Ali S. Khan is a former Assistant Surgeon General and current Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Dr. Khan’s professional career has focused on health security, global health, and emerging infectious diseases. He completed a 23-year career as a senior director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which he joined as a disease detective. At CDC, Khan led and responded to numerous high profile domestic and international public health emergencies, including hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, monkeypox, avian influenza, Rift Valley fever, severe acute respiratory syndrome, the Asian Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina. He was also one of the main architects of the CDC’s public health bioterrorism preparedness program and provided scientific and strategic oversight of CDC’s malaria and One Health activities. In 2015, he supported response activities for the West Africa Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone as a World Health Organization (WHO) consultant.
Khan received his medical degree from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn and completed a joint residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has a Master of Public Health from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Physicians. He has authored numerous papers and publications and consulted extensively for multiple U.S. organizations, ministries of health, and the World Health Organization. Khan is the author of The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind’s Gravest Dangers.