Dr. Oakley is Director Center for Spina Bifida Prevention and Research Professor of Epidemiology, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. Dr. Oakley was formerly Director, Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While at CDC, he and his team provided the scientific and policy leadership critical to persuading the Food and Drug Administration to mandate folic acid fortification of “enriched” flour to prevent spina bifida, a disabling birth defect.
Dr. Oakley graduated from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Wake Forest University, trained in pediatrics at the Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital, and earned a Master of Science degree in Preventive Medicine and a Fellowship in Teratology at the University of Washington School of Medicine.