Stephen S. Morse, PhD
Professor of Epidemiology at
Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
Chair of Columbia University Institutional Biosafety Committee

Stephen is Professor of Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and Chair of the Columbia University Institutional Biosafety Committee. He was founding Director of the University’s Center for Public Health Preparedness (2000-2005), and global co-Director of the USAID “Predict” project (2009-2014), a USAID project to strengthen global capacity for surveillance and detection of new infectious disease threats. 

Dr. Morse was previously Assistant Professor (virology) in The Rockefeller University (1985-1995), and Program Manager for Biodefense at DARPA (1995-2000). He currently serves on the WHO “Expert Group on Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Planning in the Eastern Mediterranean Region”, and was appointed to the US government’s National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) in 2014. He was Chair of the NIH “Conference on Emerging Viruses” (1989), for which he originated the concept of emerging viruses/infections, was founding chair of ProMED (the international Program to Monitor Emerging Diseases, best known for originating outbreak reporting on the Internet in 1994), and a founding section editor of the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. His book Emerging Viruses (Oxford University Press, 1993) was selected by American Scientist as one of “The Top 100 Science Books of the [20th] Century”. He served on a number of US National Academies’ committees, including the Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health (1990-1992), and chaired its Virology Task Force, and was a founding member of the National Academies’ “Forum on Emerging Infections” (later renamed the “Forum on Microbial Threats”). He is currently an editor of Disaster Medicine & Public Health Preparedness, and serves on the Editorial Board of several journals, including Health Security and Viral Immunology. 

Dr. Morse is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Academy of Microbiology, the American College of Epidemiology, the New York Academy of Medicine, the New York Academy of Sciences (and was Chair of its Microbiology Section), and a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received his Ph.D. (in virology and microbiology) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.