Rachel Idowu, MD, MPH

Commander (CDR) Rachel Idowu, MD MPH, is a United States Public Health Service commissioned officer. Before her current role, she served as the Branch Chief for HIV Care and Treatment in the CDC country office in Maputo, Mozambique. Her experience includes serving as a technical advisor to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) to establish a Surveillance and Response Unit and five Africa CDC Regional Collaborating Centres. She also mentored ten African epidemiologists through a US CDC-supported fellowship program at the Africa CDC. Rachel has served as a Medical Epidemiologist within the US CDC National Public Health Institute Program. In this role, she guided the African Ministries of Health in Liberia, Ghana, and Zambia as each country established a nationally integrated platform for public health delivery.

In addition, Rachel has over six years of global public health experience in responding to public health emergencies and strengthening health systems, including two years as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer during missions to South Sudan, Chad, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. She also served as an epidemiologist in Liberia as part of the US CDC's Ebola response. Before joining the US CDC, she completed a US National Institutes of Health Fogarty Research Fellowship in Nairobi, Kenya. Her undergraduate, medical, and graduate studies were completed at the University of California (Berkeley), University of California (San Francisco), and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, respectively.  Her residency training in general surgery and critical care medicine occurred at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Education

MD, University of California (San Francisco)
MPH, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine