Dr. Jose F. Cordero is the Patel Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Chair, of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the College of Public Health at the University of Georgia.  He joined the UGA on August 2015. He served for 27 years in the US Public Health Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). During his years at CDC he was appointed Assistant Surgeon General of the Public Health Service and held positions focused on improving the health of mothers, children and adults in programs such as immunizations, birth defects and disabilities. In 1994, he was appointed Deputy Director of the National Immunization Program and in 2001 he was selected as the founding Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, the position that he held until his retirement.

He served as the Dean of the School of Public Health in the University of Puerto Rico from 2006-2015. A former President of Teratology Society, he is Co-Principal investigator of the Puerto Rico Test site for Exploring Contamination Threats (PROTECT) a Superfund Research Program that examines environmental risks for preterm births, and CRECE (Center for Research on Early Childhood Exposure and Development in Puerto Rico) that examines prenatal exposures and their impact on neurodevelopment in the first five years of life. Dr. Cordero serves as advisor of the Americas Dengue Board and is member of the International Data Monitoring Committee for the Sanofi Pasteur Dengue Vaccine. He is the Principal Investigator of the Brain Trust for Tropical Disease Research and Prevention, a group that seeks to facilitate and accelerate the development of rapid tests for diseases like Zika, Dengue, Chikungunya and others. He also serves as the National Trustee of the March of Dimes, a foundation with a mission of helping mothers have healthy pregnancies and to fund research on the problems that threaten the health of babies.