The CDC Leaders

"Dreams are the touchstones of our character"

- Henry David Thoreau

Edwin Trevathan, MD, MPH

Director, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities

Edwin Trevathan, MD, MPH, returned to CDC as director of NCBDDD in July 2007. Prior to this, Dr. Trevathan served as a professor of neurology and pediatrics and director of the Division of Pediatric and Developmental Neurology at Washington University/St. Louis School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO. He also served as the Neurologist-in-Chief at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Dr. Trevathan worked at CDC from 1987 to 1989 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer in birth defects and developmental disabilities.

Dr. Trevathan received his MD and MPH at Emory University and completed his residency training at Yale University in pediatrics, and at Massachusetts General Hospital in neurology and child neurology. He was an epilepsy/neurophysiology fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital. From 1989 to 1995, Trevathan was a partner in a child neurology private practice in Atlanta based at Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital, while he also was on the clinical faculty at Emory. While there, he consulted with state health departments and with private industry, and designed and directed clinical trials of anti-epileptic drugs.

Dr. Trevathan has conducted epidemiologic studies of childhood epilepsy and developmental disabilities, has directed multi-center clinical trials, and has published in clinical pediatric neurology, epilepsy, and neurodevelopmental disabilities. He serves on the Editorial Board of Neurology, is a regular reviewer for several other journals including Pediatrics and The Lancet, and has lectured nationally and internationally. He is board-certified in pediatrics, neurology with special qualification in child neurology, and in clinical neurophysiology.