Omar Shafey

I earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Tulane University (New Orleans, Louisiana), a master’s degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from San Diego State University, and a doctorate in Medical Anthropology from the joint program at the University of California San Francisco/Berkeley.  I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal after attending Tulane University and, ten years later, I returned as a Fulbright Fellow to conduct field research on the epidemiology and social determinants of malaria in Nepal.  I worked at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (Bethesda, Maryland) as an Arthritis Foundation grantee researching the epidemiology of idiopathic inflammatory myopathies, and under cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), I established the State of Florida's pesticide poisoning surveillance system.  In the private, for-profit sector, I worked on the production of recombinant human growth hormone at Genentech, Inc. (South San Francisco) and, in the non-profit sector, I directed the American Cancer Society's global tobacco surveillance and cancer control research programs (based in Atlanta). I currently work for the Abu Dhabi Department of Health where I'm responsible for the regulation and promotion of the emirate's health research infrastructure.