Dr Robert Breiman is the Interim Director of the new Infectious Diseases and Oncology Research Institute (IDORI) atWits. Before joining Wits, Rob was the Director of the Emory University Global Health Institute and he was the overall PI for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Prof Breiman was at the US CDC for 26 years (until 2013), where he focused on pneumonia, diarrheal disease, immunizations, emerging infections and urbanization. His time at CDC included 13 years outside of the US, based inDhaka, Bangladesh (where he was the Founding Head of the Program on Infectious Diseases and Vaccine Sciences atICDDR,B) from 2000-4, and in Kenya (with the Kenya Medical Research Institute/CDC collaboration for 9 years, including serving as Country Director and the Founding Director of the International Emerging Infections Program/Global DiseaseDetection Division in Kenya.

He was elected to the US National Academy of Medicine and the American Epidemiology Society. He is a Fellow of theInfectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), as well as of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). According to Google Scholar, Prof Breiman's publications have citations with an h-factor of 125.