Two Ohio State MPH-VPH alumni named to prestigious CDC Fellowship
Originally Published
Two Ohio State MPH-VPH alumni, Andrea Bessler, DVM, and Pallavi Oruganti, DVM, have been selected as Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The EIS is the CDC’s highly competitive and globally recognized applied epidemiology training program. The program places promising professionals in a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta, GA. The EIS program is open to MD, PhD, and DVM professionals from the US and receives approximately 400-500 applications per year, with an average acceptance of 50-60 people.
Bessler will be deployed as a CDC-EIS officer at the Georgia Department of Public Health in Atlanta. She graduated with her DVM from Ohio State in 2021 and was an MPH-VPH resident from 2021 to 2024. Bessler also became an ACVPM Diplomate in 2024. During her time in the MPH-VPH program, Bessler designed and implemented an interactive training program for responding to foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks for the state of Ohio. She also worked internationally during the program, participating in the WOAH Twinning Program partnership with Ethiopia and expanding WOAH's veterinary educational establishments in Southeast Asia.
Oruganti will be deployed at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment in Denver. She received her MPH-VPH in 2018 and subsequently earned her DVM from Ohio State in 2022. Throughout her time in the MPH-VPH program, Oruganti conducted research in rural Nicaragua focused on the human-animal connection in the context of child gut microbiome development. After graduating with both degrees, Oruganti went on to work as a veterinary medical officer in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for the USDA.
Bessler and Oruganti join the growing legacy of six other previous MPH students who have served as EIS officers, bringing the total number of EIS officers to eight since the MPH-VPH program’s establishment 20 years ago. After completing the two-year fellowship, previous students progressed within the CDC, holding current positions including:
• U.S. Public Health Service Chief of the Infectious Disease Branch, Division of Epidemiology and Disease Prevention, Indian Health Service
• Emergency Preparedness and Response Senior Epidemiologist and Emergency Coordinator
• Associate Director for Antimicrobial Resistance, Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases
• Veterinary Epidemiologist of the Influenza Division
The number of previous MPH-VPH alumni who have become EIS Officers speaks to the quality of the program and the effectiveness of preparing students to tackle significant challenges in the veterinary public health field.