Stephen S. Morse, PhD

Dr. Stephen S. Morse's interests focus on epidemiology and risk assessment of infectious diseases (particularly emerging infections, including influenza), and improving disease early warning systems. In 2000, he returned to Columbia after 4 years in government as program manager for Biodefense at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Defense, where he co-directed the Pathogen Countermeasures program and subsequently directed the Advanced Diagnostics program. Before coming to Columbia, he was assistant professor of Virology at The Rockefeller University in New York, and remains an adjunct faculty member. His book, Emerging Viruses (Oxford University Press) was selected by "American Scientist" for its list of "100 Top Science Books of the 20th Century". Dr. Morse was chair and principal organizer of the 1989 NIAID/NIH (National Institutes of Health) Conference on Emerging Viruses, for which he originated the term and concept of emerging viruses/infections; served as a member of the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health (and chaired its Task Force on Viruses), and was a contributor to its report, Emerging Infections (1992).  He subsequently served on the Steering Committee of the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats, and has served on a number of National Academies of Sciences committees on infectious diseases, biomedical policy, and biotechnology; and as an adviser to numerous government and international organizations. He was the founding chair of ProMED (the nonprofit international Program to Monitor Emerging Diseases) and was an originator of ProMED-mail, an international network inaugurated by ProMED in 1994 for outbreak reporting and disease monitoring using the Internet.  He was appointed to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) in 2014.