Pandemic Center

Scott Rivkees, M.D.

Interim Associate Dean for Education, Professor of the Practice of Health Services, Policy and Practice, Director of the Accelerated Master of Public Health Program
scott_rivkees@brown.edu
Research Profile

Biography

Dr. Rivkees is a pediatric endocrinologist and physician-scientist who served as Florida’s State Surgeon General and Secretary of Health from June 2019 to September 2021, on the front lines of the state’s response through some of the most difficult days and months of the COVID-19 pandemic. As State Surgeon General, Dr. Rivkees also served as State Health Officer for the Florida Department of Health. Dr. Rivkees’ experience and leadership protecting lives and improving public health during emergencies, brings to the Pandemic Center a unique understanding of front-line decision-making to drive effective policy and practice, in the face of public and political obstacles. His background and skills are an asset to understanding pandemic preparedness and response.

Recent News

The Hill

Kennedy is on an anti-vaxx mission to reshape federal guidelines

On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics,” and “The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust.”

“Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning,” Kennedy warned.

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Brown Daily Herald

From policymaking to academia: Public health professors on making large-scale change

When Stephanie Psaki, a senior fellow in public health, joined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2021, she was tasked with helping coordinate the government’s response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

She then joined the National Security Council at the White House in the Biden-Harris administration where she worked for two and a half years. A scientist and an academic by training, she told The Herald she didn’t expect to move to this policy-focused role.

“I didn’t think that I was going to do this job when I was in undergrad or in grad school,” she said. “It never occurred to me.”

But now, Psaki has returned to academia, bringing her policy experience to Brown.
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News from SPH

The moment everything changed

If you ask anyone, they remember the exact moment that they realized that COVID-19 was going to change the world. For most of us, that moment came during the second week of March 2020. Schools were shut down. Many jobs became remote. But by the time most of our lives were changed by the pandemic, public health experts had already spent weeks or even months trying to stop the spread.
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WPRI

5 years later: Rhode Islanders reflect on COVID-19’s lasting impact

Masking up. Distance learning. Social distancing. No one could have predicted the profound changes that followed the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic five years ago Tuesday.

Dozens of essential care workers and advocates gathered outside the State House to remember Rhode Island’s nearly 4,500 victims of the pandemic and address the ongoing challenges their field still faces.
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