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Melissa
A.
Marx
,
PhD

Associate Professor
Melissa Marx

Departmental Affiliations

Joint
Division
Infectious Disease Epidemiology

Center & Institute Affiliations

Melissa A. Marx, PhD ‘02, MPH ’98, evaluates maternal, child, and infectious disease programs, and has led response efforts for outbreaks including SARS, Ebola, and COVID-19.

Contact Info

615 N. Wolfe Street, Room E5541
Baltimore
Maryland
21205
US        

Research Interests

evaluation; data use; HIV; maternal child health; outbreak; surveillance
Experiences & Accomplishments
Education
PhD
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
2002
MPH
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
1998
BA
Texas A&M University
1993
Overview
Melissa A. Marx, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is currently leading the Bloomberg School’s support of the Baltimore City health department’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She is the lead author of the School’s Recommendations for a Metropolitan COVID-19 Response and a senior editor of the associated special emphasis series. She is faculty co-lead of the Surveillance Outbreak Response Team (SORT). Her non-outbreak work includes evaluating global maternal, child health and HIV/TB/malaria programs and developing methods and metrics to drive better collection and use of data for program improvement.

Dr. Marx spent over 13 years practicing epidemiology including responding and leading responses to outbreaks for the CDC, first as an Epidemic Intelligence Officer, later as a senior epidemiologist for CDC at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and then for CDC overseas. In addition to setting agendas for, using data from and overseeing HIV/AIDS evaluation and research, she has set up and monitored surveillance systems, including for antibiotic resistant organisms such as MRSA, and has responded to outbreaks including as SARS, H1N1, Ebola, zoonotic anthrax, cholera, typhoid, food-borne illness (and others) and prepared and overseen teams responding to other various public health threats.
Honors & Awards
2019 Excellent student rating, Large Scale Effectiveness Evaluations course, JHSPH
2018 Excellent student rating, Large Scale Effectiveness Evaluations course, JHSPH
2015 Excellence in Emergency Response, Exemplary commitment and in-country contributions to the elimination of Ebola in West Africa. CDC Honor Awards
2014 Meritorious Honor Award, Outstanding dedication in defending PEPFAR Country Operational Plan & improving cost efficiency in programming, U.S. Embassy & CDC-Zambia
2013 Meritorious Honor Award, Leadership and outstanding contribution in building capacity of public health professionals, U.S. Embassy & CDC-Zambia
2013 Franklin Award, Excellent documentation of results, U.S. Embassy & CDC-Zambia
2012 Franklin Award, Superior data quality assessment, U.S. Embassy & CDC-Zambia
2011 Certificate of Appreciation, Investigating Anthrax in humans and hippos, U.S. Embassy & CDC-Zambia
2007 Katrina response award, CDC, Commissioned Corps
2005 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome service award, CDC, Commissioned Corps
2004 Smallpox Vaccination Program service award, CDC, Commissioned Corps
2001 Jean Coombs Award for excellence in Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiology, JHSPH
1999 Jean Coombs Award for excellence in Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiology, JHSPH
Select Publications
Below is a subset of recent publications across the subject areas in which I currently work. +Denotes student and/or mentee
  • Marx MA, Frost E, Hazel E, Mohan D. Measuring the Quality of Care for Maternal, Neonatal, Child, Reproductive Health and Nutrition Programs in Low and Middle-Income Countries: Tools and Considerations for Use from the RADAR project, Global Health Action, in press
  • Pattnaik A+, Mohan D, Zeger S, Kanyuka M, Kachale F, Marx MA. From raw data to a score: Comparing quantitative methods that construct multi-level composite implementation strength scores of family planning programs in Malawi, Population Health Metrics, in press
  • Darden M, Dowdy D, Gardner L, Hamilton B, Kopecky K, Marx M, Papageorge NW, Polsky D, Powers K, Stuart E, Zahn M. Modeling to Inform Economy-Wide Pandemic Policy: Bringing Epidemiologists and Economists Together, Health Economics, 2022;1–5 https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4527
  • Young AMP+, Marx MA, Frost E, Hazel E, Kabanywanyi AM, Mohan D. Assessing provider performance of intrapartum care using simulated encounters and clinical vignettes: A comparison study from Tanzania. Int J Gynecol Obstet. 2021;00:1–7. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijgo.13947
  • Sharfstein JM, Marx MA. Testing is Just the Beginning in the Battle Against Covid-19. The New York Times Opinion, March 30, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/opinion/coronavirus-testing.html
Projects
Identifying barriers to retention in ART and prevention of mother to child transmission in Mozambique
Support for Baltimore COVID response
Real Accountability: Data Analysis for Results - RADAR
Prospective Country Evaluation (PCE) in Senegal and Mozambique
Real Accountability: Data Analysis For Results (RADAR)