Chief Information Officer (OCIO)

OCIO Organization

James D. Seligman

Mr. Seligman serves as CDC's Chief Information Officer (CIO) since 1999. Mr. Seligman is responsible for the agency’s Information Technology Services Office, Management Information Systems Office, Management Analysis and Services Office and Office of the Chief Information Security Officer. As the agency's CIO, Mr. Seligman provides leadership for the agency's overall information technology (IT) program including IT Architecture, IT capital investment management, policy and standards development, information security, IT workforce development, and other enterprise activities. He serves on the HHS CIO Council and the HHS Information Technology Steering Committee.

High quality and timely public health information is one of CDC's primary products in the pursuit of the public's health. Disease surveillance, health statistics, epidemiological analysis, and value-added public health information dissemination to health care providers and the public through IT are the principal strategies of CDC. CDC has been a leading adopter of information technology (IT) for more than four decades and currently invests over $500 million a year including grants to state to help build national public health capacity through IT.

Mr. Seligman obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He began at CDC as a Quarantine Inspector based at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City in 1977 and had subsequent assignments in Puerto Rico conducting cruise-ship inspections and headquarters focusing on immigrant and refugee health screening. He then worked for two years in CDC's Washington office assisting in legislation and policy coordination which included a one year assignment in the U.S. Congress. He then spent nine years in the Information Resource Management Office as deputy director and five years as director.