Jennifer F. Myers

Jennifer Myers is a senior informaticist and infectious disease epidemiologist. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist trained in the application of public health informatics to the areas of disease surveillance, prevention, preparedness, and health promotion. She received her Bachelor of Science degree (BS) in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Studies from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, and a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree with a dual concentration in Biostatistics and International Health from Boston University’s School of Public Health. Her background includes development, implementation and evaluation of public health information systems including case reporting, outbreak management and electronic case and laboratory reporting. She returned home to California in 2012 after working for several years at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as a surveillance epidemiologist within the Bureau of Infectious Diseases’ Office of Integrated Surveillance and Informatics Services where her focus was primarily on vaccine preventable diseases. Since then, she has spent the last 8 years with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) leading improvements in foodborne disease reporting and outbreak surveillance, which involves the development of new methods and programs for aberration detection and the automation of surveillance and capacity building projects for enteric diseases related to food exposures. She also served nationally as the member co-lead of the CSTE/CDC Influenza and Infectious Diseases Forecasting workgroup from 2018-2021.

In January 2020, the threat of introduction of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) into the United States with the potential for community transmission prompted state officials to redirect numerous staff from their home programs to the emergency response effort. She was redirected to her first of three rotations within the pandemic response in late January 2020 and is currently still serving as a senior informatics specialist within the CDPH COVID-19 Epidemiology and Surveillance Response Team.

She recently joined the Public Health Section of the Division of Healthcare Management and Occupational Safety and Health at the United Nations . Here, she is applying her expertise and knowledge acquired throughout her career, including during the pandemic, to spearhead the design and implementation of a disease and outbreak monitoring system to establish a framework for epidemiologic surveillance of infectious diseases within UN peacekeeping missions via the application of information and communication.