Santa Rosa native joins CDC’s prestigious ‘disease detectives’

Audrey Flak Pennington has always been a good student, from Santa Rosa High School through earning a doctorate at Emory University.

That work paid off when she was selected this year for a fellowship to participate in the CDC’s prestigious Epidemic Intelligence Service where she will spend two years doing field epidemiology, identifying disease outbreaks, promoting illness prevention and control measures, and developing public health strategies.

EIS officers often work with state and county public health officers on the front lines of public health emergencies, such as the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the chikungunya virus in the Americas and numerous foodborne outbreaks in the United States. But officers also respond to natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and chemical disasters.

“It had been a dream of mine for five or six years to be in this fellowship,” said Pennington, 31, speaking by phone from Atlanta where she lives. “You get training in tackling real-world health issues.”

Chosen from a highly competitive pool of about 600 applicants, Pennington is one of about ?80 EIS officers selected this year from among physicians, veterinarians, public health experts and doctoral-level scientists.

Pennington graduated from Vanderbilt University, and earned both her master’s degree in public health and Ph.D. in epidemiology from Emory. For the latter, she studied the health effects of air pollution on pediatric asthma.

It wasn’t until Pennington’s junior year at Vanderbilt, when she took a course examining the history of medicine, that she became interested in public health.

“I wanted to be able to do work that had the potential to improve health,” she said. “In public health, as opposed to clinical care, you can have impact at the population level.”

Pennington traces her affinity and passion for math and science to her studies at Santa Rosa High, where she took AP-level courses in biology, calculus and statistics. She said she had “great teachers” that prepared her for college.

”My math and science teachers really put me on the course to be where I am today,” she said.

Eric Bohn, chairman of Santa Rosa High’s math department, remembered Pennington as an “outstanding” student when she took his AP calculus class. Bohn said the school strives to prepare students for further academic success.

Pennington hopes to stay and work for the CDC after her fellowship ends. For now, she’s excited about the experience.

“Past EIS officers have had the opportunity to be part of the Ebola and Zika response,” she said. “The training that EIS provides is really unique.”

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter ?@renofish.