Mark Rosenberg is a board-certified physician in psychiatry, neurology, and internal medicine with training in public policy and infectious diseases. He has served for 20 years with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was president and CEO of The Task Force for Global Health from 2000-2016. He also has over 35 years of experience in speaking about gun violence prevention.
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While Dr. Rosenberg was president and CEO, The Task Force grew to be one of the largest non-profit organizations in the country and became instrumental in providing people in the developing world with greater access to vaccines for influenza, cholera, and other deadly diseases. Dr. Rosenberg’s leadership was characterized by a commitment to collaboration and compassion in global health. Dr. Rosenberg also was an influential voice in persuading the United Nations to recognize road safety as a public health issue.
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Before joining The Task Force, Dr. Rosenberg served for 20 years with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including conducting early work in smallpox eradication, enteric diseases, and HIV/AIDS. He was instrumental in establishing the public health approach to violence prevention and CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. He became the first permanent center director in 1994, serving as director and Assistant Surgeon General.
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He has researched, written, and spoken on violence and gun violence prevention for more than 35 years. He developed a unique relationship with US Congressman Jay Dickey, whose famous Dickey Amendment helped to bring an end to federally funded gun violence research. Over time Mr. Dickey reversed his position and worked closely with Dr. Rosenberg to get Congress to restart this critically important research. Congressman Dickey died in 2017, but Dr. Rosenberg continued work with the Congressman’s wife, and their efforts contributed to Congress restoring funding for this research in December 2019.
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He co-authored Real Collaboration: What Global Health Needs to Succeed, which describes a model for global health collaboration that has been successfully applied to address health needs affecting the world’s most impoverished people