Robert J. Anderson

Robert John Anderson (1914 – July 24, 1999) was the chief of the Communicable Disease Center (CDC) of the United States Public Health Service, forerunner to the modern Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from October 1, 1956, to June 30, 1960.

Anderson was born in Zumbrota, Minnesota. He graduated from Carleton College, and attended medical school at the University of Minnesota. After medical school he joined the Public Health Service. As an intern, he worked at the Staten Island Public Health Service Hospital, including a stint in the venereal disease unit during World War II alongside John Friend Mahoney.

He retired from the Public Health Service in 1966. After retirement, he served as medical director of the American Thoracic Society and (from 1970 to 1974) managing director of a forerunner to the American Lung Association.

Anderson died of an aortic aneurysm on July 24, 1999, at his home in Arlington, Virginia, at the age of 85. He married his wife Ruth Kittleson in 1940 and they had two children: Robert J. Anderson Jr. and Julia Anderson.

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