Neil Vora

Connector, Environmentalist

Neil Vora, MD, is a policy fellow at Conservation International where he leads its efforts on pandemic prevention. He served for nearly a decade with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and a Commander in the US Public Health Service. Neil deployed for CDC to Liberia in 2014 and to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019 to assist in the responses to the two largest Ebola outbreaks ever. He also led the investigation of a newly discovered smallpox-like virus in the country of Georgia in 2013. From 2020-2021, Neil developed and led New York City’s COVID-19 contact tracing program, overseeing a team of over 3,000 people. He has published more than 60 articles in leading journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. He is an Associate Editor at CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, an Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Columbia University, and a Presidential Leadership Scholar. He still sees patients in a public tuberculosis clinic in New York City. Outside of work, Neil loves to spend time with his rescue pets and to train in Brazilian jiu jitsu.

Nature, health, Brazilian jiu jitsu

Conservation is public health

One Health, Pandemic Prevention, Planetary Health, Public Health, Tuberculosis, Zoonotic Disease