Member Spotlight: Sean O’Leary

Sean O’Leary, MD, MPH is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado. Additionally, he is a pediatric infectious diseases specialist, an investigator at ACCORDS (Adult and Child Center for Health Outcomes Research and Delivery Science), and the Director of the Colorado Children’s Outcomes Network (COCONet), Colorado’s pediatric practice-based research network.

After completing his undergraduate studies at Brown University with a concentration in Environmental Studies, he attended medical school at the University of Texas Houston followed by pediatric internship and residency at the University of Colorado/Children’s Hospital Colorado.

Dr. O’Leary then practiced primary care and hospitalist medicine in a large general pediatrics practice in Fort Collins, Colorado for eight years before seeing the light and pursuing an infectious diseases fellowship, again at the University of Colorado/Children’s Hospital Colorado. This was followed by a NRSA-funded Primary Care Research Fellowship.

His ongoing research focuses on prevention of vaccine-preventable diseases through understanding clinical, attitudinal and infrastructural barriers to vaccination, and developing and testing interventions to address those barriers.

Dr. O’Leary is co-chair of the PIDS Vaccine Advocacy Committee, a committee he has served on since 2013. He serves as PIDS liaison to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and participates on the ACIP’s COVID-19 Vaccine Work Group. He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Council on School Health and serves as the Vice Chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases (the Red Book Committee) for the AAP.