Neil Vora
Inter-disciplinary professional bringing planetary-health thinking to the interface between conservation efforts (such as preventing deforestation) and pandemic prevention(Last updated during their term as a Commissioner - January 2022)
Neil Vora is a physician with Conservation International where he leads efforts at the interface between conservation efforts – addressing the underlying drivers of pathogen emergence such as deforestation – and pandemic prevention. He was previously with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which he first joined in 2012 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. While with CDC, Neil deployed to Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to assist in the responses to the two largest Ebola outbreaks on record, and to the country of Georgia to lead an investigation of a newly discovered virus related to the smallpox virus. From 2020-2021, he led New York City’s COVID contact-tracing program composed of over 3000 staff. He is currently an associate editor at CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal and an adjunct professor of internal medicine at Columbia University. Neil still sees patients in a public tuberculosis clinic in New York City.