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Peter Kilmarx, MD, Deputy Director, Fogarty International Center

Headshot of Dr. Peter Kilmarx
High resolution images of Dr. Kilmarx can be found on Fogarty's Flickr account

Peter Kilmarx, M.D.

Email: peter.kilmarx@nih.gov

Phone: (301) 496-1415

Read recent blogs and articles from Acting Fogarty Director Dr. Peter Kilmarx.

Dr. Kilmarx is deputy director of the Fogarty International Center. He joined Fogarty on July 1, 2015; he was acting director of the Fogarty International Center and acting associate director for international research at the National Institutes of Health from January 2023 to May 2024.

Dr. Kilmarx is an expert on infectious disease research and HIV/AIDS prevention. During his tenure at Fogarty he has led analysis of NIH global health activities, built coalitions with high-level NIH and external stakeholders, and represented the Center and NIH in national and international forums. He co-lead an initiative to transform African health professional education and research as well as the African Postdoctoral Training Initiative (APTI), which brings African postdoctoral fellows to NIH. He has also focused on efforts to increase equity in global health research, build global capacity for pandemic preparedness, and expand research training opportunities for people from groups that have been underrepresented as both health research practitioners and participants. Dr. Kilmarx has also concentrated on using data and metrics to increase impact and equity in capacity strengthening. He has co-authored papers using data to track equity through authorship and metrics to measure national health research capacity.

He previously served as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Country Director in Zimbabwe, providing oversight for 30 CDC staff who managed implementation of the U.S. efforts to reduce HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria. A retired Rear Admiral and Assistant Surgeon General in the U.S. Public Health Service, Dr. Kilmarx served as the CDC Ebola response team leader in Sierra Leone in September-October 2014, and as principal deputy team leader in Guinea in January-February 2015. Previously, he initiated the CDC response to the Ebola outbreak in Kasai Occidental, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in 2007, and led household surveillance in the Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, DRC, in 1995.

Dr. Kilmarx held a variety of leadership positions at the CDC, including senior advisor to the Director for Health Reform and chief of the Epidemiology Branch—both in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. He also served as director of the CDC partnership with Botswana to combat HIV/AIDS, TB and related conditions, as well as the chief of the CDC's Sexual Transmission Research Section in Thailand. Previously, he completed assignments in Pakistan and the DRC. An experienced clinical trials manager, he has served as principal investigator on microbicide trials in Thailand, as senior investigator on TB and HIV trials in Botswana, and as principal investigator on HIV studies he initiated at public health facilities in Zimbabwe.

After earning his M.D. from Dartmouth-Brown's Combined Program in Medicine, Dr. Kilmarx completed both his internal medicine residency and infectious disease clinical fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. He is a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and serves on the editorial board of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. He began his international career as a Peace Corps volunteer in the DRC (then Zaire), where he helped develop fisheries that are still productive today.

Dr. Kilmarx has received numerous awards including the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Distinguished Service Medal for a distinguished USPHS career responding to HIV/AIDS and other infectious disease threats and building health research capacity worldwide, and the USPHS Presidential Unit Citation, for “extraordinary courage and the highest level of performance in action throughout the United States Government's response to the Ebola outbreak."

Publications

Presentations

Education

  • A.B., Dartmouth College
  • M.D., Dartmouth-Brown combined program in medicine

Professional Accomplishments

  • Served in Peace Corps in Zaïre (Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC]) as a fisheries volunteer after graduation from Dartmouth College.
  • Completed internship and residency in internal medicine and initiated a fellowship in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins.
  • Joined Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta in 1994.
  • Directed CDC's northern Thailand HIV/STD prevention research field station from 1996 to 2002.
  • Directed CDC's Botswana office from 2002 to 2005, implementing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and conducting HIV and TB prevention research.
  • Served in CDC Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention as the Chief of the Epidemiology Branch from 2006 to 2010.
  • Served as Senior Advisor to the Director for Health Reform from 2010 to 2011.
  • Directed CDC's Zimbabwe office from 2011 to 2015.
  • Served as acting director of the Fogarty International Center and acting associate director for international research for NIH from January 2023 to May 2024.

Updated August 21, 2024