Alissa Scharf

Alissa received her MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Prior to attending graduate school, Alissa worked for several years as a Bacteriologist at the MA State Laboratory, focusing on diagnostic and susceptibility testing of MDR-TB patients in Peru, Haiti and Russia. In addition, Alissa was part of a team that tested for the presence of anthrax after the attacks in 2001 and assisted in writing and implementing the first "white powder" protocols for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Most recently, Alissa served as the Deputy Director for Emergency Preparedness at the MA Department of Public Health and was heavily involved with pandemic flu planning and the response to the H1N1 outbreak in 2009. She joined the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics as the Project Director in the fall of 2009.