The CDC Leaders

"In this highly connected world, microbes continue to challenge us, both here and globally. We must be alert and prepared to detect these threats and respond as quickly and effectively as we can.”

- Rima Khabbaz, MD

Rima Khabbaz, MD

Director, National Center for Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Diseases

Rima Khabbaz, MD, is the director of CDC’s National Center for Preparedness, Detection, and Control of Infectious Diseases (NCPDCID), and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Emory University. She previously served as acting deputy director, National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID); associate director for epidemiologic science, NCID; deputy director, Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases (DVRD), NCID; associate director for science, DVRD; chief, hantavirus surveillance, DVRD; and medical epidemiologist, DVRD.

She is board-certified in internal medicine, and her specialties include healthcare-associated infections, emerging infectious diseases, viral diseases, blood safety, food safety, and transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.

Dr. Khabbaz graduated from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where she obtained both her bachelor’s degree in science in 1975 and her medical doctorate degree in 1979. She trained in internal medicine and completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, MD.

She served on the Blood Product Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1995-1999, the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s (IDSA) Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee from 1999-2002, and was a member of the FDA’s Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee from 2003-2004.

Doctor Khabbaz is an alumna of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) program, a fellow of the IDSA, and a member of the American Epidemiologic Society (AES), the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTM).