Dr. Alison Laufer has worked in CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion since 2013. She is the Associate Director of the Office of Scientific Innovation and Integration in the Clinical and Environmental Microbiology Branch of CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, and a Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Halpin leads a group of epidemiologists, laboratory scientists and bioinformaticians in leveraging next generation technologies and bioinformatics applications to better understand, prevent, and contain healthcare-associated infections; in investigations of healthcare-associated outbreaks, surveillance for and detection of novel antibiotic resistance mechanisms; and understanding and leveraging human and environmental microbial communities to improve patient safety. Dr. Halpin has studied the microbiome since 2004, completing her Bachelor of Science in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Connecticut, where she studied medicinal leech gut bacterial symbionts. She earned her doctorate from Yale University in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, with a focus on the relationship between the nasal microbiota and otitis media. From 2011 to 2013, she was an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases.