Vanessa Burrowes
Bio
Dr. Vanessa Burrowes is a public health epidemiologist specializing in global health initiatives. Currently collaborating with IBM’s Chief Medical Officer and a global medical team, she leads efforts to evaluate and enhance employee healthcare programs for IBM’s global workforce. During her tenure at IBM, she played a pivotal role in addressing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on designing occupational safety measures, monitoring global transmission trends, evaluating mental health support programs, performing exposure risk assessments, conducting safety trainings, and assisting with evaluation and procurement of personal protective equipment. She was also a co-editor on a recently published book documenting IBM’s pandemic response, “The IBM Covid-19 Compendium: A Practical Approach to Effective Pandemic and Crisis Management,” which was authored by 49 authors from 18 different countries.
Dr. Burrowes has over 10 years of research experience in applied environmental health, environmental microbiology, and biodefense, both domestically in the US and internationally in countries such as Zambia, Bangladesh, and most recently Peru. Dr. Burrowes also brings extensive laboratory and fieldwork experience from her roles at the CDC, her PhD research funded by the Fogarty International Center and the National Science Foundation, cross-border collaborations with international teams, and as an APHL-CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory Fellow, where she honed her expertise in infectious diseases and emergency response.
Dr. Burrowes’ academic journey includes earning a PhD from the Global Disease Epidemiology and Control Program at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She also holds an MSPH in Environmental Health and Epidemiology from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and a BS degree in Biology from The Ohio State University, laying the groundwork for her research in public health and global health equity. Dr. Burrowes is passionate about advancing global research and initiatives in epidemiology, disease ecology, and environmental health on a global scale, as well as strengthening collaborations and educational training for future global health scientists.