Conference Faculty

Randall N. Hyer, MD, PhD, MPH

Winter-Over Medical Officer, McMurdo and South Pole Stations, Antarctica, Operation Deep Freeze

Born in Walnut Creek, California, Dr. Hyer graduated from Los Alamos High School in New Mexico in 1981. Appointed to the US Naval Academy, he graduated with distinction and served 12 years on active duty in the US Navy attaining the rank of Commander. After earning his medical degree from Duke University, Dr. Hyer served as the 40th Winter-Over Medical Officer with Operation DEEP FREEZE at McMurdo and South Pole Stations in Antarctica. Trained in public health at Walter Reed and Harvard, Commander Hyer supported four major military opeations in the European, African, and southwest Asian theatres including as Chief Public Health Advisor to General Clark for the Kosovo operations and Deputy Surgeon for the Mozambique flood relief operations. Dr. Hyer then served four years at Headquarters, World Health Organization in Geneva as Medical Officer, Alert and Response Operations and as the first Civil Military Liaison Officer where he helped institutionalize militaries' medical and logistical support to outbreak alert and response operations. As part of WHO's outbreak alert and response team, he helped coordinate the global response to deadly outbreaks like anthrax, SARS and avian influenza as well as organize sea-based helicopter health assessment missions in Aceh Province, Indonesia, during the 2005 Tsunami response. Dr. Hyer earned the PhD from the University of Oxford, studying the molecular genetics of juvenile diabetes and helped prove the role of the insulin gene in disease susceptibility. At Oxford, he also founded the molecular biologics firm, "Alpha-Plus DNA". Later he was a Congressional Fellow for Senator Pete V. Domenici where he helped introduce legislation to safeguard genetic privacy known as The Genetic Confidentiality and Non-discrimination Act of 1996. Dr. Hyer is the co-founder of CrisisCommunication.NET and is the co-author of Effective Media Communication during Public Health Emergencies: A WHO Handbook. Dr. Hyer has a keen interest in expeditions and expedition medicine and has advised NASA on health in extreme environments to include the International Space Station and long-duration space travel. In 1998, Dr. Hyer was selected as a Fellow of The Explorer's Club.