Stony Brook University Global Health Institute
For most of his 12-year tenure at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Small was responsible for the design and execution the foundation’s tuberculosis program, managing collaborations with global donors and implementers; building a large program to develop improved vaccines, drugs and diagnostics, and establishing the Foundation’s country programs in China, India and South Africa. In 2011 he relocated to India to delve deeper into the ways in which innovation in tuberculosis delivery systems might accelerate the decline of tuberculosis incidence.
Dr. Small’s research career has focused on the nature and consequences of genetic variability within the species M. tuberculosis. Originally focused on exploiting genetic variability to track the spread of tuberculosis in populations, his work shifted over time to more fundamental questions about mycobacterial ecology and evolution. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in 1981 and his medical degree from the University of Florida in 1985. He completed his post graduate training in internal medicine at University of California-San Francisco and infectious diseases at Stanford University. Immediately prior to joining the Gates Foundation in September of 2002, he served on the faculty of Stanford’s Division of Infectious Disease and Geographic Medicine where he was actively involved in research, teaching and patient care. In addition to his work at the Gates Foundation, until 2008 he was a professor at the Institute of Systems Biology in Seattle.