Cyrus Shahpar

Dr. Cyrus Shahpar is currently the Director of the Prevent Epidemics Team at the Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies. His team supports countries to strengthen emergency preparedness capacity to find, stop and prevent disease outbreaks. In the COVID-19 response, Cyrus serves as the Director of the Epidemic Intelligence Unit and Chief Science Officer.

Prior to joining Vital Strategies, Cyrus served as the Team Lead for the new Global Rapid Response Team at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At CDC, he served as a Commander in the US Public Health Service and worked with humanitarian organizations including UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO, and WFP in large emergencies in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He also worked in Liberia, Atlanta, and Washington DC in a variety of roles for the 2014-15 West African Ebola response. Previously he worked for John Hopkins University, the University of California at San Francisco, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and as an attending emergency physician at Emory University. He completed residency / chief residency in Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and is a graduate of the Epidemic Intelligence Service at CDC.