Ray R. Arthur, PhD - Director of the Global Disease Detection Operations Center

Ray Arthur, Ph.D., is the Director of the Global Disease Detection Operations Center (GDDOC) in the Emergency Response and Recovery Branch, Division of Global Health Protection, Center for Global Health, at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA.

Dr. Arthur joined CDC in 1997 as the Advisor for Emerging Diseases in the National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and was assigned to the Department of Communicable Diseases Surveillance and Response at the World Health Organization’s headquarters in Geneva with technical responsibility for surveillance and control of hemorrhagic fever virus, arbovirus, and orthopoxvirus infections. In this assignment, he actively participated in WHO’s epidemic intelligence and response activities and coordinated field operations of WHO and international teams during outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Rift Valley fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and other diseases. He was one of the architects of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) founded in 2000.

The CDC Global Disease Detection Operations Center that Dr. Arthur established in 2006 and currently directs, leverages CDC program expertise and formal and informal networks, including those of other CDC partners, to provide CDC staff with a single-source of reliable, comprehensive, and high quality information on international disease outbreaks and other health threats. The GDDOC systematically collects and analyzes international health event information for early detection, classifies the health risks associated with these events, disseminates reports, and facilitates appropriate and rapid interventions.

Dr. Arthur has served as the Chair of GOARN and as Chair of the Biosurveillance Indications and Warning Analytic Community (BIWAC), a USG interagency forum for timely collaborative exchange of critical information regarding indications and warning of biological events that may threaten US national interests.

A member of several professional scientific societies, Dr. Arthur is the author of more than 75 scientific publications, book chapters and reviews.