Clifford McDonald, MD

Cliff McDonald, MD, is the Associate Director for Science in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) at CDC. He graduated from Northwestern University Medical School and completed his Internal Medicine Residency at Michigan State University. Following residency, he completed an Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the University of South Alabama, as well as a fellowship in Medical Microbiology at Duke University. His past positions have included Associate Investigator at the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan and Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Louisville. Dr. McDonald is a former officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and former Chief of the Prevention and Response Branch in DHQP. He is the author or co-author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. His main interests are in epidemiology and prevention of healthcare-associated infections, especially Clostridioides difficile infections, the prevention of antimicrobial resistant infections, as well as understanding microbial ecology and the role of the human microbiome. Dr. McDonald is a Fellow of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America and a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.