Dr. Ali S. Khan is a former Assistant Surgeon General and current Dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Dr. Khan shares his family's journey from the Himalayan foothills in Kashmir to Brooklyn, NY and the beginnings of his passion for medicine and infectious diseases. We talk about bioterrorism, our failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the role for politicians and public health officials, and why Omaha and UNMC are the place to be!

Dr. Khan’s professional career has focused on health security, global health, and emerging infectious diseases. He was a disease detective at CDC – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – and one of the main architects of CDC’s public health bioterrorism preparedness program. As Dean of the UNMC College of Public Health, his focus is on health system and community based health transformations. In 2015 he supported response activities for the West Africa Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone as a World Health Organization (WHO) consultant. Dr. Khan is the author of The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind’s Gravest Dangers.Disease detective at CDC.

This program is supported, in part, by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce. Learn more at omahachamber.org