Jennifer E. Layden

Jennifer Layden, MD, PhD, has worked across the public health system — as an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist and in leadership roles in city, state and federal public health. She brings an on-the-ground understanding of how health threats are detected, how officials assess risk, how scientific evidence becomes public health guidance and how agencies respond.

Layden is associate dean for practice and a professor at the Bursky School of Public Health.

Before joining WashU, she served as a senior vice president at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, working to strengthen health department capacity, data modernization, workforce and infrastructure. Previously, she was a senior executive and inaugural director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, where she led the agency’s Data Modernization Initiative and expansion of near-real-time public health reporting and analytic capacity.

Earlier, Layden was deputy commissioner and chief medical officer for the Chicago Department of Public Health and incident manager for the city’s COVID-19 response. She also served as state epidemiologist and chief medical officer for the Illinois Department of Public Health. Her academic research has included infectious disease epidemiology, including viral hepatitis transmission, treatment response and disease progression.

Areas of expertise

Infectious diseases and emerging outbreaks — transmission, risk, prevention and public health response
Vaccines and immunization — vaccine guidance, vaccine-preventable diseases, immunization programs and changing or conflicting recommendations
Foodborne illness and recalls — outbreak detection and investigation, consumer risk and prevention
Disease surveillance and outbreak detection — how health officials identify and track emerging threats
Public health preparedness and emergency response — how local, state and federal agencies prepare for and manage health emergencies
Public health data and modernization — disease reporting, surveillance, informatics and faster public health decision-making
AI in public health practice — opportunities for AI in surveillance, outbreak detection, communications and operations; governance, privacy, bias and human oversight
Governmental public health — CDC and state and local health department operations, workforce, infrastructure and translating evidence into action