Amy Rowland, MSc. is a global health leader with decades of experience in strategic communication, partnerships, resource mobilization, workforce development, and organizational effectiveness. As Chief External Relations Officer and a member of the Executive Team, she helps shape the strategic vision of the Task Force and advance its mission through excellence in communication, marketing, media, development, advocacy, global engagement, and federal affairs.

In 2022, Ms. Rowland joined Emory University as Communication Director of its Global Health Institute, leading communication for student, faculty, and global health programs focused on strengthening health systems, ending preventable childhood deaths, and improving vaccine equity. She directed the U.S.-Serbia University Partnership Program to address infodemic harm to health and managed Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice at Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center.

From 2016 – 2022, Ms. Rowland created and led two diverse and inspired teams within the Center for Global Health, the U.S. CDC’s largest Center with a footprint of 60 country offices worldwide. She served as Media and Public Affairs Team Lead for four years and then Associate Director for Communication Science within CDC’s Global Immunization Division until her retirement from federal service. In these roles, she collaborated across disciplines and engaged partners to advance CDC’s mission of preventing, detecting, and responding to health threats—anytime and anywhere.

As a Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication practitioner, Ms. Rowland held numerous leadership roles in emergency responses to Ebola, Zika, polio, measles, and COVID-19. She trained public health leaders and deployers worldwide and developed tools and training to support journalists reporting on public health, especially during outbreaks and humanitarian health emergencies. As co-chair of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s (GPEI) Communication Group for two years, Ms. Rowland supported GPEI’s deployment of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 under WHO’s Emergency Use Listing, an historic first in global health, and provided technical leadership on the business case writing team that led to a fully funded and successfully launched GPEI Polio Eradication Strategy, 2022–2026.

In 2011, Ms. Rowland was recruited to the U.S. CDC to lead digital media for CDC’s Tips from Former Smokers™, a national campaign that helped 1 million Americans successfully quit smoking and saved an estimated $7.3 billion in smoking-related healthcare costs from 2012 – 2018. Her award-winning team pioneered digital media strategies as part of behavior change communication interventions that expanded the evidence base for effective integrated social marketing.

Ms. Rowland studied and worked abroad as a foreign correspondent, agency director, and consultant for over a decade and served on The Africa Center’s executive board of directors from 2000 – 2003. She holds an MSc in Organizational & Social Psychology from the London School of Economics & Political Science and a BA in Commercial Spanish from Georgia State University.