2013 Tillman Scholar

Gregory Raczniak

Navy
Tulane University School of Health and Tropical Medicine
MPH | Ph.D., Tropical Medicine

I experience fulfillment through service. I feel that veterans are always driven to serve others; the trick is to find an organization that provides the opportunities to continue this selfless service.

In the past I served in the US Coast Guard as its (only) Undersea Medical Officer and concurrently the District 14 (Hawai’i and the Pacific) and District 17 (Alaska and the Arctic) Senior Medical Executive Flight Surgeon.

Prior to USCG, I had tours augmenting healthcare associated infection and antibiotic resistance programs as CDC’s Field Medical Officer to the Florida Department of Health and the Illinois Department of Public Health; implementing the Global Health Security Agenda and helping eradicate polio, biosafety and biocontainment, emerging infectious disease threats, and complex humanitarian disasters in CDC’s Division of Global Health Protection as the US Embassy-Islamabad Public Health Attaché and CDC Pakistan Country Director; striving to reduce malaria and help relieve poverty through scaling-up four proven and highly effective malaria prevention and treatment measures as President’s Malaria Initiative Resident Advisor to Rwanda; and as an Ebola responder and outbreak response expert (Sierra Leone: training contact tracers and data management; Liberia: caring for Ebola infected healthcare staff).

I initially transferred to the CDC/USPHS for Epidemic Intelligence Service (Arctic Investigation Program) and Preventive Medicine Residency (Louisiana Office of Public Health; MPH’14, Tulane – thanks Pat Tillman Foundation!). Before the CDC, I was the Navy’s Submarine Group NINE Senior Undersea Medical Officer after completing US Navy Diver training.

My interest in Preventive Medicine (MD’04, Eastern Virginia Medical School) started when I was the Officer-in-Charge of US Naval Medical Research Unit #3, Ghana Detachment. I am also an RNA molecular biophysicist and biochemist (PhD’04, MPhil’99, Yale) and studied business management (MBA’19, Instituto de Empresa Business School). I have no idea where life will take me next. I am currently a clinical reviewer for new vaccines seeking regulatory approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (read: super academic but not seeing patients).