Alexander D. Langmuir Lecture
The Langmuir Lecture is the preeminent public health lecture in the United States. First given in 1972, this lecture continues to be a highlight of the annual EIS Conference. The lecture is named for Alexander D. Langmuir, MD, MPH (1910–1993), a public health visionary and leader who established the Epidemiology Program at what was then called the Communicable Disease Center in 1949; he remained as CDC’s chief epidemiologist until his retirement in 1970. Notably, Dr. Langmuir founded EIS, established national disease surveillance for the United States, and brought the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report to CDC. Learn more about Dr. Langmuir and Epidemiology at CDC.
CDC’s Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services (CSELS), Division of Scientific Education and Professional Development (DSEPD) was honored to host Vice Admiral Jerome M. Adams, MD, MPH, the 20th Surgeon General of the United States, as the 2018 Alexander D. Langmuir Lecturer!
Watch his talk, “Better Health Through Better Partnerships” if you missed it on Wednesday, April 18, 2018.
Speaker Bio
As Surgeon General, Dr. Adams is committed to maintaining strong relationships with the public health community and forging new partnerships with non-traditional partners, including business and law enforcement. His motto as Surgeon General is “better health through better partnerships.” He oversees the operations of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which has approximately 6,500 uniformed health officers who serve in nearly 600 locations around the world to promote, protect and advance the health and safety of our nation and our world.
Dr. Adams has pledged to lead with science, facilitate locally-led solutions to the nation’s most difficult health problems, and deliver higher quality healthcare at lower cost through patient and community engagement and better prevention.
Dr. Adams is a board-certified anesthesiologist and served as the Indiana State Health Commissioner from 2014 to 2017, where he presided over Indiana’s efforts to deal with the state’s unprecedented HIV outbreak. In this capacity, he worked directly with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as with state and local health officials and community leaders, and brought the widest range of resources, policies and care available to stem the epidemic affecting that community. He also helped with the successful launch of Indiana’s state-based, consumer-driven alternative to Medicaid expansion and worked with the state legislature to secure more than $10 million to combat infant mortality in high-risk areas of the state.
Dr. Adams was an associate professor of clinical anesthesia at Indiana University School of Medicine and a staff anesthesiologist at Eskenazi Health, where he was Chair of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee. He has served in leadership positions at a number of professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the Indiana State Medical Association and the Indiana Society of Anesthesiologists. He is the immediate past Chair of the Professional Diversity Committee for the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Dr. Adams, a Maryland native, has bachelor’s degrees in both biochemistry and psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a master of public health degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and a medical degree from Indiana University School of Medicine.
2017
The 2017 Langmuir Lecturer for the 66th Annual EIS Conference is Dr. Sandro Galea, the Robert A. Knox Professor and Dean at the Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Galea is both a physician and epidemiologist. He was named one of TIME magazine’s epidemiology innovators and has been listed by Thomson Reuters as one of the “World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” for the Social Sciences. He has published over 600 scientific journal articles, 50 chapters, and 10 books and his research has been featured extensively in current periodicals and newspapers. Prior to his appointment at Boston University, Dr. Galea served in numerous other academic and leadership capacities. Galea’s lecture addressed “Moving from Epidemiology to Quantitative Population Health Science.
2016
The 2016 Langmuir Lecturer for the 65th Annual EIS Conference was Dr. Margaret Hamburg, an internationally recognized leader in public health and medicine. Most recently, as Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, she was known for advancing regulatory science, modernizing regulatory pathways, and globalization of the agency. Before this, Dr. Hamburg was founding vice president and senior scientist at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a foundation dedicated to reducing nuclear, chemical and biological threats. Other positions have included Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (HHS), Health Commissioner for New York City, and Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
2015
Jeff Dean, PhD, a Google Senior Fellow, presented the 2015 Langmuir Lecture. Dr. Dean helped develop Epi Info as a high school and college student. He spoke on “Large-Scale Machine Learning and Its Application to Public Health.” See Epi Info™ Museum for key events in the history of Epi Info™ statistical software.