Keynote: Emerging Zoonotic Diseases Impacting Agriculture: What Comes After Covid 19? Ali S. Khan, MD, MPH, MBA, Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and former Assistant Surgeon General
Ali S. Khan is Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and a former Assistant Surgeon General with the US Public Health Service. 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 CDC, which he joined as a disease detective, and where he led and responded to numerous high profile domestic and international public health emergencies. Dr. Khan was one of the main architects of CDC’s national health security program and continues this work at UNMC, which has been nationally designated to prepare the American healthcare system to respond to outbreaks of high hazard pathogens. He also continues to actively support global outbreak responses such as the response for the West Africa Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh as a member of World Health Organization (WHO) Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.
As Dean of the UNMC College of Public Health, his focus is on health system and community-based health transformations. His vision is for the College to play an integral role in creating the next generation of Public Health Guardians and devising innovative solutions and new interventions to address public health challenges. The College is committed to education with a purpose measured by the impact in our communities starting with making Nebraska the healthiest and most equitable state in the Union as a national and global model for wellness.
Dr. Khan received his medical degree from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn and has a Master of Public Health from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. He completed his pediatrics and internal medicine training at the University of Michigan. He has authored numerous papers and publications and has consulted extensively for multiple US organizations, ministries of health, and the World Health Organization where he serves on the steering committee for GOARN. Dr. Khan is the author of The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind’s Gravest Dangers.
Capstone: The Science of Communicating Effectively for Behavior Change Rima Afifi, PhD, Community and Behavioral Health, College of Public Health, University of Iowa
Rima Afifi is a professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health, College of Public Health, University of Iowa. Her research and practice focus on mental health, refugee and immigrant wellbeing, tobacco control, and intervention evaluation. Rima engages in public health research and practice with intent to promote social, community, and policy environments conducive to wellbeing. She applies community-engaged research and cultural humility to equalize power, voice, and self determination of communities experiencing marginalization; and emphasizes knowledge transfer of research to practice and policy.