Julie Gerberding

Julie Gerberding
Gerberding as CDC director
15th Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
In office
July 3, 2002 – January 20, 2009
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
Preceded byJeffrey Koplan
Succeeded byTom Frieden
Personal details
Born (1955-08-22) August 22, 1955 (age 69)
Estelline, South Dakota, U.S.
EducationCase Western Reserve University (BA, MD)
University of California, Berkeley (MPH)
OccupationChief Executive Officer for the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health

Julie Louise Gerberding (born August 22, 1955) is an American infectious disease expert who was the first woman to serve as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As of May 2022, she is the CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH). Gerberding grew up in Estelline, South Dakota, attended Brookings High School, and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Case Western Reserve University. She was the chief medical resident at the University of California, San Francisco where she treated hospitalized AIDS patients in the first years of the epidemic. Gerberding became a nationally-recognized figure during the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States during her tenure as the acting deputy director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, where she was a prominent spokeswoman for the CDC during daily briefings regarding the attacks and aftermath. Gerberding then served as CDC director from 2002-2009, and was then hired as an administrator at Merck.