Julie Gerberding is Executive Vice President and Chief Patient Officer, Strategic Communications, Global Public Policy, and Population Health at Merck & Co., Inc., where she also has responsibility for the “Merck for Mothers” global program to prevent maternal mortality and the Merck Foundation. She joined Merck in January 2010 as president of Merck Vaccines and led efforts to make the company’s vaccines more available and affordable to people in resource-limited countries around the world.
She left her tenured faculty position at the University of California, San Francisco in 1998 to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion and then served as the CDC Director from 2002 to 2009. As director, she led the CDC through more than 40 emergency responses to public health crises, including anthrax bioterrorism, SARS, and natural disasters. She also advised governments around the world on urgent issues such as pandemic preparedness, AIDS, antimicrobial resistance, tobacco, and cancer.
Julie currently serves on the Boards of Case Western Reserve University, National Association of City and County Health Officials (NACCHO) Foundation, MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories, and the BIO Executive Committee. She has received more than 50 awards and honors, including the United States Department of Health and Human Services Distinguished Service Award for her leadership in responses to anthrax bioterrorism and the September 11, 2001 attacks. She was named to Forbes Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women in the World in 2005 through 2008 and to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2004.
