Our Experts
Taylor Sexton, MPH
Executive Director
Taylor has a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) from the University of North Texas Health Science Center and a B.S. from Texas A&M University. He is adjunct public health faculty at Texas A&M University and maintains his board certification by the National Board of Public Health Examiners.
Taylor is a principal at Todd Strategy Group since 2021 after serving as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He advised the ASPR on many critical issues including the development and execution of Operation Warp Speed. Taylor also served HHS as the Deputy Director of the HHS Joint Information Center (JIC) where he led a team to coordinate response within the interagency.
Before joining HHS and Texas A&M University, Taylor worked for Chairman Michael Burgess, MD overseeing the reauthorization of the Pandemic All Hazards Act (PAHPA). Prior to this role he practiced epidemiology for one of the largest health departments in the country leading zoonotic and High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) surveillance. Through this role he was recognized by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology for a top cited article on infant outcomes of Zika evaluating both diagnostics and surveillance.
John Redd, MD, MPH, FACP
Board Member
Dr. John Redd is the Chief Medical Officer of the Medical Countermeasures Coalition. He is an internist and medical epidemiologist who recently completed a 26-year career in government service. He received a BA from Harvard College and an MD from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, then completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and earned a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology at Columbia University in New York.
He began his government career as an internist with the US Indian Health Service (IHS) on the Navajo Reservation. He then started a 20-year uniformed career with the US Public Health Service by training as a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. While in uniform, he held positions with CDC, IHS, and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), at which he served as Chief Medical Officer. He retired as a Captain in 2020.
During the CDC Ebola response in West Africa, Dr. Redd served in multiple CDC leadership positions in Sierra Leone and received the Public Health Service Meritorious Service Medal and the State Department Superior Honor Award for his Ebola service.
During the COVID-19 response, he was an ASPR field leader in the initial response to the pandemic in California and Japan, and then was appointed lead of the Healthcare Resilience Task Force. He then led HHS teams supervising allocation and distribution of new therapeutics, including remdesivir and monoclonal antibodies. For his service during the COVID19 response he received the United States Public Health Service Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award presented by the United States Public Health Service.
Dr. Redd is the co-author of over ninety publications. He was elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 2002 and was a 2010-2011 Public Health Leadership Institute Scholar. After leaving government he has worked as an independent consultant (John T Redd LLC).
