by Peggy McInerny, Director of Communications, International Institute
Anne Rimoin, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor of epidemiology and Gordon-Levin Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases and Public Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Health, has won the Roger Detels Infections Disease Award of the Society for Epidemiologic Research, or SER.
The award was officially conferred on Rimoin during SER’s annual meeting in Boston in June in honor of the critical impact her work has had on infectious disease epidemiology methodology. Named in honor of UCLA Distinguished Research Professor Roger Detels, the SER award is sponsored by the UCLA Fielding School, but open to scholars nationwide. Past winners of the award include public health scholars working at Vanderbilt and Emory Universities.
“I’m deeply honored to receive this award and to be recognized by peers in the field of epidemiology. It’s especially meaningful that it’s named for Roger Detels — a true pioneer in infectious disease epidemiology — who comes from my own department in the Fielding School of Public Health,” said Rimoin, who also directs the UCLA Center for Global and Immigrant Health and is a member of the university’s Global Advisors Council.
"We are living in a moment where science, evidence, and global collaboration matter more than ever. This award is a reminder that rigorous public health work — done in partnership and with purpose — can have real impact," she added.
The UCLA professor became familiar to nationwide audiences as a result of her media interviews on COVID-19 at the height of the novel coronavirus epidemic.
Rimoin is the founder and director of the Rimoin Lab at UCLA, which since 2002 has operated a satellite office and laboratory hosted by the Institute National pour la Recherche Biomédicale of the Kinshasa School of Public Health and the Laboratoire Vétérinaire Central in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC. The satellite office is part of a UCLA-DRC Health Research and Training Program initiated that same year.
The focus of program is to train graduate students and scientists in epidemiologic surveillance of existing and emerging infectious diseases with the goal of building public health capacity and research expertise in the DRC at the national and local levels.
Researchers conduct ongoing surveillance of Mpox, Ebola, trypanosomiasis and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, as well as the response of the immune system to vaccines for COVID-19. The program is notable for its success in training researchers to conduct public health research in low-research and often logistically complex settings.
From the DRC office, the lab also conducts regular poliovirus serologic surveillance studies throughout central Africa, while providing critical public health information on polio vaccines to the health ministries of governments in the region. UCLA and Congolese graduate students who participate in the training program are known to later join its staff, attesting to the pull that frontline collaborative research has for young public health professionals.
The long-standing collaboration has generated foundational studies on the epidemiology of Mpox in the post-smallpox era, long-term immunity among Ebola survivors and the durability of Ebola vaccine responses among frontline workers. Ongoing research focuses on vaccine-preventable diseases in children and immunization uptake among healthcare, frontline and veterinary health workers.
In addition to co-leading studies of zoonotic spillover risks at the human-animal-agricultural interface in urban and rural DRC settings, Rimoin also works with international teams in Turkey and the Czech Republic on the ecology and transmission of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, as well as with collaborators in the U.S. on assessing zoonotic risk.
In the United States, Dr. Rimoin conducts research on Mpox vaccine effectiveness in high-risk populations in Los Angeles. She also directs studies examining risk perception and attitudes toward vaccination and other mitigation strategies for emerging pathogens among healthcare workers, first responders and veterinary professionals in rural and urban settings.
Rimoin earned her B.A. at Middlebury College, M.P.H. at UCLA, and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. She started her career in global public health as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, West Africa, as part of the Guinea Worm Eradication Program. In addition to the Roger Detels Award, she has been recognized for her achievements in epidemiology and global health with the Middlebury College Alumni Achievement Award (2017), induction as a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (2019) and the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Global Achievement Award (2022).
See related Fielding School of Public Health article.