Enhancing Data Sharing Partnerships for Public Health Emergencies and Response

As the Director of the Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology in the Bureau of Tuberculosis Control at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene where Dr. Ahuja oversees the tuberculosis registry and case management system, surveillance and reporting, field epidemiology, outbreak detection and response, laboratory activities, molecular epidemiology, data analysis and research. Her primary research interests include the epidemiology of TB in high-risk populations, use of molecular epidemiology in TB control, outcomes of patients with drug-resistant TB, the interaction of TB and other infectious and non-infectious conditions and translating research into policy. Prior to her work at the NYC Health Department, Dr. Ahuja worked as a surveillance epidemiologist for the CDC’s Georgia Emerging Infections Program conducting active surveillance and data analyses for foodborne diseases and bacterial meningitis pathogens.

Dr. Ahuja is currently serving on the Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis, she sits on the Latent TB Infection Reporting workgroup of the National TB Controller’s Association and is the Abstract Committee Chair for the National Tuberculosis Conference. Dr. Ahuja is the founding past president of the Society for Epidemiology in Tuberculosis Control and an active member of the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. In addition she is the Chair of the New York City Tuberculosis Research Consortium. 

Jeffrey Shaman, PhD, works in the fields of climate and environmental health, climate dynamics, infectious disease epidemiology, and infectious disease modeling and forecasting. He uses mathematical and statistical models to describe, understand, and forecast the transmission dynamics of disease systems, and to investigate the broader effects of climate and weather on human health. During the Covid-19 pandemic, his team built one of the first models to project the spread and understand the epidemiological properties of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Shaman has studied a number of climate phenomena, including Rossby wave dynamics, atmospheric jet waveguides, the coupled South Asian monsoon-ENSO system, extratropical precipitation, and tropical cyclogenesis.

Shaman was awarded his PhD by the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He received an MA and MPhil from Columbia University in 2000 and 2002 respectively.

Dr. Meghan McGinty is the Senior Executive of Health Emergency Preparedness and Response at Tetra Tech, a global consulting and engineering firm, focusing on water, environment, sustainable infrastructure, and renewable energy. She develops and implements strategies to help the public health and healthcare sector effectively adapt and respond to health risks and address health inequities posed by public health and other emergencies. Dr. McGinty has worked at all levels of government, in academia, and in the private sector to ensure local communities are more resilient to the effects of all disasters. Previously, Dr. McGinty served as the Director of Emergency Management at New York City Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal healthcare delivery system in the United States, where she led its systemwide response to COVID-19.

From 2008-2011, Dr. McGinty directed Continuity of Operations Planning at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She was responsible for developing and implementing plans to sustain essential public health services in the event of a disaster or pandemic, which were implemented first during H1N1 and subsequently during Hurricane Sandy. She has supported preparedness and response initiatives of the U.S. National Response Team, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Public Health Services, and the Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC), a forum for the leaders of America’s largest metropolitan health departments to collaboratively protect the health and safety of the 56 million people they serve. As a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr. McGinty’s research and teaching examine health sector resilience, risk management and communication, pandemic and epidemic response, and continuity of operations (COOP). She has researched or responded to major public health emergencies including the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic, the 2022 Ebola Uganda outbreak, the 2021 Ebola Guinea outbreak, the 2015-16 Zika virus disease outbreak, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the Las Vegas Mass Shooting and Hurricanes Sandy, Katrina, and Rita.

Gretchen Van Wye, PhD, MA, serves as the Deputy Director of the Center for Population Health Data Science and as the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Chief Epidemiologist. In addition, Dr. Van Wye has served as the Assistant Commissioner and Registrar of the Bureau of Vital Statistics within DOHMH for over 5 years. She has extensive experience in applied public health, epidemiology, management, strategic planning, and communication.   

Dr. Van Wye also serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, where she teaches and supports student research in health literacy, obesity, and vital records and statistics. She received her Ph.D. in Epidemiology and Public Health from Yale University, her M.A. in Health Communication from the University of Georgia, and her B.A. from The Pennsylvania State University.