CIDER Summit 2009- Biographies

Tomás Aragón, MD, DrPH

Dr. Aragón is Principal Investigator and Executive Director at the Center for Infectious Disease & Emergency Readiness. Before coming to the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Dr. Aragón worked for eight years as director of Community Health Epidemiology and Disease Control at the San Francisco Department of Public Health and as Deputy County Health Officer for the City and County of San Francisco. At SFDPH he directed communicable disease control and prevention, bioterrorism preparedness and response planning, and the epidemiologic and effectiveness research unit. Dr. Aragón's education and training include UC Berkeley (BA Molecular Biology, DrPH Epidemiology), Harvard Medical School (MD, MPH), and UC San Francisco (Internal Medicine, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and AIDS epidemiology fellowship).

Roger Baxter, MD

Roger has been an internist and Infectious Diseases specialist at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland for 20 years.  He chaired the Public Health Improvement Project, a collaboration between Kaiser and Public Health, from it’s inception until he became the co-director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center.  He has been very involved in Kaiser’s Regional microbiology  laboratory, and spearheaded Kaiser’s influenza surveillance program.  Currently he spends ¾ of his time doing research on vaccines, and ¼ taking care of patients with difficult infections.  He works closely with the CDC, in both the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) and Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment Network (CISA). 

Gail Bolan, MD

Dr. Bolan earned her medical degree from the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire.  She completed her training in internal medicine at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and subspecialty training in infectious diseases at the Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston and the Stanford Medial Center.  She trained in medical epidemiology as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Respiratory and Special Pathogens Branch.

Dr. Bolan served as the Director of the San Francisco City and County STD Prevention and Control Program and as Medical Director of City Clinic, the San Francisco STD Clinic, from 1987 to 1997.  Since 1997, she has been the Chief of the STD Control Branch of the California Department of Public Health.  Dr. Bolan has also directed the nationally funded California STD/HIV Prevention Training Center for the past 20 years.  Currently, she serves on the Infectious Disease Society Association’s (IDSA’s) National and Global Public Health Committee and is a member of the American Social Health Association Board of Directors.  Previously, Dr. Bolan served as chair of the Natinal Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD) from 2004-2006; served on the CDC HIV/STD Prevention Advisory Committee from 1998 to 2004, and on the American STD Association (ASTDA) Executive Committee from 1994 to 1997, as well as on numerous regional and local committees.  Dr. Bolan has published extensively in the field of STD epidemiology, prevention, and public health, with more than 125 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Carol J. Cardona, DVM, PhD, ACPV

Carol is a veterinarian at University of California, Davis. She works on finding out how disease-causing agents damage their hosts. She is particularly interested in the pathogenesis of poultry viruses, how they cause disease, how they are transmitted, and how infections and diseases caused by these viruses can be prevented. She works with agents causing problems for the poultry industry over the long term and with agents causing problems for producers and consumers today.

Brandon Dean, MPH

After receiving his BA from Brigham Young University in International Studies, he had plans to study international health systems management at Tulane University.  As luck would have it, he arrived in New Orleans just days before Hurricane Katrina did.  Brandon went on to receive an MPH from UCLA, studying, ironically enough, Emergency Public Health.  He has spent the last three years working in Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Program, Policy and Planning Unit, with a particular focus on pandemic influenza preparedness and response. 

William Lawrence Drew, MD, PhD

W. Lawrence Drew graduated from Jefferson Medical College where he received both an MD and PhD in virology.  He is currently Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.  He is the Director of the UCSF Diagnostic Virology Laborato­ry and Chief of Infectious Diseases at UCSF Mount Zion Medical Center.  Dr. Drew's clinical and laboratory research has focused on the diagnosis of viral infections and evaluation of antiviral agents for the treatment of viral infection, including the development of rapid methods for testing the susceptibility of viruses to antivirals, and quantitating antiviral effect using DNA-based or antigenic assays, in vitro and in vivo. 

 Jeff Farrar, DVM, PhD, MPH

Dr. Farrar is the Branch Chief of the Food and Drug Branch in the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).   The Food and Drug Branch has regulatory oversight responsibility for manufacturers of foods, drugs, and medical devices in California.  Dr. Farrar graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in 1981 and received his Master of Public Health degree from the University of Minnesota in 1983 and his Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of California-Davis in 1998.  Dr. Farrar completed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service two-year training program in 1985 and subsequently worked as an epidemiologist for the USDA-Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service designing national surveillance programs for animal diseases.  Since joining the CDPH in 1994, Dr. Farrar served as Unit Chief of the Emergency Response Unit leading numerous environmental investigations of foodborne outbreaks in California including salmonellosis associated with eggs, sprouts, and cantaloupe, E.coli O157 illnesses from leafy greens, unpasteurized apple juice and sprouts, and cyclosporiasis from berries.  He has worked closely with numerous industries and agencies to develop preventive guidelines for safe food production.  Dr. Farrar has co-authored numerous publications and has served in numerous national committees including the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Food Safety System-Outbreak Coordination Workgroup.

