CDR Maria Said is a physician, board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases. She first became interested in medicine and public health after serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eritrea from 1996–1998. She earned a Masters of Health Science in international health (MHS) from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2001 and an MD from Harvard Medical School in 2005. She completed her residency and fellowship at Johns Hopkins from 2005–2011. After completing her medical training, she served as a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, based at the Maryland Department of Health. She then worked as a medical officer at the NIH Fogarty International Center and at the FDA Division of Epidemiology at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. During the 2014-15 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, CDR Said deployed for two months to Liberia as a physician in the US Public Health Service Monrovia Medical Unit (MMU). CDR Said joined the NPS in May 2017 as the epidemiology branch chief for Office of Public Health, where she works on disease prevention, detection, and response.
