“I didn’t know it was called public health. It was just life.”  

Dr. Leonard Jack, Jr. has spent 28 years at the CDC, but it has taken him a lifetime of experience and finding his purpose to bring him to that role.  

Dr. Jack reflected on his childhood, growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana saying that “the things we talk about in public health was what I actually lived.”   

He bore witness to challenges such as chronic disease, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer, and emphasized the impact it left on him.  

“The strain of the lived experience was so intense, and it was intergenerational,” he said. “The chronicity of it all landed in one’s cells, in bodies.”  

Dr. Jack shared that his zip code is a hotspot when you look at geo maps of these conditions and more. It is one thing to learn about what these hardships look like, but to experience them means something else entirely. For Dr. Jack, it instilled a desire to understand not only his surroundings, but how to rectify them.   

This passion has brought Dr. Jack to his current role as the Acting Director of Science Dissemination for the CDC. He is a guiding voice in the field of public health, especially in his roles as the Editor-In-Chief of Preventing Chronic Disease and Acting Editor-In-Chief of  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, two of the CDC’s renowned channels for research and public health surveillance.  

But while reflecting on such an illustrious career, Dr. Jack’s emphasis was on others, not himself. As he puts it: “I am built on the experiences of so many people that I’ve come across in my career, many of whom did not know me, but took time to hear me out, to listen to my questions, and just share their stories with me.”  

This mentorship is something he gained in many places, one of them being SOPHE.  

While reflecting on his start at SOPHE, Dr. Jack shared that what stuck with him as a young master’s student attending his first conferences was how warm, encouraging, and genuine everyone was. That sense of community is something that has sustained him as he took on a variety of roles within the SOPHE network, even serving as President.  

One of his biggest takeaways is the value of community, and the difference it can make on people’s lives. As he has progressed in his own career, he looks to return the mentorship he gained from SOPHE members and those in the public health community.  

“SOPHE is different in that it’s a family, it’s a family where people are investing in individuals, early in their career, and they stay engaged with you, later in your career,” he said. “We support each other.”  

This interconnectedness is not something Dr. Jack takes for granted, and he continues to pay it forward and help foster more young minds.  

As his career has evolved from looking to understand his surroundings to being a leader in bettering them, Dr. Leonard Jack has transformed his passion into action, and he is clear that this action is where the real impact happens.   

“There’s one thing to intellectually know that and explain it [a need for change],” he said. “But the other piece for me with SOPHE is there is some very well-trained courageous advocates who are not afraid of rolling up their sleeves and making a case.” 

For Dr. Jack, that is the throughline for his work: intellectualizing an issue alone does not have the same impact action does. Advocates who are willing to show up in the communities that need them most are the people who live true to that distinction.  

That belief in action is what shapes the advice Dr. Jack has for young people entering the field. First, he urges them to remember the commitment they’ve made, to themself and the communities they serve. Next, he reminds them to rely on their own community. And finally, trust themself and the training.  

As a public health official, Dr. Jack takes the mantle of being an anchor and a guiding force very seriously. But his drive does not come from a title or an institution; it comes from his own personal desire to do good.  

“Do not walk in fear,” he says; a fitting reminder from someone who turned his own lived experience into a career built on lifting others up.  

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This blog post was written by Laya Raju, a student at Boston University who is passionate about information accessibility, community advocacy, and health equity within the field of public health.