James  Zingeser

James A. Zingeser, DVM, MPH

Jim Zingeser is an epidemiologist who has worked at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and The Carter Center since 1989. Jim was first trained in clinical veterinary medicine (Michigan State University, 1979) and then public health epidemiology (University of Michigan, 1990). He began his career at CDC in 1989 as an EIS officer and subsequently worked throughout Africa, Europe and Asia on projects ranging from Guinea worm and polio eradication to trachoma and meningococcal meningitis control. In his career, Jim has been posted to one ministry of agriculture, two African ministries of health and WHO. Beginning in 2009, he was the first CDC liaison officer to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome in the nascent CDC One Health Office. Dr Zingeser has also been an adjunct instructor in the department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health since 2003.

In April 2014, Jim became the second CDC Ebola virus disease response team lead in the Republic of Guinea, working with the MoH, WHO and partner organizations in Guéckédou and Conakry at the beginning of the outbreak. He then worked on Ebola epidemic response with FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture in Sierra Leone in August and November 2014. Jim returned to Guinea from November 2015-February 2016, as the CDC Response Team lead overseeing post-epidemic surveillance and strengthening of routine infectious disease control.

In March 2016, Jim moved back to The Carter Center and Emory University as senior project advisor to the Dracunculiasis Eradication Program to study and implement One Health interventions to help eradicate Guinea worm in Africa.