Jesse L. Goodman, M.D., M.P.H., directs Georgetown COMPASS, which focuses on science based policy and research to address unmet public health needs with an emphasis on vaccines, product development and regulation and antimicrobial resistance. He Chairs the Expert Vaccine Analysis Team (E-VAT www.evat-vax.org), a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional group that works with journalists, media, and public health to provide facts and unbiased analysis on vaccines and outbreaks. From 2009-2014 he served as the Chief Scientist of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and also as Deputy Commissioner for Science and Public Health from 2009-2012. As FDA's Chief Scientist he had broad responsibility for leadership of crosscutting scientific and public health efforts, including developing and implementing FDA's Strategic Plan for Regulatory Science and FDA's public health preparedness and response and medical countermeasures efforts. In this role he led the 2009 H1N1 pandemic response, also serving on the US Department of Health and Human Services Senior Leadership team and the White House Medical Countermeasure Review. From 2003 to 2009, he was Director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), overseeing activities critical to U.S. and global preparedness and the development, evaluation, safety, quality, and availability of blood, vaccines, gene and cell therapies and other biologics, and a designated WHO Collaborating Center. As Senior Advisor to the FDA Commissioner in 1998-2000, he initiated and, with CDC and NIH colleagues, co-chaired the United States Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance which produced the nation’s first Public Health Action Plan to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance.
A graduate of Harvard, Dr. Goodman received his M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and did residency and fellowship training in Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Oncology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), where he was also Chief Medical Resident. Prior to his government service, he was Professor of Medicine and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the University of Minnesota where his laboratory isolated and characterized Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the etiologic agent of granulocytic anaplasmosis, then a newly recognized tick-borne disease.
He has served on numerous Advisory Boards and Committees for organizations including the CDC, NIH, WHO and the National Academies, and helped develop the R and D section of the Global Vaccine Action Plan. He previously served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Coalition on Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and was a long term Member of CDC's Board of Scientific Counselors for Infectious Diseases. In 2015, he was elected volunteer President and Board member (until 2025) of the United States Pharmacopeia, a non-profit standards setting organization working to advance safety and quality of medicines and foods globally. From 2016-2025, he served on the Board of GSK, chairing its Science Committee, and in 2018 joined the Board of Intellia Therapeutics, chairing its Science and Technology Committee. He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and to the National Academy (Institute) of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.