Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo

Dr. Nuzzo is 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 particular focus on outbreak detection and response, health systems as they relate to global health security, international and domestic biosurveillance, and infectious disease diagnostics. She directs the Outbreak Observatory, which conducts, in partnership with front-line public health practitioners, operational research to improve outbreak preparedness and response. Together with colleagues from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Economist Intelligence Unit, she co-leads 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 socioeconomic, political, and environmental risk environments. Previously, she has 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 to her work at the Center, Dr. Nuzzo has advised national governments and nonprofit organizations. She has served as a consultant to the National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee, as a member of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC), and as a member of 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. She has also been consulted on pandemic planning efforts in the Republic of Indonesia and Taiwan.

Dr. Nuzzo joined the Center at its founding in 2003, and she has served as an Analyst, Senior Analyst, and Associate. Prior to joining the Center, she served as a Research Analyst with the Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In 2002 and 2003, 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 in New York was the management of the city’s drug sale monitoring program for surveillance of diarrheal illness. She also worked on a local climate change initiative for the City of Cambridge, MA.

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.