Allen Craig
Biography
Dr. Allen Craig joined the Department of Health Systems Science in the Frist College of Medicine at Belmont University as an Instructor in 2025. He has also served as an Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Public Health teaching Global Health at Belmont University since 2022.
He came to Belmont University after serving as the Branch Chief of the Respiratory Diseases Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2018 to 2021 where he oversaw surveillance, research, and public health response to bacterial respiratory pathogens including Legionella, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Groups A and B streptococcus plus atypical pathogens such as Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Chlamydia psittaci. He retired from CDC in 2021.
Prior to his Branch Chief role, he served as Deputy Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases from 2016 to 2018. From 2013 to 2016, he was Africa Team Lead for the CDC’s Polio Eradication Emergency Response. He was the CDC Resident Advisor in Zambia for the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative from 2008 to 2013.
Dr. Craig worked at the Tennessee Department of Health in communicable disease control from 1995 to 2007. He served as State Epidemiologist at the Tennessee Department of Health for 6 years.
Dr. Craig was in clinical practice of Family Medicine with the U.S. Indian Health Service from 1985 to 1995 where is served as the hospital Medical Director for 7 years. He helped lead the health system response to the 1993 hantavirus outbreak on the Navajo reservation as acting Chief Medical Officer.
A 1982 graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in Bronx, New York, he completed a family medicine residency at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington in 1985. He served as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the Tennessee Department of Health from 1995 to 1997.