About Me
Born and raised in Mexico, René immigrated to the United States at the age of ten. He completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Technology from UT El Paso and moved to Pennsylvania to work at a small rural hospital in the south-central part of the state.
While working full-time as a clinical laboratory scientist, René attended George Washington University, earning a Master of Public Health degree in epidemiology and biostatistics in 2007. He worked at the Maryland Department of Health from 2007 to 2013 as the influenza surveillance coordinator and general epidemiologist, assisting with infectious disease outbreak investigations, including working on the Maryland response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.
In 2013, he attended the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, earning a Doctor of Public Health degree in 2018. From 2019 to 2022, he was the Mental Health and Substance Use Program Manager at the Fairfax County Health Department in Northern Virginia. While there, most of his time was spent responding to the COVID-19 pandemic as the lead of the response team that assisted long-term care facilities and other institutions.
In 2022, Dr. Najera became a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the oldest medical professional organization in the United States. He also joined the College as Director of Public Health and the History of Vaccines Project. He currently occupies the Susan and Stanley Plotkin Chair for Public Health at the College.