Rohit Chitale, MPH, Ph.D. biography

Rohit Chitale, MPH, Ph.D
Director, Division of Integrated Biosurveillance

Dr. Chitale joined the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC) in 2012. Prior to joining the agency, Dr. Chitale worked as the senior analyst in the Global Disease Detection Program in the Center for Global Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He was one of the first analysts to help establish the CDC’s Global Disease Detection Operations Center.

During his time at CDC, he co-designed and developed a novel system for the collection of data about international disease events, focusing on emerging infectious diseases that threaten populations. He helped coordinate and respond to multiple global disease outbreaks, including Influenza A/H1N1pdm09, cholera in Haiti, Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nipah virus in India, and Nodding Syndrome in East Africa. He also had several temporary assignments, including assisting the South African government with preparedness and response activities during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, working closely with the National Center for Medical Intelligence in Frederick, MD; and teaching in the Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Dr. Chitale has broad and significant experience in Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Surveillance and Informatics, and has specific expertise in HIV/AIDS and malaria. Dr. Chitale holds academic appointments at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, and the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
In 2006, Dr. Chitale earned his doctorate of philosophy in Epidemiology with a concentration in infectious diseases with an emphasis on intervention trials from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He received a master’s in Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996, and holds a bachelor’s in Economics with a minor in Computer Science from the University of Maryland in College Park, MD.