Biography

Frank Bia is Professor (emeritus) of Internal Medicine (Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology) and former Co-director of the International Health Program at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, CT USA and the former Medical Director of AmeriCares [2008-2014]. Dr. Bia received his BS in Chemistry from Fordham University, Bronx, NY, and his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College in New York City. He obtained his Masters of Public Health in Microbiology and Tropical public health from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA. Following four years of internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to Yale as a fellow in infectious diseases in 1976, ultimately joining the medical faculty. While working abroad in countries such as Haiti, China and Thailand, he followed his interests in tropical medicine and international health. Dr. Bia is a member of numerous professional societies, including the American College of Physicians, American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. In 1991, he was one of 45 individuals in the United States selected by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, MI as a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow. He is a reviewer for several journals, including the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international conferences. He has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters in publications such as Infections of the Nervous System, the Journal of Infectious Diseases and the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He was the scientific co-chair for the 6th Conference of the International Society of Travel Medicine in 1999, and was the editor of Travel Medicine Advisor for 20 years. He served a two-year term as president of the clinical group for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Dr. Bia directed the Winchester Fellowship in Medical (Clinical) Microbiology at Yale, one of a dozen of such programs in this field within the United States. He also directed the Society of Distinguished Teachers at the Yale School of Medicine where both he and his wife, Dr. Peggy Bia, have been the recipient of numerous teaching awards. He was Co-director of the International Health Program in the Department of Medicine with Dr. Michele Barry for nearly 3 decades - most recently through the Yale/Johnson & Johnson collaborative international health scholars program. In 2004 Dr. Bia received the Benjamin Kean Medal, awarded once every three years by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, for excellence in both training physicians and in the teaching of clinical tropical medicine.