Dr. Robert Breiman’s new role transition to Executive Director for the CHAMPS Network generates statements of concern regarding the need for global partnerships and mobilizing resources.

In an interview last week, the new Executive Director spoke about his life journey and his perspective on reducing child mortality.  Breiman emphasized the need for global health partnerships, high-quality indicators and implementation of not only public health interventions but also new approaches in vaccines, methods, technology, and game-changing use of information.

“The difference between doing good things and doing great things is partnerships”

Read the full Q&A here >>

CHAMPS is a global health surveillance network aimed at characterizing and preventing childhood mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Dr. Breiman’s experiences and education uniquely qualify him to lead the network.

Dr Breiman has been at Emory for 5 years and is the Director of the Emory Global Health Institute with a funded research focus on child health, epidemiology and prevention of pneumococcal, and typhoid and rotavirus disease. Prior to assuming his new role, Dr. Breiman served as co-Principal Investigator for CHAMPS alongside Principle Investigator Dr. Jeff Koplan, and has been instrumental establishing CHAMPS. Under Dr. Breiman’s and Dr. Koplan’s leadership CHAMPS has grown from just a few people a few years ago to about 1100 people fully engaged in achieving the objectives of CHAMPS, the majority whom are employed in-country. As Dr. Breiman assumes his new role Dr. Koplan will continue to support the program with his visionary leadership by serving as the Senior Strategic Advisor to Dr. Breiman.

Before joining Emory, Dr. Breiman was at the CDC for 26 years, most recently, based at US CDC-Kenya from 2004-2013. He was Head of the Programme on Infectious Diseases and Vaccine Sciences at the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) from 2000-2004, and was the Director of the US National Vaccine Program Office, from 1995-2000 and was the Chief of the Epidemiology Section of the Respiratory Diseases Branch from 1989-1995. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and in Infectious Diseases, a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is Chairman of the Immunizations and Vaccines Implementation Research Advisory Committee for WHO-Geneva. Dr. Breiman is author or co-author of more than 350 peer-reviewed publications.