Experts

Jennifer Nuzzo

Senior Fellow for Global Health

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About the Expert

Expert Bio

Jennifer Nuzzo is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is also a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and an associate professor in the department of environmental health and engineering and the department of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. An epidemiologist by training, her work focuses on global health security, with a focus on pandemic preparedness, outbreak detection and response, health systems as they relate to global health security, biosurveillance, and infectious disease diagnostics. She directs the Outbreak Observatory, which conducts, in partnership with frontline public health practitioners, operational research to improve outbreak preparedness and response.

Dr. Nuzzo is also the lead epidemiologist for the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Testing Insights Initiative housed within the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Together with colleagues from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Economist Intelligence Unit, she coleads the development of the first-ever Global Health Security Index, which benchmarks 195 countries’ public health and healthcare capacities and capabilities, their commitment to international norms and global health security financing, and their socioeconomic, political, and environmental risk environments. Previously, she conducted research related to the Affordable Care Act, tuberculosis control, foodborne outbreaks, and water security. Dr. Nuzzo is an associate editor of the peer-reviewed journal Health Security.

In addition, Dr. Nuzzo advises national governments and for-profit and nonprofit organizations on pandemic preparedness and response, including COVID-19. She has also served as a member of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC) and the NDWAC’s Water Security Working Group. She has also served as a project advisor for the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (now called the Water Research Foundation), a primary funding organization for drinking water research in the United States.

Prior to joining the Center for Health Security, Dr. Nuzzo worked as a public health epidemiologist for the City of New York, where she was involved with disease and syndromic surveillance efforts related to the city’s Waterborne Disease Risk Assessment Program. Central to her duties was the management of an over-the-counter medication sales monitoring program, which was part of the city’s syndromic surveillance efforts. She also previously worked for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts on a local climate change initiative.

Dr. Nuzzo received a DrPH in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an SM in environmental health from Harvard University, and a BS in environmental sciences from Rutgers University.