For the first in a new speaker series, the Office of Alumni Relations welcomes UCSF alumna Denise Koo, MD ’88, MPH, to our Parnassus campus to share experiences from her 25-year career with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). All students, residents, fellows, and postdocs are welcome to attend and learn more about Dr. Koo’s professional journey and her advice for a starting a career in public health. 

About our guest speaker: Denise Koo, MD'88, MPH, retired in late 2016 from her position as Adviser to the Associate Director for Policy at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she was the chief architect of the CDC Community Health Improvement Navigator. The Navigator is a unifying framework and tools for stakeholders interested in improving the health of their communities. Dr. Koo also led the development of the Health and Well-Being for All meeting-in-a-box, an innovative tool for accelerating learning about social determinants of health.  

Dr. Koo earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard, her Master of Public Health degree from UC Berkeley, and her medical degree from UCSF. After residency at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, she became an epidemic intelligence service officer at the CDC. During her quarter-century career with the agency, Dr. Koo held several leadership positions, including as chief of the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System, director of the Division of Public Health Surveillance and Informatics, and director of the Division of Scientific Education and Professional Development.  

Dr. Koo is an adjunct professor of epidemiology and global health at Emory University’s School of Public Health and a consulting professor of family and community medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine. She recently served on the board of trustees for Mercy Health, the largest health system in Ohio.

Attendance is limited to 25 people, and lunch will be provided. Please register online here.