Team Lead
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Ms. Tong is the team lead for the Emerging Threats Team in CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, and she is currently co-leading the Pregnancy and Infant Linked Outcomes Team in the CDC COVID-19 response. An epidemiologist by training, she led surveillance efforts within the PILOT Team and is also co-Principal Investigator for SET-NET, a preparedness network to monitor prenatal exposures and emerging threats, such as COVID-19, hepatitis, and syphilis infection, on mothers and babies. She has deployed for a number of emergency responses, including Ebola and Zika. For more than a decade, she led CDC efforts to conduct research, and to develop and evaluate programs and policies to prevent and reduce tobacco and other substance use before, during, and after pregnancy in the U.S. and globally. She initiated her career at CDC as a Public Health Prevention Specialist and completed a 2-year assignment at the DeKalb County Board of Health. She has published over 80 peer-reviewed publications and reports. Ms. Tong earned her BS from Duke University and MPH in Population and Family Health from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.