Director of CGH Division of Public Health Systems and Workforce Development (DPHSWD):
Peter Bloland, DVM, MPVM

Peter Bloland, was recently appointed Director, Division of Public Health Systems and Workforce Development (DPHSWD) by the Center for Global Health (CGH) Director, Dr. Kevin De Cock. As Director of DPHSWD, Dr. Bloland is ultimately responsible for managing over 100 staff spread across six continents and 25 countries; managing the division’s 28.4 million annual budget, and overseeing DPHSWD’s widely recognized and successful effort to support the development and implementation of Field Epidemiology (and Laboratory) Training Programs which now exist in over 30 countries. Dr. Bloland will also provide guidance and management oversight to the division’s Sustainable Management Development Program (SMDP), the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) team, and the Global Public Health Informatics Program (GPHIP). Collectively, these programs are designed to support ministries of health strengthen their public health workforce and essential public health systems.

Prior to his appointment as Division Director, Dr. Bloland served as DPHSWD’s Associate Director for Science and Program (August 2009 – June 2011). Previously, he served as Associate Director for Global Health, National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-borne and Enteric Diseases, lead for the development of the Global Disease Detection and Response Center Network, and CDC team lead for the President’s Malaria Initiative during its start-up year.
Dr. Bloland received bachelor’s degrees in Psychobiology (University of California-Riverside) and Veterinary Science (University of California-Davis) and graduate degrees in Veterinary Medicine and Preventive Veterinary Medicine with an epidemiology emphasis (University of California-Davis). Before joining CDC, he practiced veterinary medicine in rural Vermont. He served as an EIS officer with the Malaria Branch, Division of Parasitic Diseases, from 1989-1991. Dr. Bloland has worked in a variety of roles within the Division of Parasitic Diseases through 2006, when he joined the Global Disease Detection program. Highlights of his career include serving as Chief, Malaria Case Management Unit, 2001-2006; Principal Investigator, Interdisciplinary Monitoring Project on Antimalarial Combination Therapy in Tanzania, 1999-2006; Chief, Malaria Case Management Unit, Malaria Branch, DPD, 2001-2006; and Chair, Roll Back Malaria Case Management Working Group, 2003-2005.

During his CDC career, Dr. Bloland has frequently been deployed to assist in international responses, including investigation of a large outbreak of SARS in a southern Taiwan hospital, assessing efficacy of malaria treatment during urgent refugee resettlements in Africa, and most recently during CDC’s response to the Haiti earthquake.
Dr. Bloland has received several awards including the 2010 Preventive Medicine Award from the Society of the Federal Health Agencies (AMSUS), 2008 PHS Commissioned Corps Veterinarian of the Year award, and the HHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service in 2004 (for the SARS and Monkeypox Public Health Response Teams) and 2005 (Response Team for the Urgent Resettlement of Liberian Refugees). He has published over 77 articles and book chapters and a book entitled Malaria Control During Mass Population Movements and Natural Disasters.