David Blazes, MD, MPH. is Deputy Director in the Global Health Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an adjunct professor in tropical medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Dr. Blazes leads the foundations work on global burden of disease modelling and pathogen genomic sequencing. Dr. Blazes joined Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation after serving as a physician epidemiologist in the Navy. Throughout his twenty-one year career with the Navy, he served as Director of Infectious Diseases Research at Bethesda Naval Hospital, a Department Head on the USNS COMFORT, and Director of the Emerging Infections Department at the Naval Medical Research Unit Six in Peru. Upon his return to Washington, DC, he directed the Department of Defense’s global disease surveillance efforts and served as the chief advisor to the Navy Surgeon General on Infectious Diseases. At the foundation, Dr. Blazes is the relationship manager for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and manages a portfolio of grants around burden of disease modeling, geospatial mapping, and next generation genetic sequencing of pathogens with epidemic potential. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Blazes is currently serving as a member on the Board for Health Sciences Policy within the Health and Medicine Division at the National Academies.