Photo: iLab/CSIS
WASHINGTON, February 28, 2025: The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) today announced that Paul Friedrichs and Stewart Simonson have been appointed as non-resident senior advisers with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center.
Together, Friedrichs and Simonson bring decades of public and private sector expertise to their roles, having made significant contributions to strengthen health security domestically and internationally. Dr. Friedrichs is an adjunct professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University and served most recently as the deputy assistant to the president and inaugural director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy. In this role, he advised the president and coordinated U.S. government efforts to enhance the United States and its partners’ ability to detect, prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics and other biological events. Simonson is a senior adviser with Global Health Strategies in New York City and served as the World Health Organization (WHO) representative at the United Nations from 2019 to 2024.
Both experts will also serve as senior advisers with the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security, an esteemed group of members of Congress, senior leaders, and subject matter experts charged with advancing a concrete, forward-leaning agenda for U.S. global health security strategy. Under the leadership of co-chairs former Senator Richard Burr and former CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding, the Alliance delivers recommendations on global health security policy and programs to key decisionmakers in the U.S. Congress, the executive agencies, and non-governmental organizations.
“General Friedrichs and Stew Simonson are both paragons of sustained vision and bipartisan leadership in global health matters, over many years of service to our country and our vital alliances. Their generosity in joining the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance will bring many dividends to our work, at this moment of exceptional uncertainty,” said J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center.
Friedrichs previously served as senior director for global health security and biodefense at the National Security Council. Prior to that, he served as the joint staff surgeon at the Pentagon, where he provided medical advice to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was the U.S. representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Committee of the Chiefs of Military Medical Services. In addition to caring for patients in combat, Antarctica, and other austere locations, he has led the Department of Defense's global medical evacuation system and assisted in multiple major domestic and international responses to natural disasters and biological outbreaks, as well as global health diplomacy efforts.
He received his undergraduate degree from Tulane University, his MD from the Uniformed Services University, and was a distinguished graduate of the National War College, where he received a master’s degree in strategic security studies. He was awarded the Bronze Star and an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Nebraska and has been named a chevalier in the French Ordre National du Mérite.
“I’m honored to join the remarkable CSIS team,” said Paul Friedrichs. “CSIS has an exceptional ability to convene, collaborate, and inform discussions and policy options on a broad range of issues related to biopreparedness, global health, and improving the health of the American people, and I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and to contribute.”
Previously, Simonson was assistant director-general for general management at WHO Headquarters in Geneva. He has more than 20 years of experience in governance, international affairs, and public health that spans government, nongovernmental, and private sectors. Prior to joining WHO in 2017, Simonson was general counsel to Futures Group Global, LLC, and later resident adviser at Hôpital Sacré-Coeur in Milot, Haiti.
Earlier in his career, Simonson served in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in different capacities, including as assistant secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness. In this role, he was the secretary’s principal adviser on public health emergencies and coordinated the development of the government’s position on the revision of WHO’s International Health Regulations (2005). Prior to HHS, Simonson was legal counsel to the governor of Wisconsin. He has degrees in law and political science and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
“I am honored by this appointment and grateful to be affiliated with the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, which I have long admired. This is a critical moment in global public health and there is no better place to contribute to policy deliberations and research on this subject than CSIS,” said Simonson.
CSIS’s Global Health Policy Center conducts analysis to raise bipartisan awareness and shape policy debate about global health and its importance to U.S. national security. To learn more and read recent analyses from the Alliance and the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, visit here.
For media inquiries, please contact Sam Cestari at scestari@csis.org.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization dedicated to advancing practical ideas to address the world’s greatest challenges.