Who We Are

The Public Health Informatics Office (PHIO) in CDC’s Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services (CSELS) works to meet evolving data and informatics needs to protect Americans from health threats.

Our interdisciplinary team collaborates across the agency and with private and governmental partners to provide innovative data, analytics, and technology solutions for public health action.

PHIO Leadership

Adi V. Gundlapalli, MD, PhD, MS
CSELS Chief Public Health Informatics Officer, PHIO Director
Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services

Dr. Gundlapalli is the Public Health Informatics Office Director. He is a physician and informatician who serves as the Chief Public Health Informatics Officer of the Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services. In this capacity, he provides strategic and tactical leadership to advance informatics, health information technology, and data modernization efforts across CDC, within US Government, and with external partners. As a senior leader in CDC’s COVID-19 incident management since 2020, he has led initiatives to increase understanding of the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic using traditional, new, and non-traditional data sources. Dr. Gundlapalli has 20 years of experience in increasingly complex health care and public health leadership and management positions. Gundlapalli received his medical degree from the Madras Medical College in Madras (now called Chennai), India. He received further training at the University of Connecticut Health Center where he earned a PhD in immunology and completed an internal medicine residency. In Utah, he completed a three-year clinical and research fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine and a master’s degree in biomedical informatics. He is board certified in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and clinical informatics.

Prior to coming to CDC in 2019, Dr. Gundlapalli was the Chief Health Informatics Officer and infectious diseases staff physician for the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. He was a tenured professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine and a physician at University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics. His clinical and research interests were in infectious diseases, clinical immunology, bio-surveillance (and biodefense), preparedness for public health emergencies, infection prevention and hospital epidemiology, and healthcare for vulnerable populations.

Corinne “Cory” Ferdon, PhD, MS
Deputy Director and Associate Director for Science
Public Health Informatics Office, CSELS

Dr. Ferdon is Deputy Director and Associate Director for Science of the Public Health Informatics Office. Dr. Ferdon provides leadership and oversight of management and operation activities that support data modernization, health equity, and data and information technology governance. She also provides scientific and analytic advisement and leads innovative projects to strengthen CDC’s data and informatics preparedness and response. Dr. Ferdon joined CDC in 2004 and was previously the Deputy Associate Director for Science in the Division of Violence Prevention within the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. She was also a Lead Scientist for violence prevention activities and led CDC’s Academic Centers of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention. Dr. Ferdon has served in other CDC scientific leadership and management positions, including Acting Deputy Director for CDC’s Office of Science Quality.

Prior to coming to CDC, Dr. Ferdon was an assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine. She provided services and conducted research at Grady Hospital’s Pediatric HIV/AIDS and Sickle Cell clinics and was the Director of Psychological Services at an adolescent reproductive health clinic. She earned her MS and PhD in clinical psychology from Florida State University in Tallahassee.