Overview

Gavin H Harris, MD received his BA in military history and music from Columbia University in New York City. He then spent a year at the NYU College of Nursing conducting research in drug addiction treatment centers. This was followed by medical school at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Health Sciences University School of Medicine and internal medicine residency and chief residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY. Dr. Harris then completed a dual fellowship in Infectious Diseases and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine/University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and a fellowship in biosecurity at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Health Security.

Dr. Harris joined Emory University and Emory Healthcare in 2020 and holds joint appointments in the Department of Medicine Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and the Division of Infectious Diseases, rounding on inpatient infectious diseases services and in various intensive care units throughout the Emory System.

He has been a member of the Serious Communicable Diseases Program (SCDP) and Serious Communicable Diseases Unit (SCDU) in varying capacities for some time, and his professional interests have always been in disaster preparedness and response, medical countermeasures, and high consequence infectious diseases. Board-certified in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and Critical Care Medicine, he holds dual appointments in Critical Care Medicine and Infectious Diseases and completed a fellowship in biosecurity. Besides being a core physician of the SCDU since he joined Emory in 2020, for the past two years he has served as a Critical Care Co-Liaison for the Emory Critical Care Center. As the founding director of SCDPs Project ECHO preparedness series, he has overseen over fifty monthly sessions since 2020, drawing thousands of multidisciplinary attendees, developed the Region IV SitRep platform, co-developed the Region IV Special Pathogens Frontline Preparedness Course, which has trained healthcare and EMS professionals across the southeastern US, and has served as the SCDP Director of Education and Outreach since 2023. Regionally and nationally, he serves as the Biothreats lead for the Southeastern Regional Disaster Response System, as an adult subject matter expert for the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC) in multiple capacities, co-chairs the joint NETEC/Infectious Disease Society of America/Task Force for Mass Critical Care Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers Critical Care Guidance Task Force and sits on the NETEC Outbreak Response Committee. Internationally, he sits on the World Health Organizations Technical Advisory Group for Therapeutics Prioritization as well as the Filovirus Collaborative Open Research Consortium. His scholarly work focuses on allhazards disaster preparedness, ICU surge capacity, and special pathogens countermeasures and this year (2025) he was recognized as a Senior Physician at Emory Healthcare, was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) National Medical Honors Society in recognition of his efforts to advance public health, medical education, and the treatment of underserved populations, and in May was appointed Associate Medical Director of the Emory Serious Communicable Diseases Unit.

Academic Appointment

• Senior Physician, Emory University School of Medicine
• Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine
• Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine

Education

Research