Erik Foster is a medical entomologist in the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  He is a specialist in the ecology of tick-borne diseases, and coordinates efforts with public health and academic partners to understand the distribution and prevalence of Ixodes vectors and their associated human pathogens in the U.S.  He is a proud graduate of the Michigan State University Entomology Department, where his graduate work focused on the emergence of Ixodes scapularis and Lyme disease in lower Michigan.  After his graduate studies and prior to CDC, Erik served as a preventive medicine officer in the U.S. Army Public Health Command, and as the state medical entomologist for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Blair graduated with honors from the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine and then completed residency and Infectious Disease Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, MA. After fellowship, Dr. Blair pursued a career as a clinician educator at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA then returned to BIDMC in 2016. She is a Firm Chief for the Internal Medicine Residency. She is the director of immunocompromised host education for the Division of Infectious Diseases.  She serves as the medical director of the BIDMC COVID-19 ambulatory therapy clinic having served as the medical director for the BIDMC affiliated COVID-19 vaccine clinics. Dr. Blair’s clinical interests involve providing clinical care equitably to all persons but especially to the immunocompromised host and treating and preventing infections in this population. She is passionate about infection prevention through safe living strategies and vaccinations.  

Dr. Camilla Rothe, MD is a tropical medicine specialist based in Munich, Germany. She is the head of the Tropical and Travel Medicine Outpatient Department at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Hospital Centre, in Munich, Bavaria - a region endemic for several tick-borne infections, including TBE!  

Camilla lived and worked both as a clinician, lecturer and as a researcher in Blantyre, Malawi for several years. She took her Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2005.

Camilla has a broad interest in travel medicine, clinical tropical medicine and the practice of medicine in low-resourced settings, as well as in migrant health. She is editor of the textbook "Clinical Cases in Tropical Medicine" (Elsevier, 2nd edition 2022). For further publications see google scholar.

Camilla chairs the Advisory Board of Travel Medicine of the German Society for Tropical Medicine, Travel Medicine and Global Health (DTG) which, amongst other, issues the national annual recommendations for malaria prophylaxis and travel vaccinations.

Camilla is a passionate teacher and lectures on multiple courses in tropical medicine around the globe. 

Robert Steffen, Professor Emeritus at the University of Zurich was the Head of the Division of Communicable Diseases in the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute and Director of a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Traveller's Health. He also is Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.

In the 1970’s he started systematic research in morbidity and mortality of illnesses and accidents related to international travel. On the basis of such epidemiological evidence, he concluded on preventive strategies for individual travellers and on measures to be taken out of public health interest. Meanwhile he has (co-)authored over 400 publications, among them many relating to vaccination. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Travel Medicine, of the International Journal of Public Health and Section Editor for Clinical Infectious Diseases. In the 27 years of his tenure at the Zurich University Center for Travel Medicine he supervised over 1 million vaccinations as in that travel clinic there were almost 20,000 consultations per year. Since his retirement from Zurich University his research focus is on adult immunization; he is an advisor of the Adult Immunization Board (AIB).

Robert Steffen presided the Swiss Federal Commission for Influenza; he was Vice-President both of the Federal Commission on Vaccination and of the Swiss Bioterrorism Committee. The WHO often has invited him to advisory boards, such as during the revision of the International Health Regulations (IHR) and on other topics, such as malaria, vaccine preventable diseases, chemical and biological warfare, disinsection of conveyances, or epidemiological preparedness at airports. Repeatedly he served as Chair of the IHR Ebola Emergency Committee until 2020.