CAPT Francisca Abanyie

CAPT Francisca Abanyie MD, MPH currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Commissioned Corps Liaison Office. CAPT Abanyie’s United States Public Health Service (USPHS) Commissioned Corps career started as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in 2012 at CDC’s Parasitic Disease Branch (PDB). During her four years with PDB she assisted and led the branch’s efforts investigating transplant-associated strongyloidiasis, Cyclospora outbreak responses, post-treatment surveillance of lymphatic filariasis in Ghana and Bangladesh, and the Ethiopian Onchocerciasis Specimen Bank.

From 2016 to 2019, as a Pediatric Infectious Diseases physician, Dr. Abanyie championed CDC’s work in pediatric healthcare-associated infections and antibiotic stewardship in the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. Just prior to her current position, she served as the Lead Medical Epidemiologist for the National Artesunate for Severe Malaria Program (NASMP) and Co-Principal Investigator for the Intravenous Artesunate (IVAS) Investigational New Drug Protocol in the Malaria Branch. In this role, she helped ensure that CDC remained in regulatory compliance with FDA and that lifesaving IVAS was provided to hospitals for timely treatment of severe malaria patients.

CAPT Abanyie’s career has included involvement in >10 USPHS and agency emergency response deployments. These deployments have included high profile nationwide and international responses—2013 Multistate Outbreak of Fungal Meningitis and Other Infections; leading the nation’s response to multistate outbreaks of cyclosporiasis (2013-2016); Customs and Border Patrol Mission, Tucson, AZ (2019); and serving for 19 months on the COVID-19 Response (2020-2021), to name a few.

CAPT Abanyie is a well published public health physician, a purpose-driven life and career coach, and motivational mentor. She is a highly decorated officer with >30 USPHS individual and unit awards, the recent winner of the Military Health System’s Award for the Advancement of Women Physicians in Military Medicine- USPHS Senior Officer (2022), and in 2022 a scholarship was named in her honor by Paradigm 360 Coaching and Consulting, LLC—The Drs. Abanyie-Haley-Henderson Women in Medicine Scholarship Award, for young ladies in high school pursuing a career in medical science.    

CAPT Abanyie earned her undergraduate degree with Honors in Chemistry from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; her medical degree from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (UMDNJ-RWJMS), now Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; and her Master of Public Health degree with summa cum laude distinction from UMDNJ's School of Public Health (UMDNJ-SPH), now Rutgers School of Public Health. CAPT Abanyie went on to complete her General Pediatric Residency at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia, PA, followed by her Pediatric Infectious Diseases fellowship at Emory University School of Medicine. She is also a graduate of Atlanta’s Federal Executive Board’s Leadership Government Program that focuses on developing leadership skills with special emphasis on building the five Executive Core Qualifications and is a Certified Life and Career Coach and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.