Susan E. Fernyak, MD, MPH

Dr. Susan Fernyak is Deputy Health Officer for San Francisco and Director of the Department of Public Health’s communicable Disease Control and Prevention Section.  Her Section is responsible for epidemiology, surveillance and disease control of over 80 diseases, immunization programs and bioterrorism preparedness and response.  The current focus of her section is on surveillance of chronic hepatitis B, “Hep B Free” –a collaborative effort to screen and vaccinate API’s for Hepatitis B, and Infectious Disease Emergency Response planning.  Most recently, this plan has been utilized for a measles outbreak and the San Francisco response to novel H1N1.  Dr. Fernyak is a practicing internist, did a fellowship at UCSF in AIDS Prevention, and has worked as a consultant for WHO and UNAIDS .

Kathleen Harriman, PhD, MPH, RN

Kathy has worked in the healthcare and public health fields for the past 35 years as a pediatric emergency room nurse, a hospital infection control practitioner, and as an infectious disease epidemiologist.  For the last two years, Kathy has been Chief of the Vaccine Preventable Disease Epidemiology Section in the Immunization Branch of the California Department of Public Health.  Prior to joining CDPH, she worked for 15 years at the Minnesota Department of Health in a number of public health areas, including HIV/AIDS and the Emerging Infections Program.  During her last five years there she supervised the Infection Control Unit where she worked on community-associated MRSA and a variety of infectious disease issues, including many community and healthcare-associated outbreaks.  Kathy has an MPH from the University of Sydney (Australia) and a PhD from the University of Minnesota. 

Richard F. Hector, Ph.D., J.D.

Richard serves as the Project Director for the Valley Fever Vaccine Project; an academic-based consortium to discover and move into development a preventive vaccine for coccidioidomycosis.  In that position, Richard coordinates the scientific, business and intellectual property aspects of the Project under Dr. George Rutherford, Global Health Sciences, UCSF, and has conducted clinical trials with the skin test antigen coccidioidin. 

Prior to UCSF, Richard held positions in the pharmaceutical industry, in both large and small pharma companies, with a focus on small molecule & biologics discovery and development for anti-infectives.

Richard took his doctorate in microbiology at UC Davis, where his dissertation was a study of the Valley Fever fungus, Coccidioides immitis.  Richard did his post-doctoral studies in medical mycology at Tulane School of Medicine.  Richard is also a registered patent attorney.

Jan Lidgard, AB, PHM, CLS

Jan received her Bachelor’s degree in Bacteriology from the University of California, Berkeley.  Subsequently, she completed a year of Clinical Microbiology training at the University of California, San Francisco.  Her first job was at a small hospital in Richmond where she was able to complete her general laboratory technologist training and become licensed as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist.  After working for over twenty years in clinical laboratories, Jan began working at the state public health lab in Berkeley.  While doing PFGE testing, she trained in Public Health Microbiology and received her certification in September 1999.  Currently, she works as the lead PFGE microbiologist at the state lab in Richmond.  Jan is certified by CDC to perform PFGE on shiga toxin positive E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Shigella, and Camplylobacter.  She is also a member of CDC’s Pulse/Net and is responsible for alerting state epidemiologists of clusters in our state. 

Bela T. Matyas, M.D., MPH

Bela T. Matyas is currently Chief of the Disease Investigations Section of the California Department of Public Health.  He previously served for thirteen years as the Medical Director of the Epidemiology Program in the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.  Prior to that he served for four years as the Medical Director of Disease Control and State Epidemiologist for the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDH), after serving for three years as the Chief of Environmental Health Risk Assessment for the RIDH.  Dr. Matyas received his medical degree from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and completed a residency in Occupational Medicine/Preventive Medicine at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he also received a Master of Science Degree in Epidemiology and a Master of Public Health (MPH) Degree.

