Stephen Thomas

Dr. Thomas is a Professor of Medicine, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, and Infectious Diseases physician-scientist from SUNY Upstate Medical University. He is the Director, Institute for Global Health and Translational Science (IGHTS) and the interim Chair, Microbiology and Immunology. Prior to joining Upstate Dr. Thomas spent twenty years in the U.S. Army serving at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and completing his career as the institute’s Deputy Commander for Operations. Dr. Thomas specializes in the study of viruses and vaccine development and spent more than 5 years of his early career living and working in Thailand. He played key leadership roles in the U.S. government response to the West Africa Ebola outbreak (2014-2016) and MERS-CoV and Zika epidemics and was instrumental in the development and advancement of vaccines for each. Currently, he is the global coordinating principal investigator for Pfizer’s phase 1/2/3 COVID vaccine trial.

Dr. Thomas earned his Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Biomedical Ethics from Brown University, his Medical Degree from Albany Medical College, and completed his Internal Medicine residency and Infectious Diseases fellowship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.