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NCEZID

Office of the Director

The Office of the Director (OD) provides leadership and management for the programs and activities in DHCPP. In addition, the OD assures coordination with National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), Office of Infectious Diseases (OID), and other CDC offices and administrative units.

Functions of the OD include:

  • scientific and fiscal oversight
  • communication
  • policy guidance
  • program planning, development, and management
  • operations support and logistics

The OD also houses the Prion and Public Health Office (PPHO), the group responsible for monitoring human prion diseases in the United States.

Inger Damon, MD, PhD, is director of CDC’s Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology (DHCPP)

Dr. Inger Damon became director of DHCPP in April 2014. From August 2014 to April 2015, she was the Incident Commander of the CDC’s 2014 Ebola Response Team. Dr. Damon joined CDC in 1999 as a medical officer (Lieutenant Commander) in the US Public Health Service, working with the poxvirus team. She went on to serve in various leadership positions within the poxvirus group, completing extensive work in smallpox preparedness with various HHS programs. In 2006, the Poxvirus and Rabies programs merged administratively to form the Poxvirus and Rabies Branch and Dr. Damon was named its first Branch Chief.

Prior to joining CDC, Dr. Damon completed her medical residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, she fulfilled a clinical fellowship in infectious diseases and a post-doctoral fellowship in molecular virology at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland with Dr. Bernard Moss.

Dr. Damon is also a Clinical Assistant Professor at Emory University in Atlanta and is the director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Smallpox and Other Poxvirus Infections. She participates in several international poxvirus review panels. In addition, Dr. Damon is the author of multiple book chapters and author/co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, primarily related to poxviruses and poxvirus-associated disease.

Dr. Damon graduated from Amherst College with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and went on to earn her MD and PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Connecticut.

Inger Damon, MD, PhD, is director of CDC’s Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology (DHCPP).

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