Erin Eckert is an infectious disease epidemiologist with 25 years of experience in surveillance, metrics, and evaluation of disease control programs. She is currently Director of the Infectious Disease Portfolio at RTI International, where she manages multiple projects in Africa and Asia addressing malaria and infectious disease priorities. Prior to RTI, she served as Senior Technical Advisor/Epidemiologist with the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where she focused on metrics and measurement for malaria case management and other biomedical interventions.
Prior to joining USAID, Dr. Eckert was employed by ICF in their Demographic and Health Research Division where she led an interdisciplinary team working on developing methods and approaches for improving the measurement of infectious disease programs, including malaria, avian influenza, TB, and HIV/AIDS. She provided technical assistance to national governments to develop evaluation platforms, surveillance systems, and research to improve infectious disease program implementation. She has served as an advisor to bilateral and international organizations such as USAID, UNICEF, WHO, Roll Back Malaria and others on infectious disease-related issues.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Eckert was on the faculty at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. She holds an MPH and a PhD in epidemiology from Tulane and has been published widely on public health issues. She has professional experience in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean, has lived overseas for more than 17 years, and is fluent in French and conversant in Moroccan Arabic and Portuguese.