Brian Lee

Brian Lee serves as CDC’s first Chief Public Health Informatics Officer (CPHIO) for the Office of Public Health Scientific Services.

Brian joined CDC in 2012 as the Deputy Director of the Informatics Research & Development Activity, later renamed to the Informatics Innovation Unit, where he provided informatics expertise in the design and coordination of an research portfolio, working with public health partners across CDC. Brian’s experience with CDC began in 2006 as a consultant to CDC on multiple projects, including serving as the lead architect for the Public Health Grid (phGrid) project that developed prototype software for distributed data analytics, novel visualization and complex information security.

Brian has over 15 years experience in information technology in both the public and private sector serving in roles such as Chief Technology Officer, Principal Architect, Senior Member of the Technical Staff and Management Consultant within both startup and established firms that created very large database (VLDB) software, operational risk algorithms and complex, high-transaction enterprise software systems.

Brian is a passionate advocate for agile, collaborative and transparent informatics practices that serve to closely integrate informatics with public health programs within our agency. He works with internal and external partners to carefully identify potential disruptive innovations, evaluate their impact for public health, and, if useful, connect and align informatics activities to public health policy priorities. Brian recently championed the creation of the CDC Health Information Innovation Consortium (CHIIC), to bring funding and attention to innovative IT projects to advance the CDC Surveillance Strategy.

Brian studied Finance at the University of Florida, but left in 1996 to use his self-taught programming skills to work for startups taking advantage of the rapidly emerging Internet. While working full-time, he finished his degree in 2006 by earning a Bachelor of Business Administration from Georgia State University, majoring in computer information systems. Brian holds a Master of Public Health with a specialization in public health informatics from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. He holds multiple professional certifications, including: Certified Enterprise Architect (CEA), Certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), IT Infrastructure Library Certification (ITIL), and Federal Acquisition Certification – Contracting Officer’s Representative II (FAC-COR).

Brian’s professional interests include research and development, public health informatics, health information technology, eHealth, mHealth, cloud computing, service-oriented architecture, process evaluation, and enterprise architecture. His personal interests include quantified self, international travel and cryptography. Brian lives in Alpharetta with his wife and three children.