Speakers

Dr. Michael Osterholm, PhD ’80, MPH ’78, MS ’76

Michael T. Osterholm PhD, MPH, is Regents Professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) and a  Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health. Osterholm’s vast knowledge of epidemiology and infectious disease has made him a world leader in preparing for, reacting to, and preventing outbreaks. In addition to his academic leadership and faculty roles at the University of Minnesota, he consistently serves as an advisor to governments and organizations, and on the front lines as investigative leader on some of the world’s worst infectious disease outbreaks and bioterrorist activities. He is the author of the New York Times best-selling 2017 book, Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs, in which he details the most pressing infectious disease threats of our day (including coronaviruses and pandemics) but lays out a strategy to address them. In November 2020, Dr. Osterholm was appointed to President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 transition advisory board. From June 2018 through May 2019, he served as a Science Envoy for Health Security on behalf of the US Department of State. He is also on the Luther College Board of Regents.

Andy Slavitt was President Biden’s White House Senior Advisor for the Covid response. He has led many of the nation’s most important health care initiatives, serving as President Obama’s head of Medicare and Medicaid and overseeing the turnaround, implementation and defense of the Affordable Care Act. Slavitt is the “outsider’s insider”, serving in leading private and non-profit roles in addition to his government services. he is founder and Board Chair Emeritus of United States of Care, a national non-profit health advocacy organization as well as a founding partner of Town Hall Ventures, a healthcare firm that invests in underrepresented communities. He co-chaired a national initiative on the future of health care at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He chronicles what goes on inside the government and across the nation at town halls, in USA Today, on his award-winning podcast In the Bubble, and on Twitter. He is the author of Preventable, a best-selling account of the US’s Coronavirus response released in 2021. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Business School, he and his wife have two grown sons.