Dr Joseph Bresee is the Director of Respiratory Virus Prevention and Preparedness at the Task Force for Global Health, which works towards increasing equitable access to life-saving vaccines such as influenza and COVID vaccines in low and middle-income countries. He directs the Partnership for International Vaccine Initiatives (PIVI), a program that works to strengthen immunization programs globally, focusing on life-course vaccination and pandemic vaccine preparedness, the Global Funders Consortium for Universal Influenza Vaccine Development, and oversees the SONAR program that supports surveillance strengthening in low and middle income countries.
He served in various positions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including as Associate Director of Global Health, Influenza Division (2017-2021), Chief of the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch, Influenza Division (2005-2017), and as a medical epidemiologist working on viral diseases, including rotavirus and influenza from 1993-2005.
Dr. Bresee joined CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer in 1993, after his Pediatrics residency at the University of Washington/Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle and attended medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is a retired Captain in the US Public Health Service. Dr. Bresee has written more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters.