about the center
Leadership
Donald S. Burke, MD
UPMC-Jonas Salk Professor of Global Health
Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Health
The University of Pittsburgh Center for Global Health is led by Donald S. Burke, MD, associate vice chancellor for global health. With input from University leadership and the Global Health Advisory Committee, Dr. Burke sets the strategic direction and priorities for the Center. In addition to serving as associate vice chancellor for global health, Dr. Burke is the dean of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health and director of the Center for Vaccine Research. He is an expert in the prevention, diagnosis, and control of infectious diseases of global concern, including HIV/AIDS, avian influenza, and emerging infectious diseases.
Before coming to the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Burke was a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he served as associate chair of the Department of International Health and director of the Center for Immunization Research. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Burke served 23 years on active duty in the U.S. Army, leading military infectious disease research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C., and at the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Bangkok, Thailand. He retired at the rank of colonel. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Microbiology, Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, American College of Physicians, and the Infectious Disease Society of America. He served as president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 1995-96.
Dr. Burke's career-long mission has been prevention and mitigation of the impact of epidemic infectious diseases of global importance. His research activities have spanned a wide range of science "from the bench to the bush," including development of new diagnostics, population-based field studies, clinical vaccine trials, computational modeling of epidemic control strategies, and policy analysis.