarship and service, Professor Rosenbaum is the recipient of the Richard and Barbara Hansen National Health Leadership Award (University of Iowa), a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, and the Oscar and Shoshanna Trachtenberg Award for Scholarship, George Washington University's highest award for scholarship.

Professor Rosenbaum also serves as a member of CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) and as a Commissioner on the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, which advises Congress on federal Medicaid and CHIP policy.