Amesh Adalja is an American infectious disease physician. He specializes in infectious disease, bioterrorism, and emergency medicine at

Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (abbreviated CHS) is an independent, nonprofit organization of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The center works to protect people's health from epidemics and pandemics and ensures ...

and a clinical assistant professor at the

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is a medical school of the University of Pittsburgh, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The School of Medicine, also known as Pitt Med, is consistently ranked as a "Top Medical School" by '' ...

Early life and education

Adalja was born to physicians and Indian immigrants Ashok Adalja and Varsha Mehta in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

. His family moved to

Butler, Pennsylvania Butler is a city and the county seat of Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located north of Pittsburgh and is part of the Greater Pittsburgh region. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 13,502. History Butler was n ...

when he was about two years old and remained there throughout his childhood. Growing up, he attended grade school at Butler Catholic before moving onto

Butler Area Senior High School Butler Area Senior High School is a coeducational public senior high school in Butler, Pennsylvania, United States, serving grades 10–12. It is the senior high school for the Butler Area School District. The school was founded in 1908, moved to ...

where he graduated in 1993. Adalja graduated at age 17 from high school and earned his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in industrial management from Carnegie Mellon University at the age of 19. He then took a finance job in New York City before completing his

medical degree A medical degree is a professional degree admitted to those who have passed coursework in the fields of medicine and/or surgery from an accredited medical school. Obtaining a degree in medicine allows for the recipient to continue on into special ...

from the

American University of the Caribbean The American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine (AUC) is a private for-profit medical school. Its main basic science campus is located in Sint Maarten, and administrative offices are located in Miramar, Florida, in the United ...

Career

Following a combined internal and emergency medicine

residency Residency may refer to: * Domicile (law), the act of establishing or maintaining a residence in a given place ** Permanent residency, indefinite residence within a country despite not having citizenship * Residency (medicine), a stage of postgra ...

Allegheny General Hospital Allegheny General Hospital is a large urban hospital located at 320 East North Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the larger Allegheny Health Network. History Allegheny General Hospital, also known locally by the acr ...

, Adalja completed two fellowships at the

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is a $23billion integrated global nonprofit health enterprise that has 92,000 employees, 40 hospitals with more than 8,000 licensed beds, 800 clinical locations including outpatient sites and d ...

; one in infectious disease and another in critical care medicine. He was employed there from 2007 to 2017 and remains on staff. During the

Western African Ebola virus epidemic The 2013–2016 epidemic of Ebola virus disease, centered in Western Africa, was the most widespread outbreak of the disease in history. It caused major loss of life and socioeconomic disruption in the region, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and S ...

, Adalja was an active voice in the media disseminating information in regards to the outbreak. He simultaneously served as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine and in the Department of Emergency Medicine, as well as an adjunct instructor in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases. As a result of his work, the City of Pittsburgh appointed him to Chair their

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

Commission. Upon joining the

, he focused his research on emerging infectious disease, pandemic preparedness, and biosecurity. He participated in the Clade X bioterrorism preparedness exercise in May 2018. Adalja also became an external advisor to the New York City Health and Hospital Emergency Management Highly Infectious Disease training program, as well as on a

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Ex ...

working group on nuclear disaster recovery. As a result of his experience and media outreach, in 2017 he was named by STAT News as one of the "Top 13 Clinicians to Follow on Twitter." Throughout the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, Adalja has been an outspoken advocate towards the

COVID vaccine A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19). Prior to the COVID19 pandemic, an e ...

and dismantling misinformation. He has served in various roles for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, including as a spokesperson, a member of their public health committee, a member of their diagnostics committee, and as part of their precision medicine working group. Adalja also served as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association coronavirus advisory group and an informal advisor to the International Monetary Fund. He also communicates with the public via

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

and has been named as a key expert to follow for reliable scientific information about the pandemic. In November 2021, Adalja, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, stated, "We will be living with this virus, there is no covid zero", suggesting that the pandemic may now have become an

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adalja, Amesh Living people People from Butler, Pennsylvania Carnegie Mellon University alumni American epidemiologists Ebola researchers COVID-19 researchers Year of birth missing (living people)