Syra Madad

Dr. Syra Madad is a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.

Dr. Madad is an internationally recognized leader and epidemiologist in public health and special pathogens preparedness and response. She is Senior Director, System-wide Special Pathogens Program at New York City Health + Hospitals, the nation’s largest municipal healthcare delivery system. She is Co-Principal Investigator of NYC Health + Hospitals Institute for Diseases and Disaster Management and the Health and Safety Lead of the Enhanced Investigations Unit of NYC Test and Trace Corp. In addition, Dr. Madad is Core Faculty in the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC), funded by CDC and ASPR. She is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, and alumni Fellow at both Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Health Security’s Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Behavioral Informatics Program. In February, 2022, Madad was named to the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. 

Dr. Madad’s work focuses on prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery related to infectious disease outbreaks with an emphasis on healthcare and public health biopreparedness.

Dr. Madad holds a doctoral degree in Health Science with a concentration in Global Health from Nova Southeastern University and Master of Science in Biotechnology with a concentration in Biodefense and Biosecurity from the University of Maryland. She also holds numerous certifications and trainings in all-hazards CBRNE, emergency management and infection prevention and control. Dr. Madad has been part of and led numerous infectious disease responses from Ebola to Zika and recently, COVID19. She has more than 100 publications and has been a guest speaker at over 70 scientific/medical conferences around the world.

Dr. Madad has been featured in two leading documentaries, the Netflix docuseries Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak, which follows a handful of leaders throughout the world on the frontlines to prevent the next outbreak, and the Discovery documentary The Vaccine: Conquering COVID.