Bernard Nahlen

Bernard Nahlen, MD, is Director of the University of Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health and comes to MSH with decades of experience in research and disease elimination programs around the world.

Prior to his recent appointment as Director of the University of Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health, Nahlen served as Deputy Coordinator of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) from 2007 to 2017. From 2005 to 2006, Nahlen was Senior Advisor, Monitoring and Evaluation, at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Nahlen is a family physician with a specialization in preventive medicine. Early in his career, he joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an Epidemic Intelligence Officer assigned to the Malaria Branch and later served as Deputy Director of the Los Angeles County AIDS Epidemiology Program.

Nahlen’s work on malaria prevention and control took him to Kenya in 1992 as Director of the CDC field research station in collaboration with the Kenya Medical Research Institute. In 2000, he served as Senior Technical Advisor to the WHO Malaria Programme, where he also led the Monitoring and Evaluation team and the Malaria in Pregnancy team.

Through his roles with the World Health Organization, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and PMI, Nahlen has helped shape global policies, developed new programs, and forged partnerships to end malaria. Dr. Nahlen’s work to scale up proven malaria interventions, build the skills and capacity of Ministries of Health and district health leaders to manage and coordinate control activities, and strengthen health systems have made a positive impact worldwide.