Robert “Bob” T. Chen, MD, serves as The Task Force’s Brighton Collaboration Scientific Director and has been a leader in research on the epidemiology of vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for more than 30 years. He helped create the vaccine safety infrastructure needed to meet the “post-modern” challenges of mature immunization programs where adverse events are more prominent than the nearly eliminated target VPDs, including the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network, and the Brighton Collaboration.

Dr. Chen received his MD (and MA in public policy studies) from the University of Chicago. He then trained in internal medicine and preventive medicine, including joining the Epidemic Intelligence Service in 1984. Dr. Chen is an adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the Emory Rollins School of Public Health.