ClinicDr. Caldwell joined Meharry Medical College in August 2021. He provides leadership for vaccine research & education, as well as alcohol research, education and treatment.
He leads the National Center for Clinical Trial Diversity at Meharry focused on building the pipeline of Black and diverse physician Principal Investigators and leadership, to improve the infrastructure of the United States clinical trial system. This is an academic-private partnership with Clinical Research Associates of Nashville.
He also serves as the Chief Medical Officer for Dry January® USA, a program of Meharry Medical College.
Dr. Caldwell is a nationally recognized public health leader and in 2020, served as the Director of Public Health and Chief Medical Officer for Nashville/Davidson County, TN. He led Nashville’s health response to a devastating tornado in March 2020, and had the principal authority for COVID policy and response throughout his time as Director; this included the review and approval of all events in Nashville over 25 people including the Grand Ole Opry, Titans Stadium and the Presidential Debate at Belmont University on October 22nd where he assured compliance with all directives.
He has more than 25 years’ experience in public health, health administration, biopharma and vaccine research. He previously served as Director of Scientific Affairs & Public Health, Vaccines for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) where he launched the recently approved shingles vaccine and focused on adult immunization. He has been Field Medical Director, AstraZeneca, Infectious Diseases as well as Neuroimmunology Medical Manager for Syneos/Viela Bio.
He is a graduate of Columbia University with a BA in Art History, an Internal Medicine physician trained at the Mount Sinai Medical Center with a Master of Public Health from Harvard, and he completed a Preventive Medicine residency program at State University of New York, Albany where he served as a resident physician at the ABC News Medical Unit throughout 2014.
He is nationally recognized for his innovative public health work, research and leadership. He is a Past President of the National Association of County & City Health Officials (www.naccho.org) and is dedicated to health and human rights. He is a champion of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights that was authored by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1948. He previously served as the Commissioner for Dutchess County, NY from 1994-2013, the home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Dr. Caldwell provided early leadership to bring COVID research vaccine trials to the Nashville community and led an effort to advance the public health department's engagement with our community research partners. He currently serves as an investigator for many clinical research studies including many vaccine clinical trials including ones for CMV, RSV, FLU, COVID as well as combination RSV-FLU-COVID research vaccines.
Most recently he has emerged as a national expert on RSV and health equity, https://abcnews.go.com/Health/cdc- recommends-1st-maternal-rsv-vaccine-protect-babies/story?id=103420977