Dr. Bennett is an Infectious Disease physician in the U.S. Army with extensive experience in the design and conduct of clinical trials, to include vaccine trials, and epidemiologic studies. Dr. Bennett managed the International Reference Center for Malaria Serology at WRAIR overseeing testing of clinical samples from DoD, PATH-MVI, and USAID sponsored clinical trials. He headed the U.S. military’s clinical effort testing the first P. vivax vaccine by controlled human malaria infection and was a lead clinical investigator testing other candidate malaria vaccines in the U.S. military pipeline. As the Chair of the U.S. military’s malaria vaccine Integrated Product Team he directed and prioritized the clinical development efforts for candidate vaccines within the joint U.S. Army-Navy Military Malaria Vaccine Program. He came to the Uniformed Services University and assumed the role of PI for a series of epidemiologic studies describing skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI); more specifically, his lab focuses on Staphylococcus aureus and MRSA SSTI, transmission, and colonization and among Army trainees at Fort Benning, GA. Military trainees in congregate settings are known to be at increased risk for S. aureus and MRSA colonization and infection. Knowledge gleaned from studies in this high-risk population can inform the design and implementation of clinical trials to evaluate novel medical countermeasures to reduce the high morbidity caused by this pathogen.