The CDC Leaders

“Public service is a privilege but for me it has also been a joy.”

—Rear Admiral Anne Schuchat, MD

Rear Admiral Anne Schuchat, MD, USPHS

Assistant Surgeon General, United States Public Health Service
Director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD)

Anne Schuchat, MD (RADM, USPHS), became director of CDC´s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in November 2005. Schuchat recently returned to NCIRD after serving as the Interim Deputy Director for Science and Public Health Program, where she provided leadership and guidance on high impact/high vulnerability science and program issues affecting CDC. She focused on ensuring that strong science and programmatic approaches were effectively integrated into planning across the agency, coordinating activities of the Office of the Chief Science Officer, the Office of Public Health Practice, and CDC’s National Centers.

Schuchat has worked at CDC since 1988, focusing on immunization, respiratory, and other infectious diseases. Prior to her current appointment, she served as the director of CDC’s National Immunization Program (NIP); acting director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID); chief of the Respiratory Diseases Branch at NCID; and as the initial medical director of the Active Bacterial Core surveillance (ABCs)/Emerging Infections Program Network, a multi-state collaboration between CDC, state health departments and academic institutions that tracks invasive bacterial infections, informs vaccine and prevention policy, and monitors program impact. Dr. Schuchat was named an Assistant Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service in 2006.

Globally, she has worked in West Africa on meningitis vaccine studies, in South Africa on surveillance and prevention projects, and in China on SARS emergency response, where she headed the Beijing City epidemiology team for the World Health Organization's (WHO) China Office. She continues to serve as a visiting professor for the Beijing Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. Dr. Schuchat has made critically important contributions to the prevention of infectious diseases in children, including her role in perinatal group B streptococcal disease prevention where she spearheaded the development of CDC’s guidelines that have led to an 80 percent reduction in newborn infections and a 75 percent narrowing of racial disparities among sufferers of this infectious disease. She also has been instrumental in pre- and post-licensure evaluations of conjugate vaccines for bacterial meningitis and pneumonia and in accelerating availability of these new vaccines in resource-poor countries through WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. Dr. Schuchat has also played a leadership role in the agency's response to the novel 2009-H1N1 influenza virus.

Anne Schuchat graduated with highest honors from Swarthmore College and with honors from Dartmouth Medical School. She served as resident and chief resident in internal medicine at New York University′s Manhattan VA Hospital before beginning her public health career at CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer in NCID.

She has authored or co-authored more than 180 scientific articles, book chapters, and reviews. Her contributions have been recognized by receipt of the USPHS Meritorious Service Medal, the American Public Health Association's Maternal and Child Health Young Investigator Award, the USPHS Physician Research Officer of the Year, and an Honorary Doctorate in Science from Swarthmore College. In 2008, Dr. Schuchat was inducted into the Institute of Medicine.