Host
Dr. Jay Butler co-hosts Line One: Your Health Connection. Dr. Butler was appointed chief medical officer for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) and director of the Division of Public Health by Governor Bill Walker in December 2014. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina Medical School, has completed clinical trainings at Vanderbilt and Emory Universities, and maintains clinical board certifications in infectious diseases, internal medicine, and pediatrics. He has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific papers and medical textbook chapters on infectious diseases and emergency preparedness and he is an affiliate professor of medicine at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA).
From 2010 to 2014, Dr. Butler was senior director for community health services at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) in Anchorage, where he was also a clinical infectious diseases consultant and medical director for infection control and employee health. Earlier work includes serving as chief medical officer of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services from 2007-2009, Alaska state epidemiologist, 2005-2007, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Arctic Investigations Program, 1998-2005, and medical epidemiologist in CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, 1991-1998.
He completed over 23 years of service as a U.S. public health service medical officer and participated in a number of emergency deployments which have included heading the H1N1 Vaccine Task Force at the CDC in Atlanta in 2009-2010, was a team co-leader during the CDC responses to the SARS outbreak of 2003, avian influenza in 2004, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, served as the CDC liaison to FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. after the anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001, and led the CDC field response to the initial Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome outbreak in the U.S. in 1993. In 2010, he received ASTHO’s National Excellence in Public Health Award and served as ASTHO’s President in 2017.