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Denise Koo, MD, MPH

Dr. Denise Koo is Director, Scientific Education and Professional Development Program Office, CDC. This Program Office houses several key CDC training and workforce development programs with a total of nearly 400 trainees each year, including the Epidemic Intelligence Service, an ACGME-accredited Preventive Medicine Residency, Public Health Informatics Fellowship, Prevention Effectiveness Fellowship, electives and fellowships for medical and veterinary students, and The CDC Experience Fellowship in Applied Epidemiology for medical students. Dr. Koo graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Biochemical Sciences. After combining medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, with an M.P.H. in epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, she completed a primary care internal medicine residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Koo is a graduate of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service and Preventive Medicine Residency. Some of her experiences as an EIS Officer and PMR included investigating tuberculosis spread in San Quentin State Prison, documenting trends in multi-drug resistant TB in California, identifying the cause of an outbreak of cholera in Guatemala City, and assessing the health aftermath of a flood in Tajikistan. Her CDC positions have included running the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System and serving as Director of the Division of Public Health Surveillance and Informatics at CDC. She led the CDC surveillance efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Dr. Koo holds appointments as Adjunct Professor of Global Health and of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, and Visiting Professor, Department of Community and Family Medicine, Duke University Medical Center.