Fernando Torres-Vélez joined NCEZID in 2023 as the director of the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology (DHCPP). Prior to joining CDC, he served as Associate Director for Research in the Guinea Worm Eradication Program at the Carter Center in Atlanta.  Early in his career, he worked at the National Institutes of Health as Chief of the Infectious Diseases Pathogenesis Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), before joining the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).  At APHIS, he held leadership positions in reagents & vaccine services and in diagnostics services before serving as director of APHIS’s Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (FADDL) at the Department of Homeland Security Plum Island Animal Disease Center. Following his 7-year tenure at FADDL, Fernando served as a senior research advisor at the Wadsworth Center at the New York State Department of Health. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Colorado State University, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from Tuskegee University, and a PhD in Veterinary Pathology from the University of Georgia, where he also completed his residency training in veterinary anatomic pathology. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in emerging infectious diseases from 2000–2002 in CDC’s Pathology Branch.