Ricardo Izurieta, MD, Dr.PH, MP, DTM&H is currently Professor and Chair of the School or Public Health and Health Sciences in the College Health, Human Services & Nursing at California State University Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles, California. Dr. Izurieta received his MD from the Central University of Ecuador and after graduation, carried out his postdoctoral training in Public Health and Tropical Infectious Diseases at University of Alabama at Birmingham (USA), Emory University (USA), and Universidad Cayetano Heredia (Peru). In 1991, he faced the cholera epidemic that spread through Latin American countries as National Director of the Cholera Control Program in the Ministry of Public Health of Ecuador. In 1997, he was appointed Chief of the Department of Epidemiology and Director of The Vaccine Center of the Armed Forces of Ecuador. During his studies, he has been a USAID Thomas Jefferson Fellow, a PAHO Research Fellow, an ORISE/CDC Fellow, a Gorgas Memorial Institute Fellow, and a FUNDACYT Fellow. In 2003, Dr. Izurieta was elected Vice President of the Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventive Medicine and currently he is its Latin American Liaison. He has been Panel Reviewer for NIH, CDC, and NSF, Wellcome Foundation, and served on the ACAIM Taskforce on International Health Security, Consultant for the United Nations Global Water Pathogens Project and for Pan American health organization and United Nations Children’s Fund. Most recently, he was appointed as