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When Paul Cieslak graduated in 1978, he went to Ohio State beginning his undergraduate work in political science. "I believe I was thinking about law school, but Ted was in medical school and I saw what he was doing, and it seemed so cool. So I followed in his footsteps."

Paul trained as an internal medicine physician and then completed a fellowship in infectious diseases, for which he is nationally known.

Paul did his residency at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he met his wife and then completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at Washington University in St. Louis with a focus on amebiasis.

From 1992-94 he worked as an epidemic intelligence service officer in the foodborne and diarrheal diseases branch of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. While there he investigated many of the high profile cases such as the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak in the Northwest and outbreaks of botulism and salmonella. He also researched the association between reptiles and infection with certain types of Salmonella.

The CDC sent Paul to Oregon as a preventive medicine resident in 1994, and afterward he stayed on to direct the state's communicable disease epidemiology section and Oregon's Emerging Infections Program.

Dr. Cieslak holds adjunct clinical faculty positions with OHSU's Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and with the Division of Infectious Diseases. He serves as medical director for Oregon's immunization programs and, on weekends, does a little consulting for Legacy System and Portland Adventist Hospital.

He and wife Christine have six children: Julia, 15; Stephen, 14; Mary Katharine, 13; Rebecca, 9; Teresa, 6; and Peter, 4.