Dr Jay Butler | Senior Advisor for Infectious Diseases, Office of Readiness and Response
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jay C. Butler, MD is Senior Advisor for Infectious Diseases in the Office of Readiness and Response at CDC. Dr. Butler has over 30 years of experience in increasingly complex public health leadership and management positions. He graduated from North Carolina State University with a BS in zoology, received his MD at the University of North Carolina, and did internship and residency training in medicine and pediatrics at Vanderbilt. After completing CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service in the Wisconsin Division of Health, Dr. Butler completed a preventive medicine residency with the Respiratory Diseases Branch in the National Center for Infectious Diseases, and an infectious disease fellowship at Emory University. He is board certified in medicine, pediatrics and infectious diseases, and has served in public health positions at federal, state, and tribal government, including completing more than 22 years in the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service, from which he retired at the level of Captain (Medical Director) in 2012.  He has authored or co-authored over 150 scientific papers, reviews, and book chapters and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
From 1998-2005, Dr. Butler was Director of CDC’s Arctic Investigations. He held leadership roles in multiple emergency responses, including CDC’s response to bioterrorist anthrax in 2001, the SARS outbreak in 2003, and Incident Manager for the CDC COVID-19 response in May and June of 2020.  From April 2019 to January 2023, he served as Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases at CDC. Dr. Butler has also held multiple leadership roles in Alaska, including Chief Medical Officer for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (2014-2019 and 2007-2009), State Epidemiologist (2005-2007), and Senior Director of the Division of Community Health Services for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (2010-2014).  He hosted a weekly hour-long call-in radio show, Line One, Your Health Connection, carried statewide on the Alaska Public Radio Network in 2018 and early 2019.  He has been a volunteer race official for Nordic ski events, including serving as Chief of Finish at the 2010 US Olympic Trials in Anchorage, AK. He was President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials in 2016-2017 and has made important contributions to public health approaches to reducing harms associated with addiction.