Dr. Daniel G. Colley to Retire

Dr. Daniel G. Colley, Director of the Schistosomiasis Consortium for Operational Research and Evaluation (SCORE), will be retiring from his position as Professor at the University of Georgia on June 30, 2020. He will continue as a Professor Emeritus after that time.

As a young post-doc, Dan volunteered to go to Brazil to work on schistosomiasis. With this trip, he launched a career that spanned more than half a century. “The more I learned about schisto, the more interesting it became,” Dan said. By 1992, when he joined the US Centers for Disease Control, Dan had become a well-known researcher in schistosomiasis. During his nine years at CDC, he provided leadership for the US response to parasitic diseases throughout the world. Dan came to UGA in 2001 as the Director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases.

In 2008, Dan was asked by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to lead a major operational research effort, which became the Schistosomiasis Consortium for Operational Research and Evaluation (SCORE). In SCORE’s twelve years, it has supported researchers around the world to conduct a broad range of strategic and critical studies to address gaps in knowledge needed by NTD program Managers in controlling and moving toward elimination of schistosomiasis.

Dan has been a friend and mentor to many in the schistosomiasis community. We are grateful for his research contributions and his support of the research of others during his long career.

Many in the parasitic disease research, prevention, and control community also know Dan’s skills as a poet. We leave you with this ditty that Dan wrote to mark the start of the Zanzibar Elimination of Schistosomiasis Transmission.