For more than four decades Robert Redfield has been one of America’s preeminent virologists. During the Covid pandemic he served as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and the board of Operation Warp Speed. Among many other positions of responsibility, he has been the administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and Maryland’s senior public health advisor. Currently he is a visiting Senior Fellow for biosecurity and public health policy at the Heritage Foundation.
Both of Dr. Redfield’s parents were scientists at the National Institutes of Health. He is a graduate of Georgetown Medical School and received further training at the Army’s renowned Walter Reed Army Medical Center where he developed a strong interest in infectious disease and the study of viruses, focusing on HIV, hepatitis, and hemorrhagic viruses. His early work reinforced his belief in the power of science but also taught him to embrace his faith and find the courage to speak out even when it is not popular.
Throughout his distinguished career he has tried to honor the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena”: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs . . . and knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause . . . who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.”