L. J Tan, MS, PhD
Chief Strategy Officer
Prior to joining the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC), Dr. Tan was the director of medicine and public health at the American Medical Association (AMA) a position he held since 2008. From 1997 to 2008, he was the AMA's director of infectious disease, immunology, and molecular medicine.
Dr. Tan was a voting member of the Department of Health and Human Services' National Vaccine Advisory Committee from 2009 to 2013, where he served on the adult immunization, vaccine safety, and healthcare worker immunization working groups, and chaired the immunization infrastructure working group. For more than ten years, he was the AMA's liaison to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, where he served on the influenza, pneumococcal, zoster, and adult immunization working groups.
He co-founded and currently co-chairs the National Adult and Influenza Immunization Summit. He serves or has served on the steering committees/advisory boards of the 317 Coalition, the Adult Vaccine Access Coalition (AVAC), the Unity (United for Adolescent Vaccination) Consortium, the National Network for Immunization Information, and the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable and on the IAC scientific advisory board. Dr. Tan has also serves, or has served, on the National Quality Forum's Adult Immunizations Expert Committee, the Pharmacy Quality Alliance's Adult Immunization Working Group, and numerous national and international expert and technical advisory committees, including panels for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, The Joint Commission, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on issues ranging from vaccine hesitancy, immunization quality measurement development, adult immunizations, to immunization access and delivery. In 2007, he founded the National Immunization Congress and organized its 2007 and 2010 meetings.
Dr. Tan received his Master of Science degree in biology at New York University and earned his PhD in microbiology/immunology from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Dr. Tan is an editor for Vaccine, BMC Infectious Diseases, Medscape Infectious Diseases, and a member of the ESCMID Vaccine Study Group and has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles. During his tenure at the AMA, he wrote numerous scientific reports to guide the association's policies on a diverse range of public health topics. A skilled and sought-after speaker, Dr. Tan has been invited to address international, national, and state immunization audiences on issues ranging from vaccine financing to risk management in vaccine safety to emerging infectious diseases.
Dr. Tan has received several awards for his advocacy work including the 2011 CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Honor Awards: Excellence in Partnering recognition, and most recently was awarded the American Pharmacists Association's national Friend of Pharmacy Award. As a former part-time faculty member at the Institute for Science Education and Science Communication, Columbia College, Chicago, he received the 2000 Excellence in Teaching Award.
