Thomas Novotny

Thomas E. Novotny, M.D., M.P.H., is Professor and co-director of the Joint Degree Program (PhD) in Global Health. He is a medical epidemiologist and family physician specializing in health systems, non-communicable disease control, and health diplomacy. From 2002-2008, he was a Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, and he is currently in the Division of Epidemiology at SDSU. At UCSF, he developed curriculum in global health, health diplomacy, and clinical research, and he served on the Faculty Council. He was recognized by the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators for his excellence in teaching. He is the Editor of ‘21st Century Global Health Diplomacy,’ World Scientific Publishers, 2013.

Prior to his academic career, he was with the U.S. Public Health Service for 23 years, serving as a Family Physician in the National Health Service Corps, as a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Colorado Department of Health, as a Medical Epidemiologist with the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, as CDC liaison to the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, as CDC liaison to the World Bank, and as Assistant Surgeon General and Deputy Assistant Secretary for International and Refugee Health in the Clinton Administration. At UC Berkeley, he was Professor of Epidemiology and Assistant Dean for Public Health Practice. While with the World Bank, he worked on analyses of the economic aspects of tobacco and health, health systems reform in Eastern Europe, and HIV/AIDS policy. He was an editor and contributor to several Surgeon General’s Reports on the Health Consequences of Smoking, and he has published widely on tobacco and health, HIV in Eastern Europe, and health diplomacy. In partnership with the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva), he has developed executive training and curriculum in health diplomacy and is a co-founder of the Academic Consortium on Health Diplomacy.