Biography
Dr. Laura Hammitt is Director of Infectious Disease Programs at the Center and an Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she has been on faculty since 2011. Her research focus is the epidemiology and prevention of infection in populations affected by health disparities. Dr. Hammitt works in partnership with Native American communities in the southwest United States to understand and address infectious diseases in a culturally-informed manner. She has 20 years of experience studying viral and bacterial respiratory infections, monitoring infectious diseases through population-based surveillance, and conducting clinical trials of interventions to reduce the burden of disease. Embedded in all of her research is a focus on capacity building.
Dr. Hammitt earned her medical degree at the University of Utah, and completed a residency in pediatrics at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, followed by an appointment as chief resident. She subsequently joined the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), serving at the Arctic Investigations Program in Anchorage, Alaska, where she worked on infectious diseases of particular significance in the Alaska Native population. Following EIS, Dr. Hammitt completed a fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado. In 2008, after finishing her fellowship, Dr. Hammitt moved to Kenya where she worked as a clinical epidemiologist. Dr. Hammitt resides in southwest Colorado and, when not at work, she enjoys having outdoor adventures with her family.