Dr. Stephen Ostroff

Dr. Ostroff retired from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in early 2019.

During his 7 years at FDA, he served as Deputy Commissioner for Foods and

Veterinary Medicine, where he oversaw the agency’s food and animal health

activities of FDA, including responsibilities in the areas of food safety and

nutrition, food labeling, food and color additives, cosmetics, dietary supplements,

animal drugs and animal feed, and research to support the food and veterinary

medicine mission of FDA. Dr. Ostroff also served as FDA’s Chief Scientist and as

the agency’s Acting Commissioner on two occasions in both the Obama and

Trump administrations.

Before joining the FDA, Dr. Ostroff worked at the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta for more than 20 years on infectious disease

surveillance and outbreak investigations, especially management and

coordination of complex emerging infectious disease threats such as anthrax,

Ebola, West Nile virus, SARS, and avian influenza. He was in the US Public Health

Service Commissioned Corps, attaining the rank of Assistant Surgeon General

(Rear Admiral). He also worked at the Pennsylvania Department of Health as

Director of the Bureau of Epidemiology and the Commonwealth’s Acting Physician

General.

Dr. Ostroff received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University

of Pennsylvania. He currently holds adjunct professor appointments at Penn

State College of Medicine’s Department of Public Health Sciences and the

University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology.