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Eric Rasmussen, MD, MDM, FACP
Dr. Rasmussen is a medical doctor and the CEO for Infinitum Humanitarian Systems (IHS), a multinational social business built on a profit-for-purpose model. By training he is an internal medicine physician with both undergraduate and medical degrees from Stanford University and a Masters degree in disaster medicine from the UN World Health Organization’s affiliate CEMEC (Centre European pour la Medecin des Catastrophes) in Italy. He was elected a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1997 and a Fellow of the Explorer's Club in 2014.
In addition to his corporate responsibilities Rasmussen is a Research Professor in Environmental Security and Global Medicine at San Diego State University and an instructor in disaster medicine at both the International Disaster Academy in Bonn, Germany (BBK, or Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz ind Katastrophenhilfe) and the Institute for Disaster Preparedness at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
He is a member of the core faculty at Singularity University within the NASA Ames Research Center, teaching in both the Exponential Medicine and Global Grand Challenges tracks. He also serves as Permanent Advisor to the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Expert Panel on Water Disasters, and is a member of the US National Academy of Science’s Committee on Grand Challenges in Global Development.
Rasmussen served as a physician in the US Navy for 25 years aboard nuclear submarines, amphibious ships and aircraft carriers. His positions included Fleet Surgeon for the US Navy's Third Fleet and Chairman of an academic department of medicine in Seattle. Among his wartime deployments are Bosnia (x3), Afghanistan (x2), and Iraq for ten months. His disaster deployments include Supertyphoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Haiti's earthquake, Banda Aceh for the tsunami, Superstorm Sandy in New York, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Mathew in Haiti, and three deployments to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
He also spent nine years as a Principal Investigator in humanitarian informatics for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and received DARPA's capstone award as Outstanding Investigator of the Year before retiring from the Navy to serve as the CEO of InSTEDD, a humanitarian NGO established by Dr. Larry Brilliant, then Executive Director of Google.org. InSTEDD’s charter is to put into action the goals outlined by Dr. Brilliant's TED Prize speech for better global disease outbreak surveillance and response. Dr. Rasmussen shifted from CEO to Chair of the InSTEDD Board in 2010 and became CEO of IHS soon after.
IHS is particularly good at the provisioning of clean drinking water in very difficult settings using TiO2 ceramic nanotechnologies for renewable-powered, robust, efficient, portable, and inexpensive water reclamation and purification systems. IHS also currently manages the Global Disaster Response Team for the Roddenberry Foundation, supported by the Star Trek franchise. He's a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and at the Rocky Mountain Institute in Aspen, and a Fellow of the Stimson Center.
Eric lives with Demi, his wife of almost 40 years, on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington.
