Richard Zimmerman, MD, MPH

I have long been interested in influenza vaccine, evidence-based medicine, and what would be the best vaccine policy under various circumstances. This interest has led to serving on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, first as a liaison and later as a voting member where I chaired the influenza working group. My policy interest has also led service on policy bodies for the AAFP and the IDSA (e.g., influenza antivirals, including during the pandemic). As an extension of my vaccine policy expertise, I have been involved in vaccine modeling, particularly on projects related to influenza and pneumococcal vaccines. I participated in the 2011 NIH Institute on Systems Science and Health. I co-presented with Dr. Smith to the ACIP at CDC on pneumococcal vaccine Markov analyses in February 2011. I served with MIDAS’s agent-based modeling, including work for the pandemic, segmentation of the population into various risk categories, and the combined vaccine effects. I have taken the Imperial College course on Mathematical Models of the Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Disease. I have served as the PI of federal R01s and U01s and as co-PI on a P01 EXCEED from AHRQ which addressed adult disparities. I have served as the PI on vaccine immunogenicity trials and of a modeling study. I serve as the Pittsburgh PI for the CDC’s multi-center US Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network which has addressed both the clinical effectiveness as well as the immunogenicity of influenza vaccines. I have gathered a diverse team of modelers for this proposal and have worked with each one previously.