Donald R. Hopkins (born September 25, 1941) is a

Bahamian American Bahamian Americans are an ethnic group of Caribbean Americans of Bahamian ancestry. There are an estimated 56,797 people of Bahamian ancestry living in the US as of 2019. Bahamian Immigration Bahamians began visiting the Florida Keys in the 18 ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

, a MacArthur Fellow and is the Vice President and Director of Health Programs at

The Carter Center The Carter Center is a non-governmental organization, nongovernmental, non profit organization, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former President of the United States, U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He and his wife Rosalynn Carter pa ...

. He graduated from

Morehouse College , mottoeng = And there was light (literal translation of Latin itself translated from Hebrew: "And light was made") , type = Private historically black men's liberal arts college , academic_affiliation ...

with a B.S., from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

with a Doctor of Medicine, and from the

Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is the public health school of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. The school grew out of the Harvard- MIT School for Health Officers, the nation's firs ...

with a Master of Public Health. He studied at the Institute of European Studies,

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...

Career

From 1984 to 1987, Hopkins was deputy director and acting director (1985) of the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...

. Thereafter, he was an assistant professor of tropical public health at Harvard School of Public Health. He directed the Smallpox Eradication/Measles Control Program in

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

. He has served as a consultant to the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level o ...

. Throughout his career, Hopkins has received numerous awards, including the CDC Medal of Excellence, the Distinguished Service Medal of the U.S. Public Health Service, and a MacArthur Fellowship in 1995 for his leadership in the international campaign to eradicate

Guinea worm ''Dracunculus medinensis'', or Guinea worm, is a nematode that causes dracunculiasis, also known as guinea worm disease. The disease is caused by the female which, at up to in length, is among the longest nematodes infecting humans. In cont ...

disease. His book, ''Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in History'' was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1983. Dr. Hopkins was also elected to the

Institute of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, En ...

of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in 1987 and has been a member of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene since 1965. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...

in 1997, awarded the

Medal of Honor The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest military decoration and is awarded to recognize American soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor ...

of Public Health (Gold) by the country of Niger in 2004, and named a Champion of Public Health by

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pu ...

in 2005. Hopkins currently serves on the board of directors for the

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and ...

Works

"The Guinea Worm Eradication Effort: Lessons for the Future"
''Emerging Infectious Diseases'', Volume 4 No. 1, January – March 1998
''The eradication of infectious diseases: report of the Dahlem Workshop on the Eradication of Infectious Diseases''
Editors Walter R. Dowdle, Donald R. Hopkins, John Wiley and Sons, 1998
''The greatest killer: smallpox in history, with a new introduction''
University of Chicago Press, 2002, in

References

External links

NY Times, April 22, 2013] {{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkins, Donald 1941 births Morehouse College alumni Pritzker School of Medicine alumni Harvard School of Public Health alumni University of Vienna alumni Centers for Disease Control and Prevention people MacArthur Fellows Knights of the National Order of Mali Living people Harvard University faculty American public health doctors American people of Bahamian descent Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology Members of the National Academy of Medicine