Dr. Nuzzo is Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health. An epidemiologist by training, her work focuses on global health security, public health preparedness and response, and health systems resilience. Together with colleagues from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Economist Impact, she co-leads the development of the first-ever Global Health Security Index, which benchmarks 195 countries’ public health and healthcare capacities and capabilities, their commitment to international norms and global health security financing, and socioeconomic, political, and environmental risk environments. She also founded the Outbreak Observatory, which conducts, in partnership with frontline public health practitioners, operational research to improve outbreak preparedness and response. Prior to coming to Brown, Dr. Nuzzo was an Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She was also a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Nuzzo regularly advises national governments and for-profit and nonprofit organizations on pandemic preparedness and response, including COVID-19. She was appointed to serve on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (July 2025). Previously, she served as a member of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council (NDWAC) and the NDWAC’s Water Security Working Group.
Dr. Nuzzo regularly engages with media to educate and inform about emerging health security trends. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Fox News, Politico, The Hill, and The Boston Globe. She was featured in Debunking Borat, a television series on Amazon Prime Video, and her work was featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. She served as Covid Advisor for the Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Dr. Nuzzo received a DrPH in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an SM in environmental health from Harvard University, and a BS in environmental sciences from Rutgers University.
