Education
Professor Heymann received his Bachelor of Arts from Pennsylvania State University and later obtained an Doctor of Medicine from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He also received a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Professor Heymann did two years of practical epidemiology training with the Epidemic Intelligence Service (Executive Information System ).
Whilst an Executive Information System officer, he was part of the international team that investigated the first outbreak of Ebola in Zaire (with Peter Piot, Karl Johnson, Joel Breman, Joe McCormick amongst others) and the first outbreak of Legionnaire"s Disease, in Philadelphia.
Career
At the same time, he became Head and Senior Fellow of the Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House, London (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) and in 2010 joined the faculty at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. Prior to this, Heymann was the World Health Organization"s (World Health Organization) Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment and the representative of the Director-General for Polio eradication. Previously, from 1998–2003, he was Executive Director of the World Health Organization Communicable Diseases Cluster and from October 1995 to July 1998 he was Director of the World Health Organization Programme on Emerging and other Communicable Diseases.
Prior to this, he was the chief of research activities in the World Health Organization Global Programme on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Heymann is also chairman of Strategic Advisory Group of Hilleman Laboratories.
Before joining World Health Organization, Heymann worked for 13 years as a medical epidemiologist in sub-Saharan Africa on assignment from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). He also worked in India for two years as a medical epidemiologist in the World Health Organization Smallpox Eradication Programme, where smallpox was eradicated in 1978.
Heymann also took an active role in the first Ebola outbreak in 1976, and led the response team during the 1995 Kikwit outbreak. In 2003, David Heymann was at the forefront of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome epidemic, working with his team to mediate international effort to halt the pandemic.
Foreign his work in public health, Heymann is regarded as one of the "Disease Cowboys".
Heymann has also served as editor of the 18th through 20th editions of the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual, a publication of the American Public Health Association.
