Dr. Harrison’s research focuses on the genomic epidemiology of vaccine-preventable and drug-resistant bacterial pathogens that are transmitted in the community and hospitals. He developed the Enhanced Detection System for Healthcare-Associated Transmission, which couples genomic sequencing with computer algorithms linked to electronic health records to alert clinicians to emerging hospital-based outbreaks of infectious diseases.
Prior to his career in academic medicine, Dr. Harrison worked as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer from 1985 to 1987 and as a medical epidemiologist from 1987 to 1988 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Before coming to Pitt, he was Associate Professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has led a variety of NIH Fogarty International Center international training grants on bacterial diseases and HIV infection, both in Brazil and Mozambique. He currently leads another such training grant on public health bacterial and fungal genomic epidemiology in South Africa. He served as a voting member of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) from 2012-2016.
Dr. Harrison received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Pennsylvania, his medical degree from Emory School of Medicine and completed his residency at the University of Virginia. He completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at Emory School of Medicine.
