Marie‐Claire Rowlinson, Ph.D., D(ABMM)

Prior to joining Wadsworth Center’s Bacterial Diseases Laboratory, Dr. Rowlinson was the Assistant Laboratory Director and CLIA Laboratory Director at the Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Public Health Laboratories in Jacksonville for more than 9 years. In this position she worked to enhance the test menu, implementing many new molecular techniques including next generation sequencing for both clinical diagnostics and surveillance. Prior to that, she worked for 4 years with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) in their Global Health program, building laboratory capacity in countries around the globe.

Dr. Rowlinson has published more than 25 manuscripts with 8 in 5 years and several book chapters focused on public health infectious disease testing including TB, nontuberculous mycobacteria, and agents of bioterrorism. Over the last year and a half, Dr. Rowlinson worked tirelessly with the team in Florida overseeing SARS‐CoV‐2 testing, bringing on several commercial test systems and providing nearly over 500,000 molecular tests to Florida residents since the beginning of the pandemic.

Dr. Rowlinson is the Chair of the APHL Infectious Diseases Committee and a member of the APHL TB Subcommittee. She also continues to work with APHL on an international level, consulting with the Global Health program, most recently working with the Ukraine Ministry of Health on development of their HIV testing algorithm, including genotyping by sequencing methods. Dr. Rowlinson is currently the ASM Division Y (Public Health) Chair and is a member of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Microbiology Committee. She held an Adjunct Assistant Professor position in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville working closely with the Southeastern National TB Center, a CDC TB Center of Excellence.