Dr. José Cordero

Dr. José F. Cordero is the Head of the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and the Gordhan L. Virginia B. “Jinx” Patel Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the College of Public Health at the University of Georgia. He received a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University and then went on to get a medical degree at the University of Puerto Rico.  Dr. Cordero’s research centers on examining the role of endocrine disruptors and oxidative stress on preterm births and neurodevelopment. He is conducting a large cohort of pregnant women in Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Testsite for Exploring Contamination Threats (PROTECT) and following up the children born to PROTECT mothers through the Center for Research of Early Childhood Exposure and Development in Puerto Rico (CRECE). He was the founding director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Cordero’s work has been recognized numerous times, including receiving the Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Services from Department of Health and Human Services in 2000 and a Leadership Award from the March of Dimes in 2006.