 | Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan |
Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who is currently an administrator at Emory University, was elected as an alumni fellow of the Yale Corporation in a worldwide ballot of Yale graduates.
He will assume his trusteeship on July 1, succeeding world renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, whose term is expiring.
Koplan, vice president for academic health affairs at Emory University, has devoted his professional life to improving public health in the United States and around the world. His career includes a four-year term as the director of the CDC, the nation's chief disease prevention agency.
As CDC director, Koplan oversaw the agency's 11 institutes, centers and offices, and their 7,000 employees. Under his leadership the CDC moved beyond its emphasis on infectious diseases to address chronic health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity; to establish a national women's breast and cervical cancer early detection program; and to battle syphilis with community-based programs. He also focused attention on the global impact of tobacco's hazards, the eradication of polio worldwide and health programs in other countries.
Koplan began his career as one of the CDC's elite "disease detectives," or Epidemic Intelligence Service officers, investigating and controlling outbreaks around the world. His work in Bangladesh in 1972 as part of the team that eradicated smallpox was the experience that inspired his lifelong dedication to public health. Since then he has been involved in virtually every major public health crisis around the world.
He served as CDC's first director of its National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and as the U.S. assistant surgeon general (1989-94). From 1994 to 1998 he was president of the Prudential Insurance Company's Center for Health Care Research and pursued his interest in enhancing the interactions between clinical medicine and public health.
In April 2002, Koplan assumed his current position as vice president for academic health affairs of Emory University's Woodruff Health Sciences Center. He is the center's chief academic and research officer with responsibility for research and education in Emory's schools of medicine, nursing and public health. Included in his responsibilities is the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory, where scientists are pioneering vaccines for AIDS and malaria, and new treatments for vision loss, cocaine abuse, Parkinson's disease and cardiovascular disease.
Koplan is the author of more than 170 scientific papers, has received numerous awards from national and international organizations, serves on the governing council of the Institute of Medicine and is an elected master of the American College of Physicians. He takes time from his busy schedule each year to teach at the Yale Schools of Medicine and Management and to participate in a Branford College master's tea.
After graduation from Yale College, the Quincy, Massachusetts, native earned a medical degree at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and a master's degree in public health at the Harvard School of Public Health. He and his wife, Carol, live in Atlanta, where they raised their two children, Adam and Kate '99.
The Yale Corporation is the University's chief governing body. It is made up of the president of the University, 10 successor fellows, and six alumni fellows who are elected by Yale alumni. The governor and lieutenant governor of Connecticut are ex-officio members.
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Koplan elected as alumni fellow
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