Jana Telfer
Communication Officer
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

@CDCgov

An expert in strategic and applied crisis, emergency and risk communication, Jana Telfer was tapped by the U.S. Departments of State and Health and Human Services to advise the U.S. Ambassador to Japan on health and risk communication during the Fukushima nuclear incident.

One of CDC’s only multilingual senior communication professionals, she was detailed to Panama to advise the president and Ministry of Health when a fatal outbreak called for bilingual risk communication expertise; and she represented CDC on an HHS team advising the Greek government on risk communication before the 2004 Olympics.

Since 2001, she has led communication responses to the anthrax attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.; Hurricane Katrina and formaldehyde levels in FEMA-supplied trailers; the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil spill; and health effects of contaminated drywall. She also oversaw CDC’s public response to the reintroduction of smallpox vaccination; SARS, monkeypox, West Nile, and influenza outbreaks; and a new HIV prevention initiative. Under her leadership, CDC extended its visibility through regular broadcast news briefings that more than doubled the monthly volume of media calls.