Erica Pan, MD, MPH

Erica Pan, MD, MPH is the Director of the Bioterrorism and Infectious Disease Emergencies Unit, in the Communicable Disease Control & Prevention Section at the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH).  Prior to her current position, Dr. Pan worked for the SFPDH Communicable Disease Control Unit on outbreak investigations, field team planning, epidemiology and surveillance, disease control protocol development and training.  Dr. Pan has a special research and public health interest in Community-Associated MRSA.  She is also an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).  She continues her clinical work attending at UCSF for Pediatric Infectious Diseases and at San Francisco General Hospital in the General Pediatrics Clinic.  Her previous training includes completion of a Pediatric residency, chief residency, and Pediatric Infectious Disease fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.  She is board certified in both Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Pediatrics. She received her MD and MPH degrees from Tufts University School of Medicine, and completed her undergraduate education at Stanford University. 

Michelle Roland, MD

Dr. Michelle Roland was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the position of chief of the California Department of Public Health, Office of AIDS (DCPH/OA) on July 1, 2007.

Prior to accepting her current position, Dr. Roland was a member of the California AIDS Drug assistance Program (ADAP) Medical Advisory Committee and served as a California representative to the Center for Disease Control’s Medical Monitoring Project on behalf of the Office of AIDS.

Dr. Roland is also an associate clinical professor of medicine at the Department of Internal Medicine with the University of California, San Francisco’s Positive Health Program (HIV/AIDS Division) at San Francisco General Hospital.  She continues to see patients and teach residents there once a week.

She is a member of the American Academy of HIV medicine, where she was previously vice chair of the board of directors and chair of the public policy committee.  Dr. Roland’s previous research interests include post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and behavioral interventions following sexual exposure to HIV and the safety and efficacy of liver and kidney transplants in HIV-infected patients.  

Jon Rosenberg, MD

He graduated from New York University in 1974 and State University of New York at Buffalo, School of Medicine in 1977.  He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Presbyterian Hospital, Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, California in 1977, and a fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology, Toxicology and Occupational Health at the University of California, San Francisco in 1980.  He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Toxicology, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Linda Rudolph, MD, MPH

Biography Unavailable.

George W. Rutherford, MD

Dr. George Rutherford is Director of the Prevention and Public Health Group, Salvatore Pablo Lucia Professor of Preventive Medicine, and Head of the Division of Preventive Medicine and Public Health in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Medicine at UCSF. He is also Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology and Health Administration at the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. Educated at Stanford University and the Duke University School of Medicine, Dr. Rutherford is board certified in pediatrics and general preventive medicine and public health.

Following training in epidemiology in the Centers for Disease Control's Epidemic Intelligence Service, he spent the majority of his professional career in public health practice, with primary emphasis on the epidemiology and control of communicable diseases. He has held a number of positions in public health agencies, including serving as the State Health Officer and the State Epidemiologist for the California Department of Health Services, the Director of the AIDS Office for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and the Director of the Division of Immunizations for the New York City Department of Health.

Dr. Rutherford is currently Director of the Joint UCSF-University of California, Berkeley Residency Program in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine. He is also Director of the International Program at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies and Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Collaborative Review Group on HIV Infection and AIDS.

Mark Sawyer, MD FAAP

Dr. Sawyer is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and a Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist at the UCSD School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego.  He is the medical director of the UCSD San Diego Immunization Partnership, a contract with the San Diego County Agency for Health and Human Services to improve immunization delivery in San Diego. He is the current chair of the California Immunization Committee, an advisory committee to the California State Immunization Branch and a member of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).  Dr. Sawyer is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and belongs to numerous professional societies including the Society of Pediatric Research, the Infectious Disease Society of America and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.

The San Diego Immunization Partnership involves work in all areas of immunization delivery including support of the San Diego Immunization Registry, quality improvement activities in both public and private clinics in San Diego, education of primary care residents about immunization delivery, adult immunization initiatives, and community outreach.

Robert Schechter, MD

Robert Schechter is a pediatrician and acting Chief of the Immunization Branch of the California Department of Public Health.

Linette Scott, MD, MPH

Dr. Scott is a Board Certified Physician in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine.  She has a Doctor of Medicine from Eastern Virginia Medical School, a Master in Public Health from University of California, Davis, and a Bachelors of Arts in Physics from University of California, Santa Cruz.  Following medical school, Dr. Scott completed a Pediatric Internship at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center and then served as a General Medical Officer with the United States Navy for four years, fist as squadron physician with the Regional Support Group and later as the military physician for an Active Duty clinic.  After completing the Preventive Medicine Residency Program with the California Department of Health Services, Dr. Scott joined the Department as a Public health Medical Officer, developing expertise in data and information systems, geographic information systems (GIS), data policies and public health informatics.  Now, as the Deputy Director for the Health Information and Strategic Planning Division, Dr. Scott plays a key role in managing the Center for Health Statistics and the Office of County Health Services as well as providing coordination and leadership for departmental strategic planning and the development of shared informatics resources, such as GIS.