March 20th Speaker

Jeff Taylor earned a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL.  He has been an infectious disease epidemiologist with the Texas Department of State Health Services and the City of Austin for over 37 years.  He is currently a manager of the Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit of Austin Public Health.  This Unit is responsible for infectious disease surveillance and rare disease or outbreak investigations within Travis County.  While working at the Texas Department of State Health Services from 1981 through 2013, he served as the Manager or Director of various branches or groups involved in the surveillance of infectious diseases.  During his career, he has directed numerous investigations of common source and community outbreaks involving tuberculosis, respiratory and zoonotic diseases and foodborne and waterborne diseases.  He was the principal investigator for several grants and cooperative agreements funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  He was the secondary supervisor for seven CDC Epidemic Intelligence Officers (EIS) and assisted in the development of a public health internship program with the University of Texas at Austin.  Jeff is the author on over 50 publications in peer-review journals on infectious disease topics including murine typhus, tularemia, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, foodborne diseases, brucellosis and tuberculosis.  His three most recent publications involve articles addressing the West Nile virus epidemic in Texas in 2012, a murine typhus cluster in Austin, and the burden of falls in persons aged 65 years or older in Travis County.