Staff Bio
Simon Agolory, MD
Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria
CAPT Simon Agolory, MD is Director for the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria. In this position he leads CDC’s efforts to protect the health of people around the world from parasitic diseases, including malaria, through evidence-based public health action.
Role at CDC
In 2022, CAPT Simon Agolory, MD began serving as the acting director of the Division of Global Health Protection in the Global Health Center. Here CAPT Agolory lead global programs to build critical health security systems—protecting people from global outbreaks and public health threats.
Previous experience
CAPT Agolory began his CDC career as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer in 2009 in the Global Health Center's Division of Global HIV and TB. Since then, he has supported the implementation of science activities and programs in many countries including Kenya, Nigeria, eSwatini, South Sudan, Papua New Guinea, Uganda, Zambia, and the Central Asia Region.
In 2014, CAPT Agolory joined CDC's Namibia office as Country Director. He played a key role in the development and implementation of the Namibia Acceleration Plan. The plan resulted in a rapid scale-up of HIV treatment services to achieve the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets for HIV epidemic control. He was also instrumental in the development of Namibia's National Public Health Institute.
CAPT Agolory joined CDC Zambia as Country Director in 2018 and focused on building capacity of provincial health offices to directly implement HIV programs and to improve broader services at health facilities. He introduced the clinical mentorship program and the use of innovative strategies like Project ECHO to build capacity of healthcare workers. He has also played a key role in strengthening capacity of the Zambia National Public Health Institute to prepare and respond to infectious disease outbreaks, including COVID-19, with the focus on surveillance, and public health workforce development. He provided technical leadership for the COVID-19 response in Zambia and has previously supported different outbreak responses including for polio and cholera in Zambia, anthrax, and hepatitis E in Namibia.
Areas of expertise
CAPT Agolory is a Medical Epidemiologist and public health expert. He is an adjunct faculty in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Bellevue NYU Hospital in New York City. CAPT Agolory has over 15 years of experience in infectious diseases and public health program development, implementation, evaluation and monitoring, and program management in low-resource settings.
Education
CAPT Agolory received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from North Carolina State University. He received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine at Chapel Hill. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Tulane University and a fellowship in infectious diseases at New York University.