Juan Carlos Zevallos, MD

I am currently an Associate Professor of the Department of Medical and Health Sciences Research at the Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. I graduated from the Central University School of Medicine in Quito, Ecuador in 1982, and was granted a Clinical Cardiology degree at the University of Padua, Italy in 1987. In addition, I obtained post-doctoral training in Preventive Cardiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) where I was granted with an American Heart Association “Young Investigator Award”, and had the opportunity to collaborate in the book on Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease, published by Little, Brown & Co. in 1992. I also was a Field Epidemiology Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2002 I was awarded by the United States Department of Justice as “Alien of Extraordinary Abilities”.

I have broad background in clinical and cardiovascular disease epidemiology. I am a successful international expert on cardiovascular disease, scientific writing, and have a strong record of publications in English, Italian and Spanish. I have been the coordinator of the Latin American Working Group on cardiovascular epidemiology and editor of the Bulletin that run until 1998. As the founder president and current board member of the Americas’ Network for Chronic Disease Surveillance (AMNET), I have been able to establish collaboration with more than 400 members from 35 universities and NGOs in 22 countries. Later, as director of the international chronic disease surveillance program at the office of Global Health Promotion at CDC, I provided direct assistance in the initiation or strengthening of chronic disease surveillance efforts to representatives from several CARICOM and Latin American countries.

From 2007 to 2012, as Director of an NIH-funded and UNICEF-nominated Center of Excellence, the Endowed Health Services Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico, I successfully implemented one of the most important population-based cardiovascular surveillance project among Hispanics.  Preliminary results of these studies have helped to address key public health messages aimed to the adoption of healthy lifestyles and prevention of cardiovascular events in Puerto Rico.