Professor Michael H. Merson

Australia

Wolfgang Joklik Professor of Global Health and vice president and vice provost for global strategy and programs, Duke University

Michael H. Merson, M.D., is the Wolfgang Joklik Professor of Global Health and vice president and vice provost for global strategy and programs at Duke University. Dr. Merson, who joined the Duke faculty in November 2006, was the founding director of the Duke Global Health Institute and served in that role from 2006 to 2017. In addition, Dr. Merson served as Vice Chancellor for Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) Affairs from 2010 to 2016.

Dr. Merson graduated from Amherst College (BA) and the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center. After serving as a medical intern and resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, he worked in the Enteric Diseases Branch at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, GA, and then served as the Chief Epidemiologist at the Cholera Research Laboratory in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

His research focused on the etiology and epidemiology of acute diarrheal diseases, including cholera, in developing countries and on the cause of travelers' diarrhea in persons visiting these countries. From 1999-2006, he also served as Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS at Yale University, which undertakes research on HIV prevention in vulnerable and underserved populations in this country and abroad. He also led a number of training programs that strengthened the capacity of scientists in Russia, China, India and South Africa to undertake HIV/AIDS prevention research.

He has served in advisory capacities for UNAIDS, WHO, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, World Bank, Doris Duke Foundation, World Economic Forum, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and on several NIH review panels and advisory committees. He is a member of the Commission for Smart Global Health Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.