Executive Leadership & Expert Bios

Captain Gary Brunette, MD, MS

Branch Chief, Travelers' Health, NCEZID

Gary Brunette, MD, MS, is the Branch Chief of Travelers' Health and Editor-in-Chief of the CDC Health Information for International Travel, also known as the Yellow Book. He is a Captain in the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Brunette joined the CDC in 2006.

In 2008, Dr. Brunette participated in a one-month deployment on a humanitarian assistance mission to Nicaragua and Colombia on the U.S.S. Kearsarge. He performed infectious disease and public health risk assessements and provided clinical support at temporary clinics in remote locations. This mission was extended for an additional month when the U.S.S. Kearsage was diverted to respond to a natural disaster in Haiti after two hurricanes hit the island. In 2010, he responded to the earthquake in Haiti for four weeks as a member of a Rapid Deployment Team located on the U.S.S. Bataan.

Dr. Brunette grew up in South Africa and attended the University of Cape Town, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in history. He then served for five years in the South African Navy. After spending four years on an extended "walkabout" during which he backpacked through six continents, Gary immigrated to the United States in 1992. He attended medical school at the University of Wisconsin and subsequently completed an M.S. in epidemiology and his preventive medicine residency at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. He then joined the U.S. Navy as a preventive medicine officer and was stationed in Italy for three years. He provided health risk analysis and consultative services to military units and ships under the European Command. In addition to preparing military personnel for deployments throughout Africa and southwest Asia, Dr. Brunette also ran a travel medicine clinic for both service members and their dependants. During that time he was deployed for eight months in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Dr. Brunette is a Fellow of the Faculty of Travel Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow.

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