Dennis Carroll Keynote Speaker

Whatever the next event will be — and we know there’ll be another event — it’s already out there

Dr. Dennis Carroll has more than three decades of leadership experience in global health and development.  He currently serves as a Senior Advisor on Global Health Security at URC (University Research Co.), and is the Chair of the Leadership Board for the Global Virome Project, an international partnership to build the multi-sectoral systems and capacities to detect and characterize future viral threats while they are still circulating in wildlife – enabling the world to better prepare before they spill over into us.

Until recently, Dennis was the Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Threats Division. In this position Dr. Carroll was responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership for the Agency’s One Health programs addressing new and emerging disease threats. He provided overall strategic leadership for the Agency’s response to the West Africa Ebola epidemic.

Dr Carroll was initially detailed to USAID from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a senior public health advisor in 1991. In 1995 he was named the Agency’s Senior Infectious Diseases advisor, responsible for overseeing the Agency’s programs in malaria, tuberculosis, antimicrobial resistance, disease surveillance, as well as neglected and emerging infectious diseases. In this capacity Dr. Carroll was directly involved in the development and introduction of a range of new technologies for disease prevention and control, including: community-based delivery of treatment of onchocerciasis, rapid diagnostics for malaria, new treatment therapies for drug resistant malaria, intermittent therapy for pregnant women and “long-lasting” insecticide treated bednets for prevention of malaria. He was responsible for the initial design and development of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). Dr. Carroll officially left CDC and joined USAID in 2005 when he assumed responsibility for leading the USAID response to the spread of avian influenza. Between 2009 – 2019 he oversaw the Agency’s Emerging Threats program, a One Health initiative, spanning more than 30 countries across Africa and Asia.

Dr Carroll has a doctorate in biomedical research with a special focus in tropical infectious diseases from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He was a Research Scientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory where he studied the molecular mechanics of viral infection. Dr. Carroll has received awards from both CDC and USAID, including the 2006 USAID Science and Technology Award for his work on malaria, including the design of PMI, and avian influenza, the 2008 Administrator’s Management Innovation Award for his management of the Agency’s Avian and Pandemic Influenza program, in 2015 USAID’s Distinguished Service Award, and a 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Scowcroft for International Affairs at Texas A&M University.