AUC is pleased to announce that Dr. Amesh Adalja, AUC Class of 2002, will serve as the keynote speaker for this year’s Virtual Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 22 honoring the Class of 2021. The ceremony will be broadcast on Facebook and YouTube beginning at 5:00 pm ET.
Dr. Adalja is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an Affiliate of the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health. As a leading infectious disease/critical care expert, Dr. Adalja has been featured prominently in the media for his work on pandemic preparedness, including the COVID-19 virus, and emerging infectious disease policies. He is an active contributor for major national news networks, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and CBS, as well as numerous local networks. Dr. Adalja, who grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania and is now based in Pittsburgh, was recently profiled by a local Pennsylvania newspaper, and you can view a selection of his TV interviews on his YouTube page.
Making an Impact on Public Health
During his career, Dr. Adalja has served on US government panels tasked with developing guidelines for the treatment of plague, botulism, and anthrax in mass casualty settings and for the system of care for infectious disease emergencies. He also served as an external advisor to the New York City Health + Hospitals Emergency Management Highly Infectious Disease training program and on a US Federal Emergency Management Agency working group on nuclear disaster recovery. He is a spokesperson for the Infectious Diseases Society of America; he previously served on their public health and diagnostics committees and their precision medicine working group.
Dr. Adalja is a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians Pennsylvania Chapter’s EMS & Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness Committee as well as the Allegheny County Medical Reserve Corps. He was formerly a member of the National Quality Forum Infectious Disease Standing Committee, where he currently serves on the Primary Care and Chronic Illness Standing Committee, and the US Department of Health and Human Services National Disaster Medical System, with which he was deployed to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and was also selected for their mobile acute care strike team.
Pathway to a Career in Infectious Disease
Dr. Adalja completed two fellowships at the University of Pittsburgh—one in infectious diseases, for which he served as chief fellow, and one in critical care medicine. Prior to that, he completed a combined residency in internal medicine and emergency medicine at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, where he served as chief resident and as a member of the infection control committee. He was a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine from 2010 through 2017 and is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor. He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Before earning his MD from AUC, he received a BS in industrial management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Adalja is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians, and the American College of Emergency Physicians. He is a board-certified physician in internal medicine, emergency medicine, infectious diseases, and critical care medicine. He is a proud graduate of AUC, a native of Butler, Pennsylvania, and actively practices infectious disease, critical care, and emergency medicine in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, where he was appointed to the City of Pittsburgh’s HIV Commission and the advisory group of AIDS Free Pittsburgh.
Commencement Ceremony Details
Follow AUC on Facebook and YouTube to tune into the Virtual Commencement Ceremony on Saturday, May 22 to hear Dr. Adalja address AUC’s graduating class.
For more information about the ceremony, visit the Commencement webpage.
