The CDC Leaders

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.”

—Edward R. Murrow

Jim Seligman, MS

Chief Information Officer

Mr. Seligman serves as CDC′s Chief Information Officer (CIO) since 1999. Mr. Seligman is responsible for the agency’s Information Technology Services Office, Management Information Systems Office, and Management Analysis and Services Office. As the agency′s CIO, Mr. Seligman provides leadership for the agency′s overall information technology (IT) program including IT Architecture, IT capital investment management, policy and standards development, information security, IT workforce development, and other enterprise activities. He serves on the HHS CIO Council and the HHS Information Technology Investment Review Board.

High quality and timely public health information is one of CDC′s primary products in the pursuit of the public′s health. Disease surveillance, health statistics, epidemiological analysis, and value-added public health information dissemination to health care providers and the public through IT are the principal strategies of CDC. CDC has been a leading adopter of information technology (IT) for more than four decades and currently invests over $500 million a year including $200 million in grants to state to help build national public health capacity through IT.

Mr. Seligman obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He came to CDC as a Quarantine Inspector based at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City in 1977 and had subsequent assignments in Puerto Rico conducting cruise-ship inspections and headquarters focusing on immigrant and refugee health screening. He then worked for two years in CDC′s Washington office assisting in legislation and policy coordination which included a one year assignment in the U.S. Congress. He then spent nine years in the Information Resource Management Office as deputy director and five years as director.

He and his wife Debra, have two sons.