Dan Weinberger is an Associate Professor in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale School of Public Health. His research uses a combination of quantitative analysis, laboratory experiments and field work to understand the epidemiology and biology of respiratory infections. Recent work has focused on developing novel analytical methods for the evaluation of vaccines using time series and spatial data. He collaborates widely with public health agencies and academic organizations around the world on these issues. He earned his PhD in biological sciences from Harvard School of Public Health, with a focus on Infectious Disease Epidemiology, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies in the Fogarty International Center at the NIH.

Dr. Whitney became a Professor at Emory University in the Rollins School of Public Health, Hubert Department of Global Health in 2019 and has been the Principal Investigator and Executive Director of the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) program since 2020. Before that, she was Chief of the Respiratory Diseases Branch in the Division of Bacterial Diseases, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and had worked for 25 years at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her expertise includes health in high child mortality areas, pneumococcal disease, pneumonia, antimicrobial resistance, vaccination policy and effectiveness evaluations, disease surveillance, and outbreak investigations. She has over 250 publications including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and invited commentaries focusing on public health issues in the U.S. and in developing country settings. Dr. Whitney graduated from Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa, with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Engineering Science. She obtained a degree in medicine and completed a residency in internal medicine through the University of Minnesota. At CDC, she completed the Epidemic Intelligence Officer program and a residency in Preventive Medicine. She has a Masters of Public Health from Harvard University. Dr. Whitney has been board certified in Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine

Andrew Wiese is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Dr. Wiese is a pharmacoepidemiologist whose research aims to leverage observational studies to provide real-world evidence of the safety and efficacy of commonly used medications and vaccines. His current work is focused on characterizing the safety of medication use for patients and infants during pregnancy and in the postpartum period, assessing the impact of pharmaceutical policies on medication use and medication-related outcomes, and implementing novel research methods to examine drug dose exposures using administrative data.

I am a PhD candidate at Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Germany. My current work focuses on the epidemiology of pneumococcal diseases, vaccination strategies, and vaccine impacts. Previously, I have worked as a hospital pharmacist in Hong Kong and as a humanitarian pharmacist in Central African Republic and South Sudan. After conducting a research project on pertussis vaccination policy at Institut Pasteur, Paris and obtaining my Double Master in Public Health with a specialisation in Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the UK and France, I started to pursue my PhD in Health Data Sciences at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

I am currently committed to Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) related studies, e.g. inter- and intra-species competition within Spn biofilm consortia and pneumococcal epidemiology in China, which will greatly contribute to the reduction of global child mortality from pneumococcal disease. My PhD project focused on investigating the effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and heavy metals on bacterial (Staphylococcus epidermidis) biofilm formation. My postdoc investigation was focused on the mechanisms by which Spn eradicates Staphylococcus aureus (Sau) biofilms and the competition mechanism between different pneumococcal serotypes. I started my assistant researcher position at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University in 2018 and focus on the Spn epidemiology in China, meanwhile also obtained an NSFC grant supporting my investigation on Spn and Sau competition.

As compared to the gold standard nasopharyngeal swab, my research has identified saliva as a reliable sample type for the sensitive detection of Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) in all age groups, particularly in healthy older adults, and more recently, SARS-CoV-2 in persons suspected of COVID-19. Improved detection of the pneumococcus has unveiled hidden reservoirs in older adults which holds importance when new vaccination strategies for preventing pneumococcal disease are being considered. For COVID-19, sampling saliva can alleviate many of the bottlenecks encountered in the mass testing strategies required to control continuing outbreaks. In an effort to address many of these issues, our lab validated and optimized saliva for SARS-CoV-2 detection and developed SalivaDirect: a simple, scalable and importantly, cost-effective method to help alleviate SARS-CoV-2 testing demands. Our SalivaDirect Initiative at the Yale School of Public Health remains devoted to providing public health guidance, advancing saliva diagnostics, and enabling the safe re-opening of communities worldwide.