Public Policy, Public Health, Vaccines

Dr. Patricia Quinlisk — Iowa state medical director and epidemiologist — is visiting Grinnell College on Thursday, April 2, 2015. 

She will present a  talk on vaccines and vaccine policy at 4:15 in the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, Room 225. Quinlisk will also lunch with Policy Studies students, Health Professions Advisory Committee students, and public health interns to talk about careers in public health and health policy.

Quinlisk is an expert in public health, epidemiology, health policy, and bioterrorism who has spent most of her career in government service.  

After earning a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins and a medical degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Quinlisk began her career as head of microbiology at Adams County Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin and has since worked for three state governments, for the Centers for Disease Control, and in several foreign countries.

A former president of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, she has also served as the lead consultant on bioterrorism for the council, as a member of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and as the chair of the National Biodefense Science Board. Quinlisk has been Iowa's state medical director since 1994.

Quinlisk’s visit is being arranged by the Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights and funded by the Murphy Program.