Biographies - Hantavirus

Jay C. Butler, MD, CPE, FAAP, MACP, FIDSA
Photo of Jay C. Butler, MD, CPE, FAAP, MACP, FIDSA

Dr. Butler was appointed Alaska Chief Medical Officer and Director of the Division of Public Health in December 2014. Since February of 2017, he has also been Incident Commander of the Alaska Governor’s Opioid Disaster response. In 1993, he was a Medical Epidemiologist in the National Center for Infectious Diseases in Atlanta. He graduated from the UNC Medical School, completed post-doctoral clinical trainings at Vanderbilt and Emory Universities, maintains board certifications in infectious diseases, internal medical, and pediatrics, and is an affiliate professor of medicine at the University of Alaska Anchorage. In 1998, he moved to Alaska to serve as Director of CDC’s Arctic Investigations Program. He completed over 23 years of service as a U.S. Public Health Service medical officer, and participated in a number of deployments including; anthrax 2001, SARS 2003, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita 2005, and H1N1 influenza 2009-10.  From 2010 to 2014, Dr. Butler was Senior Director for Community Health Services at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in Anchorage, and a clinical infectious diseases consultant. He served as Governor of the Alaska Chapter of the American College of Physicians, 2005-2009 and in 2017 as President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO).  He received the 2010 ASTHO National Excellence in Public Health Award and the 2018 Public Policy Award from the American Society of Addiction Medicine.  He is a member of the CDC Office of Infectious Diseases Board of Scientific Counselors and the National Vaccine Advisory Committee.

Thomas G. Ksiazek, DVM, PhD
Photo of Thomas G. Ksiazek, DVM, PhD

Dr. Ksiazek is a Professor at the Departments of Pathology and Microbiology and Immunology, and Senior Staff Scientist and Director, High Containment Operations Core, Galveston National Laboratory. He is also a Member, Center for Tropical Disease; Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases; and Sealy Center for Vaccine Development, at University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). He worked for over 17 years in the Special Pathogens Branch, DVRD, at the CDC, first as the Chief, Disease Assessment Section, and later as Branch Chief. Before joining CDC, he worked as the Chief, Rapid Diagnosis Department, Disease Assessment Division, US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Ft. Detrick. His scientific interests include epidemiology/ecology and laboratory diagnosis of hemorrhagic fevers and arthropod-borne viral diseases. Consultant on operational biosafety and facility design to USDA, UTMB, DOD, DHHS, DHS, with professional assignments in England, Taiwan, Indonesia and Egypt, as well as extensive outbreak experience in Asia, Africa and South America. Dr, Ksiazek has author/co-author more than 360 research papers. Bibliometrics (Scopus): H-index: 92; citations: more than 29,000.

James Emory Childs, ScD
Photo of James Emory Childs, ScD

Dr. Childs is a Senior Research Scientist at Yale School of Public Health and served on the PREDICT Senior Technical Advisory Committee (USAID Award for the Study and Prediction of Emerging Zoonoses), the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Steering Committee on the Compilation and Curating of Rabies–Related Databases, and as an Expert Consultant on Zoonotic and Vector-borne Diseases, WHO. From 1992-2003, he worked in the Viral and Rickettsial Zoonoses Branch at CDC, first as the Epidemiology Section Chief, later as the Branch Chief. Prior to joining the CDC, he was an Associate Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health and a National Research Council Research Associate, USAMRIID. His research focuses on various aspects of zoonotic diseases, many of which are classified as ‘Emerging,’ concentrating on directly-transmitted viruses capable of causing severe and fatal disease in humans (including Arenaviruses, Filoviruses, Hantaviruses and Lyssaviruses), tick-borne rickettsia and environmentally-transmitted infections (leptospirosis). Dr. Childs has also mentored many individuals including 19 EIS Fellows, and 3 PhDs, 10 MS, 23 MPH candidates.

Page last reviewed: August 27, 2018
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